Produced by Charles Keller and David Widger
THE LIFE OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
FROM HIS OWN LETTERS AND JOURNALS
AND
OTHER DOCUMENTS OF HIS TIME.
by EDWARD EVERETT HALE,
[This was originally done on the 400th Anniversary
of 1492, as was the great Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
Interesting how our heroes have all been de-canonized in the
interest of Political Correctitude]
--Comments by Michael S. Hart
PREFACE.
This book contains a life of Columbus, written with the hope of
interesting all classes of readers.
His life has often been written, and it has sometimes been well written.
The great book of our countryman, Washington Irving, is a noble model
of diligent work given to a very difficult subject. And I think every
person who has dealt with the life of Columbus since Irving’s time, has
expressed his gratitude and respect for the author.
According to the custom of biographers, in that time and since, he
includes in those volumes the whole history of the West India islands,
for the period after Columbus discovered them till his death. He also
thinks it his duty to include much of the history of Spain and of the
Spanish court. I do not myself believe that it is wise to attempt, in a
book of biography, so considerable a study of the history of the time.
Whether it be wise or not, I have not attempted it in this book. I have
rather attempted to follow closely the personal fortunes of Christopher
Columbus, and, to the history around him, I have given only such space
as seemed absolutely necessary for the illustration of those fortunes.
I have followed on the lines of his own personal narrative wherever we
have it. And where this is lost I have used the absolutely contemporary
authorities. I have also consulted the later writers, those of the
next generation and the generation which followed it. But the more one
studies the life of Columbus the more one feels sure that, after the
greatness of his discovery was really known, the accounts of the time
were overlaid by what modern criticism calls myths, which had grown up
in the enthusiasm of those who honored him, and which form no part of
real history. If then the reader fails to find some stories with which
he is quite familiar in the history, he must not suppose that they are
omitted by accident, but must give to the author of the book the credit
of having used some discretion in the choice of his authorities.
When I visited Spain in 1882, I was favored by the officers of the
Spanish government with every facility for carrying my inquiry as far as
a short visit would permit. Since that time Mr. Harrisse has published
his invaluable volumes on the life of Columbus. It certainly seems as
if every document now existing, which bears upon the history, had been
collated by him. The reader will see that I have made full use of this
treasure-house.
The Congress of Americanistas, which meets every year, brings forward
many curious studies on the history of the continent, but it can
scarcely be said to have done much to advance our knowledge of the
personal life of Columbus.
The determination of the people of the United States to celebrate fitly
the great discovery which has advanced civilization and changed the face
of the world, makes it certain that a new interest has arisen in the
life of the great man to whom, in the providence of God, that discovery
was due. The author and publishers of this book offer it as their
contribution in the great celebration, with the hope that it may be of
use, especially in the direction of the studies of the young.
EDWARD E. HALE.
ROXBURY, MASS., June 1st, 1891.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
CHAPTER 1. EARLY LIFE OF COLUMBUS.
His Birth and Birth-place--His Early Education--His
experience at Sea-His Marriage and Residence in Lisbon--
His Plans for the Discovery of a Westward
Passage to the Indies
CHAPTER II. HIS PLANS FOR DISCOVERY.
Columbus Leaves Lisbon, and Visits Genoa--Visits Great
Spanish Dukes--For Six Years is at the Court of Ferdinand
and Isabella--The Council of Salamanca--His
Petition is at Last Granted--Squadron Made Ready
CHAPTER III. THE GREAT VOYAGE.
The Squadron Sails--Refits at Canary Islands--Hopes
and Fears of the Voyage--The Doubts of the Crew--
Land Discovered
CHAPTER IV.
The Landing on the Twelfth of October--The Natives and
their Neighbors--Search for Gold-Cuba Discovered
Columbus Coasts Along its Shores
CHAPTER V.
Landing on Cuba--The Cigar and Tobacco--Cipango and
the Great Khan--From Cuba to Hayti--Its Shores and
Harbors
CHAPTER VI.
Discovery of Hayti or Hispaniola--The Search for Gold--
Hospitality and Intelligence of the Natives--Christmas
Day--A Shipwreck--Colony to be Founded--Columbus
Sails East and Meets Martin Pinzon-The Two
Vessels Return to Europe--Storm--The Azores--
Portugal--Home
CHAPTER VII.
Columbus is Called to Meet the King and Queen--His
Magnificent Reception--Negotiations with the Pope and
with the King of Portugal--Second Expedition Ordered
--Fonseca--The Preparations at Cadiz
CHAPTER VIII.
The Second Expedition Sails From Cadiz--Touches at
Canary Islands--Discovery of Dominica and Guadeloupe
--Skirmishes with the Caribs--Porto Rico Discovered
--Hispaniola--The Fate of the Colony at La Navidad
CHAPTER IX.
The New Colony--Expeditions of Discovery--Guacanagari--
Search for Gold--Mutiny in the Colony--The
Vessels Sent Home--Columbus Marches Inland--
Collection of Gold--Fortress of St. Thomas--A New Voyage
of Discovery--Jamaica Visited--The South Shore
of Cuba Explored--Return--Evangelista Discovered
--Columbus Falls Sick--Return to Isabella
CHAPTER X. THE THIRD VOYAGE.
Letter to the King and Queen--Discovery of Trinidad and
Paria--Curious Speculation as to the Earthly Paradise
--Arrival at San Domingo--Rebellions and Mutinies in
that Island-Roldan and His Followers--Ojeda and
His Expedition--Arrival of Bobadilla--Columbus a
Prisoner
CHAPTER XI. SPAIN, 1500, 1502.
A Cordial Reception in Spain--Columbus Favorably
Received at Court--New Interest in Geographical
Discovery--His Plans for the Redemption of the Holy
Sepulchre--Preparations for a Fourth Expedition
CHAPTER XII. FOURTH VOYAGE.
The Instructions Given for the Voyage--He is to go to
the Mainland of the Indies--A Short Passage--Ovando
Forbids the Entrance of Columbus into Harbor
Bobadilla’s Squadron and Its Fate--Columbus Sails Westward
--Discovers Honduras, and Coasts Along Its Shores
--The Search for Gold--Colony Attempted and Abandoned
--The Vessels Become Unseaworthy--Refuge at
Jamaica--Mutiny Led by the Brothers Porras--Messages
to San Domingo--The Eclipse--Arrival of Relief
--Columbus Returns to San Domingo, and to Spain
CHAPTER XIII.
Two Sad Years--Isabella’s Death--Columbus at Seville--
His Illness--Letters to the King--journeys to Segovia
--Salamanca and Valladolid--His Suit There--Philip
and Juana--Columbus Executes His Will--Dies--His
Burial and the Removal of His Body--His Portraits--
His Character
APPENDIX A
APPENDIX B
APPENDIX C
THE LIFE OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
CHAPTER I. -- EARLY LIFE OF COLUMBUS.
HIS BIRTH AND BIRTH-PLACE--HIS EARLY EDUCATION--HIS EXPERIENCE AT
SEA--HIS MARRIAGE AND RESIDENCE IN LISBON--HIS PLANS FOR THE DISCOVERY
OF A WESTWARD PASSAGE TO THE INDIES.
Christopher Columbus was born in the Republic of Genoa. The honor of his
birth-place has been claimed by many villages in that Republic, and the
house in which he was born cannot be now pointed out with certainty. But
the best authorities agree that the children and the grown people of
the world have never been mistaken when they have said: “America was
discovered in 1492 by Christopher Columbus, a native of Genoa.”
His name, and that of his family, is always written Colombo, in the
Italian papers which refer to them, for more than one hundred years
before his time. In Spain it was always written Colon; in France it is
written as Colomb; while in England it has always kept its Latin form,
Columbus. It has frequently been said that he himself assumed this form,
because Columba is the Latin word for “Dove,” with a fanciful feeling
that, in carrying Christian light to the West, he had taken the mission
of the dove. Thus, he had first found land where men thought there was
ocean, and he was the messenger of the Holy Spirit to those who sat in
darkness. It has also been assumed that he took the name of Christopher,
“the Christ-bearer,” for similar reasons. But there is no doubt that
he was baptized “Christopher,” and that the family name had long been
Columbo. The coincidences of name are but two more in a calendar in
which poetry delights, and of which history is full.
Christopher Columbus was the oldest son of Dominico Colombo and Suzanna
Fontanarossa. This name means Red-fountain. He bad two brothers,
Bartholomew and Diego, whom we shall meet again. Diego is the Spanish
way of writing the name which we call James.
It seems probable that Christopher was born in the year 1436, though
some writers have said that he was older than this, and some that he was
younger. The record of his birth and that of his baptism have not been
found.
His father was not a rich man, but he was able to send Christopher, as a
boy, to the University of Pavia, and here he studied grammar, geometry,
geography and navigation, astronomy and the Latin language. But this was
as a boy studies, for in his fourteenth year he left the university and
entered, in hard work, on “the larger college of the world.” If the date
given above, of his birth, is correct, this was in the year 1450, a few
years before the Turks took Constantinople, and, in their invasion of
Europe, affected the daily life of everyone, young or old, who lived in
the Mediterranean countries. From this time, for fifteen years, it
is hard to trace along the life of Columbus. It was the life of an
intelligent young seaman, going wherever there was a voyage for him. He
says himself, “I passed twenty-three years on the sea. I have seen all
the Levant, all the western coasts, and the North. I have seen England;
I have often made the voyage from Lisbon to the Guinea coast.” This he
wrote in a letter to Ferdinand and Isabella. Again he says, “I went to
sea from the most tender age and have continued in a sea life to this
day. Whoever gives himself up to this art wants to know the secrets of
Nature here below. It is more than forty years that I have been thus
engaged. Wherever any one has sailed, there I have sailed.”
Whoever goes into the detail of the history of that century will come
upon the names of two relatives of his--Colon el Mozo (the Boy, or the
Younger) and his uncle, Francesco Colon, both celebrated sailors. The
latter of the two was a captain in the fleets of Louis XI of France,
and imaginative students may represent him as meeting Quentin Durward at
court. Christopher Columbus seems to have made several voyages under
the command of the younger of these relatives. He commanded the Genoese
galleys near Cyprus in a war which the Genoese had with the Venetians.
Between the years 1461 and 1463 the Genoese were acting as allies with
King John of Calabria, and Columbus had a command as captain in their
navy at that time.
“In 1477,” he says, in one of his letters, “in the month of February, I
sailed more than a hundred leagues beyond Tile.” By this he means Thule,
or Iceland. “Of this island the southern part is seventy-three degrees
from the equator, not sixty-three degrees, as some geographers pretend.”
But here he was wrong. The Southern part of Iceland is in the latitude
of sixty-three and a half degrees. “The English, chiefly those of
Bristol, carry their merchandise, to this island, which is as large as
England. When I was there the sea was not frozen, but the tides there
are so strong that they rise and fall twenty-six cubits.”
The order of his life, after his visit to Iceland, is better known.
He was no longer an adventurous sailor-boy, glad of any voyage which
offered; he was a man thirty years of age or more. He married in the
city of Lisbon and settled himself there. His wife was named Philippa.
She was the daughter of an Italian gentleman named Bartolomeo Muniz de
Perestrello, who was, like Columbus, a sailor, and was alive to all the
new interests which geography then presented to all inquiring minds.
This was in the year 1477, and the King of Portugal was pressing the
expeditions which, before the end of the century, resulted in the
discovery of the route to the Indies by the Cape of Good Hope.
The young couple had to live. Neither the bride nor her husband had
any fortune, and Columbus occupied himself as a draftsman, illustrating
books, making terrestrial globes, which must have been curiously
inaccurate, since they had no Cape of Good Hope and no American
Continent, drawing charts for sale, and collecting, where he could, the
material for such study. Such charts and maps were beginning to assume
new importance in those days of geographical discovery. The value
attached to them may be judged from the statement that Vespucius paid
one hundred and thirty ducats for one map. This sum would be more than
five hundred dollars of our time.
Columbus did not give up his maritime enterprises. He made voyages to
the coast of Guinea and in other directions.
It is said that he was in command of one of the vessels of his relative
Colon el Mozo, when, in the Portuguese seas, this admiral, with his
squadron, engaged four Venetian galleys returning from Flanders. A
bloody battle followed. The ship which Christopher Columbus commanded
was engaged with a Venetian vessel, to which it set fire. There was
danger of an explosion, and Columbus himself, seeing this danger, flung
himself into the sea, seized a floating oar, and thus gained the shore.
He was not far from Lisbon, and from this time made Lisbon his home for
many years.(*)
(*) The critics challenge these dates, but there seems to be
good foundation for the story.
It seems clear that, from the time when he arrived in Lisbon, for
more than twenty years, he was at work trying to interest people in his
“great design,” of western discovery. He says himself, “I was constantly
corresponding with learned men, some ecclesiastics and some laymen,
some Latin and some Greek, some Jews and some Moors.” The astronomer
Toscanelli was one of these correspondents.
We must not suppose that the idea of the roundness of the earth was
invented by Columbus. Although there were other theories about its
shape, many intelligent men well understood that the earth was a globe,
and that the Indies, though they were always reached from Europe by
going to the East, must be on the west of Europe also. There is a
very funny story in the travels of Mandeville, in which a traveler is
represented as having gone, mostly on foot, through all the countries
of Asia, but finally determines to return to Norway, his home. In his
farthest eastern investigation, he hears some people calling their
cattle by a peculiar cry, which he had never heard before. After he
returned home, it was necessary for him to take a day’s journey westward
to look after some cattle he had lost. Finding these cattle, he also
heard the same cry of people calling cattle, which he had heard in the
extreme East, and now learned, for the first time, that he had gone
round the world on foot, to turn and come back by the same route, when
he was only a day’s journey from home, Columbus was acquainted with such
stories as this, and also had the astronomical knowledge which almost
made him know that the world was round, “and, like a ball, goes spinning
in the air.” The difficulty was to persuade other people that, because
of this roundness, it would be possible to attain Asia by sailing to the
West.
Now all the geographers of repute supposed that there was not nearly
so large a distance as there proved to be, in truth, between Europe and
Asia. Thus, in the geography of Ptolemy, which was the standard book
at that time, one hundred and thirty-five degrees, a little more than
one-third of the earth’s circumference, is given to the space between
the extreme eastern part of the Indies and the Canary Islands. In fact,
as we now know, the distance is one hundred and eighty degrees, half the
world’s circumference. Had Columbus believed there was any such immense
distance, he would never have undertaken his voyage.
Almost all the detailed knowledge of the Indies which the people of
his time had, was given by the explorations of Marco Polo, a Venetian
traveler of the thirteenth century, whose book had long been in the
possession of European readers. It is a very entertaining book now, and
may well be recommended to young people who like stories of adventure.
Marco Polo had visited the court of the Great Khan of Tartary at Pekin,
the prince who brought the Chinese Empire into very much the condition
in which it now is. He had, also, given accounts of Japan or Cipango,
which he had himself never visited. Columbus knew, therefore, that,
well east of the Indies, was the island of Cipango, and he aimed at that
island, because he supposed that that was the nearest point to Europe,
as in fact it is. And when finally he arrived at Cuba, as the reader
will see, he thought he was in Japan.
Columbus’s father-in-law had himself been the Portuguese governor of the
island of Porto Santo, where he had founded a colony. He, therefore,
was interested in western explorations, and probably from him Columbus
collected some of the statements which are known to have influenced
him, with regard to floating matters from the West, which are constantly
borne upon that island by the great currents of the sea.
The historians are fond of bringing together all the intimations which
are given in the Greek and Latin classics, and in later authors, with
regard to a land beyond Asia. Perhaps the most famous of them is that of
Seneca, “In the later years there shall come days in which Ocean shall
loose his chains, and a great land shall appear . . . and Thule shall
not be the last of the worlds.”
In a letter which Toscanelli wrote to Columbus in 1474, he inclosed a
copy of a letter which he had already sent to an officer of Alphonso V,
the King of Portugal. In writing to Columbus, he says, “I see that you
have a great and noble desire to go into that country (of the East)
where the spices come from, and in reply to your letter I send you a
copy of that which I addressed some years ago to my attached friend in
the service of the most serene King of Portugal. He had an order from
his Highness to write me on this subject. . . . If I had a globe in
my hand, I could show you what is needed. But I prefer to mark out the
route on a chart like a marine chart, which will be an assistance to
your intelligence and enterprise. On this chart I have myself drawn the
whole extremity of our western shore from Ireland as far down as the
coast of Guinea toward the South, with all the islands which are to be
found on this route. Opposite this (that is, the shores of Ireland and
Africa) I have placed directly at the West the beginning of the Indies
with the islands and places where you will land. You will see for
yourself how many miles you must keep from the arctic pole toward
the equator, and at what distance you will arrive at these regions so
fertile and productive of spices and precious stones.” In Toscanelli’s
letter, he not only indicates Japan, but, in the middle of the ocean, he
places the island of Antilia. This old name afterwards gave the name by
which the French still call the West Indies, Les Antilles. Toscanelli
gives the exact distance which Columbus will have to sail: “From Lisbon
to the famous city of Quisay (Hang-tcheou-fou, then the capital of
China) if you take the direct route toward the West, the distance will
be thirty-nine hundred miles. And from Antilia to Japan it will be two
hundred and twenty-five leagues.” Toscanelli says again, “You see that
the voyage that you wish to attempt is much legs difficult than would be
thought. You would be sure of this if you met as many people as I do who
have been in the country of spices.”
While there were so many suggestions made that it would be possible to
cross the Atlantic, there was one man who determined to do this. This
man was Christopher Columbus. But he knew well that he could not do
it alone. He must have money enough for an expedition, he must have
authority to enlist crews for that expedition, and he must have power to
govern those crews when they should arrive in the Indies. In our times
such adventures have been conducted by mercantile corporations, but in
those times no one thought of doing any such thing without the direct
assistance and support of some monarch.
It is easy now to see and to say that Columbus himself was singularly
well fitted to take the charge of the expedition of discovery. He was an
excellent sailor and at the same time he was a learned geographer and
a good mathematician. He was living in Portugal, the kings of which
country had, for many years, fostered the exploration of the coast of
Africa, and were pushing expeditions farther and farther South.
In doing this, they were, in a fashion, making new discoveries. For
Europe was wholly ignorant of the western coast of Africa, beyond the
Canaries, when their expeditions began. But all men of learning
knew that, five hundred years before the Christian era, Hanno, a
Carthaginian, had sailed round Africa under the direction of the senate
of Carthage. The efforts of the King of Portugal were to repeat the
voyage made by Hanno. In 1441, Gonzales and Tristam sailed as far as
Sierra Leone. They brought back some blacks as slaves, and this was the
beginning of the slave trade.
In 1446 the Portuguese took possession of the Azores, the most western
points of the Old World. Step by step they advanced southward, and
became familiar with the African coast. Bold navigators were eager to
find the East, and at last success came. Under the king’s orders, in
August, 1477, three caravels sailed from the Tagus, under Bartolomeo
Diaz, for southern discovery. Diaz was himself brave enough to be
willing to go on to the Red Sea, after he made the great discovery of
the Cape of Good Hope, but his crews mutinied, after he had gone much
farther than his predecessors, and compelled him to return. He passed
the southern cape of Africa and went forty miles farther. He called it
the Cape of Torments, “Cabo Tormentoso,” so terrible were the storms he
met there. But when King John heard his report he gave it that name of
good omen which it has borne ever since, the name of the “Cape of Good
Hope.”
In the midst of such endeavors to reach the East Indies by the long
voyage down the coast of Africa and across an unknown ocean, Columbus
was urging all people who cared, to try the route directly west. If
the world was round, as the sun and moon were, and as so many men of
learning believed, India or the Indies must be to the west of Portugal.
The value of direct trade with the Indies would be enormous. Europe had
already acquired a taste for the spices of India and had confidence in
the drugs of India. The silks and other articles of clothing made in
India, and the carpets of India, were well known and prized. Marco Polo
and others had given an impression that there was much gold in India;
and the pearls and precious stones of India excited the imagination of
all who read his travels.
The immense value of such a commerce may be estimated from one fact.
When, a generation after this time, one ship only of all the squadron of
Magellan returned to Cadiz, after the first voyage round the world, she
was loaded with spices from the Moluccas. These spices were sold by
the Spanish government for so large a sum of money that the king was
remunerated for the whole cost of the expedition, and even made a very
large profit from a transaction which had cost a great deal in its
outfit.
Columbus was able, therefore, to offer mercantile adventurers the
promise of great profit in case of success; and at this time kings were
willing to take their share of such profits as might accrue.
The letter of Toscanelli, the Italian geographer, which has been spoken
of, was addressed to Alphonso V, the King of Portugal. To him and
his successor, John the Second, Columbus explained the probability of
success, and each of them, as it would seem, had confidence in it.
But King John made the great mistake of intrusting Columbus’s plan to
another person for experiment. He was selfish enough, and mean enough,
to fit out a ship privately and intrust its command to another seaman,
bidding him sail west in search of the Indies, while he pretended that
he was on a voyage to the Cape de Verde Islands. He was, in fact,
to follow the route indicated by Columbus. The vessel sailed. But,
fortunately for the fame of Columbus, she met a terrible storm, and
her officers, in terror, turned from the unknown ocean and returned to
Lisbon. Columbus himself tells this story. It was in disgust with the
bad faith the king showed in this transaction that he left Lisbon to
offer his great project to the King and Queen of Spain.
In a similar way, a generation afterward, Magellan, who was in the
service of the King of Portugal, was disgusted by insults which he
received at his court, and exiled himself to Spain. He offered to the
Spanish king his plan for sailing round the world and it was accepted.
He sailed in a Spanish fleet, and to his discoveries Spain owes the
possession of the Philippine Islands. Twice, therefore, did kings of
Portugal lose for themselves, their children and their kingdom, the fame
and the recompense which belong to such great discoveries.
The wife of Columbus had died and he was without a home. He left Lisbon
with his only son, Diego, in or near the end of the year 1484.