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

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In the course of his work, when Las Casas mentions the original papers
lying before him, from which he drew many of his facts, it makes one
lament that they should be lost to the world. Besides the journals and
letters of Columbus, he says he had numbers of the letters of the
Adelantado, Don Bartholomew, who wrote better than his brother, and whose
writings must have been full of energy. Above all, he had the map formed
from study and conjecture, by which Columbus sailed on his first voyage.
What a precious document would this be for the world! These writings may
still exist, neglected and forgotten among the rubbish of some convent in
Spain. Little hope can be entertained of discovering them in the present
state of degeneracy of the cloister. The monks of Atocha, in a recent
conversation with one of the royal princes, betrayed an ignorance that
this illustrious man was buried in their convent, nor can any of the
fraternity point out his place of sepulture to the stranger. [379]

The publication of this work of Las Casas has not been permitted in Spain,
where every book must have the sanction of a censor before it is committed
to the press. The horrible picture it exhibits of the cruelties inflicted
on the Indians, would, it was imagined, excite an odium against their
conquerors. Las Casas himself seems to have doubted the expediency of
publishing it; for in 1560 he made a note with his own hand, which is
preserved in the two first volumes of the original, mentioning that he
left them in confidence to the college of the order of Predicators of St.
Gregorio, in Valladolid, begging of its prelates that no secular person,
nor even the collegians, should be permitted to read his history for the
space of forty years; and that after that term it might be printed if
consistent with the good of the Indies and of Spain. [380]

For the foregoing reason the work has been cautiously used by Spanish
historians, passing over in silence, or with brief notice, many passages
of disgraceful import. This feeling is natural, if not commendable; for
the world is not prompt to discriminate between individuals and the nation
of whom they are but a part. The laws and regulations for the government
of the newly-discovered countries, and the decisions of the council of the
Indies on all contested points, though tinctured in some degree with the
bigotry of the age, were distinguished for wisdom, justice, and humanity,
and do honor to the Spanish nation. It was only in the abuse of them by
individuals to whom the execution of the laws was intrusted, that these
atrocities were committed. It should be remembered, also, that the same
nation which gave birth to the sanguinary and rapacious adventurers who
perpetrated these cruelties, gave birth likewise to the early
missionaries, like Las Casas, who followed the sanguinary course of
discovery, binding up the wounds inflicted by their countrymen; men who in
a truly evangelical spirit braved all kinds of perils and hardships, and
even death itself, not through a prospect of temporal gain or glory, but
through a desire to meliorate the condition and save the souls of
barbarous and suffering nations. The dauntless enterprises and fearful
peregrinations of many of these virtuous men, if properly appreciated,
would be found to vie in romantic daring with the heroic achievements of
chivalry, with motives of a purer and far more exalted nature.

No. XXIX.

Peter Martyr.

Peter Martir, or Martyr, of whose writings much use has been made in this
history, was born at Anghierra, in the territory of Milan, in Italy, on
the second of February, 1455. He is commonly termed Peter Martyr of
_Angleria_, from the Latin name of his native place. He is one of the
earliest historians that treat of Columbus, and was his contemporary and
intimate acquaintance. Being at Rome in 1487, and having acquired a
distinguished reputation for learning, he was invited by the Spanish
ambassador, the count de Tendilla, to accompany him to Spain. He willingly
accepted the invitation, and was presented to the sovereigns at Saragossa.
Isabella, amidst the cares of the war with Granada, was anxious for the
intellectual advancement of her kingdom, and wished to employ Martyr to
instruct the young nobility of the royal household. With her peculiar
delicacy, however, she first made her confessor, Hernando de Talavera,
inquire of Martyr in what capacity he desired to serve her. Contrary to
her expectation, Martyr replied, "in the profession of arms." The queen
complied, and he followed her in her campaigns, as one of her household
and military suite, but without distinguishing himself, and perhaps
without having any particular employ in a capacity so foreign to his
talents. After the surrender of Granada, when the war was ended, the
queen, through the medium of the grand cardinal of Spain, prevailed upon
him to undertake the instruction of the young nobles of her court.

Martyr was acquainted with Columbus while making his application to the
sovereigns, and was present at his triumphant reception by Ferdinand and
Isabella in Barcelona, on his return from his first voyage. He was
continually in the royal camp during the war with the Moors, of which his
letters contain many interesting particulars. He was sent ambassador
extraordinary by Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1501, to Venice, and thence to
the grand soldan of Egypt. The soldan, in 1490 or 1491, had sent an
embassy to the Spanish sovereigns, threatening that, unless they desisted
from the war against Granada, he would put all the Christians in Egypt and
Syria to death, overturn all their temples, and destroy the holy sepulchre
at Jerusalem. Ferdinand and Isabella pressed the war with tenfold energy,
and brought it to a triumphant conclusion in the next campaign, while the
soldan was still carrying on a similar negotiation with the pope. They
afterwards sent Peter Martyr ambassador to the soldan to explain and
justify their measure. Martyr discharged the duties of his embassy with
great ability; obtained permission from the soldan to repair the holy
places at Jerusalem, and an abolition of various extortions to which
Christian pilgrims had been subjected. While on this embassy, he wrote his
work Do Legatione Babylonica, which includes a history of Egypt in those
times.

On his return to Spain, he was rewarded with places and pensions, and in
1524 was appointed a minister of the council of the Indies. His principal
work is an account of the discoveries of the New World, in eight decades,
each containing ten chapters. They are styled Decades of the New World, or
Decades of the Ocean, and, like all his other works, were originally
written in Latin, though since translated into various languages. He had
familiar access to letters, papers, journals, and narratives of the early
discoverers, and was personally acquainted with many of them, gathering
particulars from their conversation. In writiug his Decades, he took great
pains to obtain information from Columbus himself, and from others, his
companions.

In one of his epistles, (No. 153, January, 1494, to Pomponius Laetus,) he
mentions having just received a letter from Columbus, by which it appears
he was in correspondence with him. Las Casas says that great credit is to
be given to him in regard to those voyages of Columbus, although his
Decades contain some inaccuracies relative to subsequent events in the
Indies. Munoz allows him great credit, as an author contemporary with his
subject, grave, well cultivated, instructed in the facts of which he
treats, and of entire probity. He observes, however, that his writings
being composed on the spur or excitement of the moment, often related
circumstances which subsequently proved to be erroneous; that they were
written without method or care, often confusing dates and events, so that
they must be read with some caution.

Martyr was in the daily habit of writing letters to distinguished persons,
relating the passing occurrences of the busy court and age in which he
lived. In several of these Columbus is mentioned, and also some of the
chief events of his voyages, as promulgated at the very moment of his
return. These letters not being generally known or circulated, or
frequently cited, it may be satisfactory to the reader to have a few of
the main passages which relate to Columbus. They have a striking effect in
carrying us back to the very time of the discoveries.

In one of his epistles, dated Barcelona, Mny 1st, 1493, and addressed to
C. Borromeo, he says: "Within these few days a certain Christopher
Columbus has arrived from the western antipodes; a man of Liguria, whom my
sovereigns reluctantly intrusted with three ships, to seek that region,
for they thought that what he said was fabulous. He has returned and
brought specimens of many precious things, but particularly gold, which
those countries naturally produce." [381]

In another letter, dated likewise from Barcelona, in September following,
he gives a more particular account. It is addressed to count Tendilla,
governor of Granada, and also to Hernando Talavera, archbishop of that
diocese, and the same to whom the propositions of Columbus had been
referred by the Spanish sovereigns. "Arouse your attention, ancient
sages," says Peter Martyr in his epistle; "listen to a new discovery. You
remember Columbus the Ligurian, appointed in the camp by our sovereigns to
search for a new hemisphere of land at the western antipodes. You ought to
recollect, for you had some agency in the transaction; nor would the
enterprise, as I think, have been undertaken, without your counsel. He has
returned in safety, and relates the wonders he has discovered. He exhibits
gold as proofs of the mines in those regions; Gossampine cotton, also, and
aromatics, and pepper more pnngent than that from Caucasus. All these
things, together with scarlet dye-woods, the earth produces spontaneously.
Pursuing the western sun from Gades five thousand miles, of each a
thousand paces, as he relates, he fell in with sundry islands, and took
possession of one of them, of greater circuit, he asserts, than the whole
of Spain. Here he found a race of men living contented, in a state of
nature, subsisting on fruits and vegetables, and bread formed from
roots.... These people have kings, some greater than others, and they war
occasionally among themselves, with bows and arrows, or lances sharpened
and hardened in the fire. The desire of command prevails among them,
though they are naked. They have wives also. What they worship except the
divinity of heaven, is not ascertained." [382]

In another letter, dated likewise in September, 1403, and addressed to the
cardinal and vice-chancellor Ascanius Sforza, he says:

"So great is my desire to give you satisfaction, illustrious prince, that
I consider it a gratifying occurrence in the great fluctuations of events,
when any thing takes place among us, in which you may take an interest.
The wonders of this terrestrial globe, round which the sun makes a circuit
in the space of four and twenty hours, have, until our time, as you are
well aware, been known only in regard to one hemisphere, merely from the
Golden Chersonesus to our Spanish Gades. The rest has been given up as
unknown by cosmographers, and if any mention of it has been made, it has
been slight and dubious. But now, O blessed enterprise! under the auspices
of our sovereigns, what has hitherto lain hidden since the first origin of
things, has at length begun to be developed. The thing has thus occurred--
attend, illustrious prince! A certain Christopher Columbus, a Ligurian,
dispatched to those regions with three vessels by my sovereigns, pursuing
the western sun above five thousand miles from Gades, achieved his way to
the antipodes. Three and thirty successive days they navigated with naught
but sky and water. At length from the mast-head of the largest vessel, in
which Columbus himself sailed, those on the look-out proclaimed the sight
of land. He coasted along six islands, one of them, as all his followers
declare, beguiled perchance by the novelty of the scene, is larger than
Spain."

Martyr proceeds to give the usual account of the productions of the
islands, and the manners and customs of the natives, particularly the wars
which occurred among them; "as if _meum_ and _tuum_ had been
introduced among them as among us, and expensive luxuries, and the desire
of accumulating wealth; for what, you will think, can be the wants of
naked men?" "What farther may succeed," he adds, "I will hereafter
signify. Farewell." [383]

In another letter, dated Valladolid, February 1, 1494, to Hernando de
Talavera, archbishop of Granada, he observes, "The king and queen, on the
return of Columbus to Barcelona, from his honorable enterprise, appointed
him admiral of the ocean sea, and caused him, on account of his
illustrious deeds, to be seated in their presence, an honor and a favor,
as you know, the highest with our sovereigns. They have dispatched him
again to those regions, furnished with a fleet of eighteen ships. There is
prospect of great discoveries at the western antarctic antipodes."
[384]

In a subsequent letter to Pomponius Laetus, dated from Alcala de Henares,
December 9th, 1494, he gives the first news of the success of this
expedition.

"Spain," says he, "is spreading her wings, augmenting her empire, and
extending her name and glory to the antipodes.... Of eighteen vessels
dispatched by my sovereigns with the admiral Columbus, in his second
voyage to the western hemisphere, twelve have returned and have brought
Gossampine cotton, huge trees of dye-wood, and many other articles held
with us as precious, the natural productions of that hitherto hidden
world; and besides all other things, no small quantity of gold. O
wonderful, Pomponius! Upon the surface of that earth are found rude masses
of native gold, of a weight that one is afraid to mention. Some weigh two
hundred and fifty ounces, and they hope to discover others of a much
larger size, from what the naked natives intimate, when they extol their
gold to our people. Nor are the Lestrigonians nor Polyphemi, who feed on
human flesh, any longer doubtful. Attend--but beware! lest they rise in
horror before thee! When he proceeded from the Fortunate islands, now
termed the Canaries, to Hispaniola, the island on which he first set foot,
turning his prow a little toward the south, he arrived at innumerable
islands of savage men, whom they call cannibals, or Caribbees; and these,
though naked, are courageous warriors. They fight skillfully with bows and
clubs, and have boats hollowed from a single tree, yet very capacious, in
which they make fierce descents on neighboring islands, inhabited by
milder people. They attack their villages, from which they carry off the
men and devour them," &c. [385]

Another letter to Pomponius Laetus, on the same subject, has been cited at
large in the body of this work. It is true these extracts give nothing
that has not been stated more at large in the Decades of the same author,
but they are curious, as the very first announcements of the discoveries
of Columbus, and as showing the first stamp of these extraordinary events
upon the mind of one of the most learned and liberal men of the age.

A collection of the letters of Peter Martyr was published in 1530, under
the title of Opus Epistolarum, Petri Martyris Anglerii; it is divided into
thirty-eight books, each containing the letters of one year. The same
objections have been made to his letters as to his Decades, but they bear
the same stamp of candor, probity, and great information. They possess
peculiar value from being written at the moment, before the facts they
record were distorted or discolored by prejudice or misrepresentation. His
works abound in interesting particulars not to be found in any
contemporary historian. They are rich in thought, but still richer in
fact, and are full of urbanity, and of the liberal feeling of a scholar
who has mingled with the world. He is a fountain from which others draw,
and from which, with a little precaution, they may draw securely. He died
in Valladolid, in 1526.

No. XXX.

Oviedo.

Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdes, commonly known as Oviedo, was born
in Madrid in 1478, and died in Valladolid in 1557, aged seventy-nine
years. He was of a noble Austrian family, and in his boyhood (in 1490) was
appointed one of the pages to prince Juan, heir-apparent of Spain, the
only son of Ferdinand and Isabella. He was in this situation at the time
of the seige and surrender of Granada, was consequently at court at the
time that Columbus made his agreement with the Catholic sovereigns, and
was in the same capacity at Barcelona, and witnessed the triumphant
entrance of the discoverer, attended by a number of the natives of the
newly-found countries.

In 1513, he was sent out to the New World by Ferdinand, to superintend the
gold foundries. For many years he served there in various offices of trust
and dignity, both under Ferdinand and his grandson and successor, Charles
V. In 1535, he was made alcayde of the fortress of St. Domingo in
Hispaniola, and afterwards was appointed histomgrapher of the Indies. At
the time of his death, he had served the crown upwards of forty years,
thirty-four of which were passed in the colonies, and he had crossed the
ocean eight times, as he mentions in various parts of his writings. He
wrote several works; the most important is a chronicle of the Indies in
fifty books, divided into three parts. The first part, containing nineteen
books, was printed at Seville in 1535, and reprinted in 1547 at Salamanca,
augmented by a twentieth book containing shipwrecks. The remainder of the
work exists in manuscript. The printing of it was commenced at Valladolid
in 1557, but was discontinued in consequence of his death. It is one of
the unpublished treasures of Spanish colonial history.

He was an indefatigable writer, laborious in collecting and recording
facts, and composed a multitude of volumes which are scattered through the
Spanish libraries. His writings are full of events which happened under
his own eye, or were communicated to him by eyewitnesses; but he was
deficient in judgment and discrimination. He took his facts without
caution, and often from sources unworthy of credit. In his account of the
first voyage of Columbus, he falls into several egregious errors, in
consequence of taking the verbal information of a pilot named Hernan Perez
Matteo, who was in the interest of the Pinzons, and adverse to the
admiral. His work is not much to be depended upon in matters relative to
Columbus. When he treats of a more advanced period of the New World, from
his own actual observation, he is much more satisfactory, though he is
accused of listening too readily to popular fables and misrepresentations.
His account of the natural productions of the New World, and of the
customs of its inhabitants, is full of curious particulars; and the best
narratives of some of the minor voyages which succeeded those of Columbus
are to be found in the unpublished part of his work.

No. XXXI.

Cura de Los Palacios.

Andres Bernaldes, or Bernal, generally known by the title of the curate of
_Los Palacios_, from having been curate of the town of Los Palacios
from about 1488 to 1513, was born in the town of Fuentes, and was for some
time chaplain to Diego Dora, archbishop of Seville, one of the greatest
friends to the application of Columbus Bernaldes was well acquainted with
the admiral, who was occasionally his guest, and in 1496, left many of his
manuscripts and journals with him, which the curate made use of in a
history of the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, in which he introduced an
account of the voyages of Columbus. In his narrative of the admiral's
coasting along the southern side of Cuba, the curate is more minute and
accurate than any other historian. His work exists only in manuscript, but
is well known to historians, who have made frequent use of it. Nothing can
be more simple and artless than the account which the honest curate gives
of his being first moved to undertake his chronicle. "I who wrote these
chapters of memoirs," he says, "being for twelve years in the habit of
reading a register of my deceased grandfather, who was notary public of
the town of Fuentes, where I was born, I found therein several chapters
recording certain events and achievements which had taken place in his
time; and my grandmother his widow, who was very old, hearing me read
them, said to me, 'And thou, my son, since thou art not slothful in
writing, why dost thou not write, in this manner, the good things which
are happening at present in thy own day, that those who come hereafter may
know them, and marvelling at what they read, may render thanks to God?'

"From that time," continues he, "I proposed to do so, and as I considered
the matter, I said often to myself,' if God gives me life and health, I
will continue to write until I behold the kingdom of Granada gained by the
Christians;' and I always entertained a hope of seeing it, and did see it:
great thanks and praises be given to our Saviour Jesus Christ! And because
it was impossible to write a complete and connected account of all things
that happened in Spain, during the matrimonial union of the king Don
Ferdinand, and the queen Dona Isabella, I wrote only about certain of the
most striking and remarkable events, of which I had correct information,
and of those which I saw or which were public and notorious to all men."
[386]

The work of the worthy curate, as may be inferred from the foregoing
statement, is deficient in regularity of plan; the style is artless and
often inelegant, but it abounds in facts not to be met with elsewhere,
often given in a very graphical manner, and strongly characteristic of the
times. As he was contemporary with the events and familiar with many of
the persons of his history, and as he was a man of probity and void of all
pretension, his manuscript is a document of high authenticity. He was much
respected in the limited sphere in which he moved, "yet," says one of his
admirers, who wrote a short preface to his chronicle, "he had no other
reward than that of the curacy of Los Palacios, and the place of chaplain
to the archbishop Don Diego Deza."

In the possession of O. Rich, Esq., of Madrid, is a very curious
manuscript chronicle of the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, already
quoted in this work, made up from this history of the curate of Los
Palacios, and from various other historians of the times, by some
contemporary writer. In his account of the voyage of Columbus, he differs
in some trivial particulars from the regular copy of the manuscript of the
curate. These variations have been carefully examined by the author of
this work, and wherever they appear to be for the better, have been
adopted.

No. XXXII.

"Navigatione del Re de Castiglia delle Isole e Paese Nuovamente
Ritrovate."

"Naviagatio Chrisophori Colombi."

The above are the titles, in Italian and in Latin, of the earliest
narratives of the first and second voyages of Columbus that appeared in
print. It was anonymous; and there are some curious particulars in regard
to it. It was originally written in Italian by Montalbodo Fracanzo, or
Fracanzano, or by Francapano de Montabaldo, (for writers differ in regard
to the name,) and was published in Vicenza, in 1507, in a collection of
voyages, entitled "Mondo Novo, e Paese Nuovamente Ritrovate." The
collection was republished at Milan, in 1508, both in Italian, and in a
Latin translation made by Archangelo Madrignano, under the title of
"Itinerarium Portugallensium;" this title being given, because the work
related chiefly to the voyages of Luigi Cadamosto, a Venetian in the
service of Portugal.

The collection was afterwards augmented by Simon Grinaens with other
travels, and printed in Latin at Basle, in 1533, [387] by Hervagio,
entitled "Novus Orbis Regionum," &c. The edition of Basle, 1555, and the
Italian edition of Milan, in 1508, have been consulted in the course of
this work.

Peter Martyr (Decad. 2, Cap. 7,) alludes to this publication, under the
first Latin title of the book, "Itinerarium Portugallensium," and accuses
the author, whom by mistake he terms Cadamosto, of having stolen the
materials of his book from the three first chapters of his first Decade of
the Ocean, of which, he says, he granted copies in manuscript to several
persons, and in particular to certain Venetian ambassadors. Martyr's
Decades were not published until 1516, excepting the first three, which
were published in 1511, at Seville.

This narrative of the voyages of Columbus is referred to by Gio. Batista
Spotorno, in his historical memoir of Columbus, as having been written by
a companion of Columbus.

It is manifest, from a perusal of the narrative, that though the author
may have helped himself freely from the manuscript of Martyr, he must have
had other sources of information. His description of the person of
Columbus as a man tall of stature and large of frame, of a ruddy
complexion and oblong visage, is not copied from Martyr, nor from any
other writer. No historian had, indeed, preceded him, except Sabellicus,
in 1504; and the portrait agrees with that subsequently given of Columbus
in the biography written by his son.