in America, I too readily adopted in 1847 the conclusions of Navarrete
that the Great Turk, the northernmost of the Turk islands, was the
true landfall. I did so under the following process of reasoning. My
predecessors in the consideration of the subject had been the learned
Juan Bautista Muñoz in 1793, Navarrete in 1825, Washington Irving in
1828, and the Baron Alexander von Humboldt in 1837. It was the opinion
of Muñoz that Guanahani was Watling’s Island. Navarrete, as just shown,
placed it in the Grand Turk, far to the east, while Washington Irving
and Humboldt made it to be Cat Island to the west. Such different
conclusions, formed by thoughtful men from an examination of the diary
of Columbus and other early documents, caused me to set a great value
upon any modern reconnaissance of the locality which might throw a fuller
light upon these documents and perhaps show which of the conclusions
was correct. Now, it so happened that a communication made a short time
previously to the New York Historical Society by Mr. Gibbs, a resident on
Turk’s Island, presented several points of evidence strongly confirmative
of the correctness of Navarrete’s deductions. The most important of Mr.
Gibbs’s arguments were the following. Columbus states in his journal
that there were several islands in sight from Guanahani. From the
island now called San Salvador, Mr. Gibbs found no land visible. The
journal speaks of soundings to the eastward of Guanahani: there were
none to the eastward of San Salvador. All the marks wanting at San
Salvador were found at Turk’s Island. The journal describes Guanahani
as well wooded, and having much water; a large lake in the centre, and
two several running streams flowing into the sea. Turk’s Island has
about one-third of its surface covered with lakes of salt and fresh
water; and a few years before vessels had sailed into one of the ponds.
Although the island was now without trees, Mr. Gibbs recollected some
remains of a forest existing in his youth. Moreover the journal makes
no allusion to the Great Bahama Bank, which must have been passed in
approaching San Salvador.[15] As Mr. Gibbs’s personal observation thus
appeared to corroborate the deductions of Señor de Navarrete, I yielded
to this combination of evidence and so submitted it to the reader. Since
that time, however, we have seen other arguments advanced, in which
local investigation, as well as the examination of the early documents,
have resulted in conclusions as divergent as those which preceded them.
Captain Becher, R.N., of our own Hydrographic Office, in his _Landfall of
Columbus_, published London, 1856, examining the question from a seaman’s
point of view, fell in with the opinion formed by Muñoz in 1793, that
Guanahani was Watling’s Island, while Señor de Varnhagen, in his _La
verdadera Guanahani de Colon_, published at Santiago, 1864, maintains
the unique opinion that it was the island of Mayaguana.
Under these circumstances it has become a duty in me to revise my old
opinion; and while the process to which I shall resort will, as I hope,
finally settle this much vexed question, it is happily one which will not
lay me open to the charge of presumption in giving a judicial verdict
where men of such high renown have differed. I congratulate myself on
having found a means of enabling the reader to judge for himself by a
very simple mode of examination. Annexed is a fac-simile of Herrera’s
map of the Bahama Islands, as laid down from the original documents
in the handwriting of Columbus and his contemporaries, to which, as
official historiographer of the Indies in the sixteenth century, Herrera
had exclusive access; and side by side with it is a map, reduced from
the Admiralty survey, showing those islands as now known, and with
their modern names. I indulge the hope that no one will contest the
identification[16] of the respective islands laid down in the old map
with those which I have set forth as their correlatives in the modern
one, and if so, the Guanahani of Columbus will be plainly seen to be
Watling’s Island. The correctness of this identification is not only
confirmed, but made easily perceptible, by the fact that certain islands
of the series have retained their ancient names without change from
the beginning, thus affording stations for comparison which reduce the
chances of error to a minimum. This map of Herrera’s is of especial value
for the purpose, because while it embodies the information contained in
the map of the pilot Juan de la Cosa, who was with Columbus in his second
voyage (1493-96); it has the advantage over the latter in having been
made nearly a century later, and so contains the entire chain of islands,
many of which had not been explored at the time when De la Cosa laid down
his map in 1500. For the satisfaction of the reader, however, a reduction
of that part of De la Cosa’s map which shows these islands is here given.
[Illustration: BAHAMA ISLANDS
ANTONIO DE HERRERA
1601.]
[Illustration: BAHAMA ISLANDS
MODERN]
Herrera Modern
_Bahama_ _Gᵗ. Bahama Iᵈ._
_Bimini_ } _Andros Iˢ._
_Habacoa_ }
_Cabeça de los Martires_ _Cay Sal Bank_
_Yucayoneque_ _Gᵗ. Abaco Iᵈ._
_Cigateo_ _Eleuthera_
_Curateo_ _Little S. Salvador_
_Guanima_ _S. Salvador or Cat Iᵈ._
_Anonymous between Habacoa & Yuma_ _Great Exuma_
_Guanihana_ _Watlings Iᵈ._
_Yuma_ _Yuma_
_Samana_ _Samana_
_Xumeto_ _Crooked Iᵈ._
_Yabaque_ _Acklin’s Iᵈ._
_Mayaguana_ _Mariguana_
_Caycos_ } _The Caycos Group_
_Amana_ }
_Canciba_ _Turks Iˢ._
_Abreojo_ _Mouchoir Carré_
_Canaman_ _Silver Plate Bank_
_Macarey_ _Navidad or Ship B._
_Mira por vos_ _Miraporvos_
_Ynagua_ _Gᵗ. Inagua_
_La Tortuga_ _Tortuga_
But while it is hoped that the identity of Guanahani with Watling’s
Island will be admitted to be authoritatively established by this
comparison, it would be wanting in respect to those who have put forth
other claims not to show, I will not say the ground on which these claims
were advanced, but rather, for brevity’s sake, the points at which their
arguments fail. I adopt this plan on the principle that a chain is no
stronger than its weakest link. Of all these I fear none occupies so
disadvantageous a position as His Excellency Senhor de Varnhagen; for
having unfortunately adopted for his _protégée_ an island (Mayaguana),
which is represented _together with_ the island of Guanahani both on
De la Cosa’s and Herrera’s maps, I regret to say that he seems to me
to be _ipso facto_ put out of court, since no reasoning whatever could
by any possibility make identical two islands so markedly distinct
that several other islands are shown to lie between them. Washington
Irving, in advocating Cat Island, or the island at present called St.
Salvador, as the genuine Guanahani, adduces an examination of the route
of Columbus by Commander Alexander Slidell Mackenzie of the U.S. navy,
but which being principally addressed to the disproval of Navarrete’s
Turk’s Island, fails to establish Cat Island as the real landfall in
contradistinction to Watling’s Island. In examining this route I observe
a startling inaccuracy, which underlies the whole question. It is stated
that Columbus describes the island as _very large_. On referring to
Columbus’s logbook in Navarrete, I find it, on the contrary, called an
“isleta,” or islet, _i. e._ _small_ island, a term which could scarcely
be applied to an island forty-two miles long and the loftiest of the
Bahamas, which Cat Island is, whereas it would be correctly applied to
Watling’s Island, which is only twelve miles long, cut up by salt water
lagoons, separated from each other by small woody hills. At the close,
reference is made to the identity preserved to Cat Island as San Salvador
with that given by Columbus, and a remonstrance against disturbing the
ancient landmarks. But this is a _petitio principii_, inasmuch as at
the period when the name of San Salvador was first continuously applied
to Cat Island, viz., the middle of the seventeenth century, both map
makers and sailors were possessed of no better materials, nor even so
good, as ourselves, for coming to an accurate determination. Humboldt,
in accepting the conclusions of Commander Mackenzie as adopted by
Irving, thinks them confirmed by the map of Juan de la Cosa, of which I
have given an extract. But here I would observe that the attention of
the illustrious philosopher was bent on the point to which Mackenzie’s
paper was directed, viz., the disproval of Turk’s Island, and not to
a discrimination between Cat Island and Watling’s Island for the true
landfall. A glance will show that the imperfectness of the Bahama group
in Juan de la Cosa’s map renders it perfectly inadequate for settling so
minute a question.
[Illustration: JUAN DE LA COSA
1500.]
It is needless to dwell here upon the events which followed this
discovery, as they are for the most part described in the letter here
translated. The main result of the voyage was the discovery of the
islands of St. Salvador, Santa Maria de la Concepcion, Exuma, Isabella,
Cuba, Bohio, the Archipelago off the south coast of Cuba (which he names
the Jardin del Rey, or King’s Garden), the islands of St. Catherine and
Hispaniola, on which latter Columbus erected the fortress of La Navidad,
and established a colony. Finally, on the 16th of January, he began to
steer his course for Spain, and he was already near the Azores when, on
the 12th February, the wind came on to blow violently, with a heavy
sea, and on the following day a frightful tempest broke upon them, which
obliged them to scud under bare poles. The storm continuing with unabated
violence, on the night of the 14th of February the two caravels parted
company, each following the course where the fury of the tempest drove
them. The sailors, giving themselves up for lost, offered up prayers and
vows; while the admiral, full of gloomy apprehensions that, after all,
his discovery might turn to nought, and his two sons be left destitute,
wrote upon parchment the account of the voyage, addressed it to the
king of Spain, with a promise, written outside, of one thousand ducats
to whomsoever would deliver it unopened. He then wrapped the packet up
in waxed cloth, and put it into the middle of a cake of wax, and after
inclosing it in a barrel well hooped and stopped up, he threw it into the
sea. He also placed on the poop of his own vessel a similar barrel, with
the same account enclosed, in order that if the ship went to the bottom
the barrel might float, and the narrative be saved. During this period
Columbus passed three days and nights without sleep, and with scanty and
bad food, so that when, on the 18th, he arrived at St. Mary’s, one of
the Azores, he felt his limbs quite crippled with exposure to the cold
and wet. There was a small church there, in a solitary place, dedicated
to the Virgin. Columbus, with the view of discharging the vows made
during the storm, sent half of his people on shore to the church, but
the Portuguese Governor of the island took them all prisoners, seized
their boat, and would have attacked Columbus’s own vessel, by orders,
as he said, received from his court, but for the firmness with which
the latter confronted him. Columbus indignantly asserted his own rank
and office, showed his letters patent sealed with the royal seal, and
threatened the Governor with the vengeance of the Castilian government.
After a few days, during which Columbus was driven from his anchorage
and had to beat about in great danger, the Governor, who in the interval
had thought better of the matter, liberated the prisoners and allowed
the caravel to proceed on her course. The state of the weather was most
terrible; the sea ran mountains high; the lightnings rent the clouds,
and the violence of the winds was such that the vessel was obliged to
scud under bare poles, in which state she arrived, at last, in the Tagus,
near Lisbon, on the 4th of March. Columbus immediately wrote a letter
to the King of Portugal, then at Valparaiso, informing him that he was
not come from Guinea but from the Indies, and requesting protection
for his caravel, and permission to bring it up to Lisbon. Not only was
this granted, but Columbus was immediately invited to Valparaiso and
was received by the monarch and his courtiers with the highest honours.
There were not wanting, however, some who would gladly have slain him to
prevent his going to Castile as the bearer of such great and glorious
news. The magnanimity of the king prevented this injustice, and leaving
Portugal in safety, on the 13th of March, Columbus arrived on the 15th
at the little port of Palos, from whence he had sailed on the 3rd of
August in the preceding year. Meanwhile Pinzon, the captain of the other
caravel, who in the late storm had been driven into Galicia, wished to
anticipate the admiral, but an express order from the court, forbidding
him to come without Columbus, made him actually die of spite and chagrin.
The reception of Columbus in Spain was such as the grandeur and dignity
of his unrivalled achievement deserved, and his entrance into Barcelona
was scarcely inferior to a Roman triumph.[17]
Very shortly after his arrival the papal bull was obtained, which fixed
the famous line of demarcation, determining the right of the Spanish and
Portuguese to discovered lands. This line was drawn from the north to the
south pole, at a hundred leagues west of the Azores and Cape de Verde
islands; the discoveries to the westward were to belong to Spain, and
those to the eastward to Portugal.
The seductive adulation of the court and the people did not, however,
divert the thoughts of Columbus from the preparations for a second
expedition. A stay of five months sufficed to make all ready for this
purpose; but these preparations gave rise to a malignant feeling towards
him on the part of Juan Rodriguez Fonseca, Bishop of Badajos, which
eventually led to such disgraceful ill-usage of the admiral as will
remain a stain upon the character of Spain while the name of Columbus
exists in the memory of man.
On the 25th September 1493, Columbus took his departure from Cadiz, with
a fleet of three large ships of heavy burthen, and fourteen caravels,
and after a pleasant voyage reached the island of Dominica on the 3rd of
November. The letter of Dr. Chanca, here translated, gives an interesting
description of a considerable portion of the events of this voyage, but
it is to be regretted that his account terminates so abruptly, and the
“memorial” of Columbus to the sovereigns adds but few incidents of moment
to the narrative. We should be straining the necessary limits of a mere
introduction to these translated documents, were we to undertake to lead
the reader through the various history of this eventful period of the
life of Columbus. Such a task has been rendered perfectly unnecessary
by the much admired work of Washington Irving. Suffice it that we
state, that the principal geographical information supplied by this
voyage consists in the discovery of the Caribbee Islands, Jamaica, an
Archipelago (named by Columbus the Queen’s Gardens, supposed to be the
Morant Keys), Evangelista, or the Isle of Pines; and the island of Mona.
He sailed with his fleet finally for Spain on the 28th of April, 1496,
and after nearly two months’ struggle against the trade-winds (during
which provisions became so reduced, that there was talk of killing,
and even eating the Indian prisoners), reached the bay of Cadiz on the
11th of June. The emaciated state of the crew when they disembarked,
presenting so mournful a contrast with the joyous and triumphant
appearance which they were expected to make, produced a very discouraging
impression upon the opinions of the public, and reflected a corresponding
depression upon the spirits of Columbus himself. He was reassured,
however, by the receipt of a gracious letter from the sovereigns inviting
him to the court, which was the more gratifying to him that he had feared
he had fallen into disgrace. He was received with distinguished favour,
and had a verbal concession of his request to be furnished with eight
ships for a third voyage. He was doomed, however, to have his patience
severely tried by the delay which occurred in the performance of this
promise, which was partly attributable to the engrossing character of
the public events of the day, and partly to the machinations of his
inveterate enemy, the bishop Fonseca.
It was not till the 30th of May 1498, that he set sail from San Lucar,
with six of the eight vessels promised, the other two having been
despatched to Hispaniola, with provisions, in the beginning of the
year. When off Ferro he despatched three of his six vessels to the same
island, with a store of fresh supplies for the colony, while with his
remaining three he steered for the Cape Verde Islands, which he reached
on the 27th of June. On the 5th of July he left Boavista, and proceeded
southward and westward. In the course of this voyage the crews suffered
intensely from the heat, having at one time reached the fifth degree of
north latitude, but at length land was descried on the 31st of July,—a
most providential occurrence, as but one cask of water remained in the
ship. The island they came to formed an addition to his discoveries; and
as the first land which appeared consisted of three mountains, united
at their base, he christened the island, from the name of the Trinity,
La Trinidad. It was in this voyage that he discovered terra firma,[18]
and the islands of Margarita and Cubagua. His supposition that Paria had
formed the original abode of our first parents, is curiously described
in our translated letter; and to a careful observer the sagacity of his
mode of reasoning is perceptible even in a speculation so fanciful as
this. On reaching Hispaniola (to which he was drawn by his anxiety on
account of the infant colony), he had the mortification to find that his
authority had suffered considerable diminution, and that the colony was
in a state of organized rebellion. He had scarcely, by his active and at
the same time politic conduct, brought matters to a state of comparative
tranquillity, when a new storm gathered round him from the quarter of
the Spanish court. The hatred of his ancient enemies availed itself of
the clamour raised against him by some of the rebels who had recently
returned to Spain, and charges of tyranny, cruelty, and ambition were
heaped unsparingly upon him. The king and queen, wearied with reiterated
complaints, at length resolved to send out a judge, to inquire into his
conduct,—injudiciously authorizing him to seize the governorship in the
place of Columbus, should the accusations brought against him prove
to be valid. The person chosen was Don Francisco de Bobadilla, whose
character and qualifications for the office are best demonstrated by
the fact, that, on the day after his arrival in Hispaniola, he seized
upon the government before he had investigated the conduct of Columbus,
who was then absent; he also took up his residence in his house, and
took possession of all his property, public and private, even to his
most secret papers. A summons to appear before the new governor was
despatched to Columbus, who was at Fort Concepcion; and in the interval
between the despatch of the summons and his arrival, his brother, Don
Diego, was seized, thrown into irons, and confined on board of a caravel,
without any reason being assigned for his imprisonment. No sooner did
the admiral himself arrive, than he likewise was put in chains, and
thrown into confinement. The habitual reverence due to his venerable
person and exalted character, made each bystander shrink from the task of
fixing the fetters on him, till one of his own domestics, described by
Las Casas as “a graceless and shameless cook,” filled up the measure of
ingratitude that he seemed doomed to experience, by riveting the irons,
not merely with apathy, but with manifest alacrity. In this shackled
condition he was conveyed, in the early part of October, from prison to
the ship that was to convey him home; and when Andreas Martin, the master
of the caravel, touched with respect for Columbus, and deeply moved at
this unworthy treatment, proposed to take off his irons, he declined
the offered benefit, with the following magnanimous reply: “Since the
king has commanded that I should obey his governor, he shall find me as
obedient in this as I have been to all his other orders; nothing but
his command shall release me. If twelve years’ hardship and fatigue;
if continual dangers and frequent famine; if the ocean first opened,
and five times passed and repassed, to add a new world, abounding with
wealth, to the Spanish monarchy; and if an infirm and premature old age,
brought on by these services, deserve these chains as a reward, it is
very fit I should wear them to Spain, and keep them by me as memorials to
the end of my life.” This in truth he did; for he always kept them hung
on the walls of his chamber, and desired that when he died they might be
buried with him.
His arrival in Spain in this painful and degraded condition produced
so general a sensation of indignation and astonishment, that a warm
manifestation in his favour was the immediate consequence. A letter (here
translated), written by him to Doña Juana de la Torre, a lady of the
court, detailing the wrongs he had suffered, was read to queen Isabella,
whose generous mind was filled with sympathy and indignation at the
recital. The sovereigns hastened to order him to be set at liberty,
and ordered two thousand ducats to be advanced, for the purpose of
bringing him to court with all distinction and an honourable retinue.
His reception at the Alhambra was gracious and flattering in the highest
degree; the strongest indignation was expressed against Bobadilla, with
an assurance that he should be immediately dismissed from his command,
while ample restitution and reward were promised to Columbus, and he had
every sanction for indulging the fondest hopes of returning in honour and
triumph to St. Domingo. But here a grievous disappointment awaited him;
his re-appointment was postponed from time to time with various plausible
excuses. Though Bobadilla was dismissed, it was deemed desirable to
refill his place for two years, by some prudent and talented officer,
who should be able to put a stop to all remaining faction in the colony,
and thus prepare the way for Columbus to enjoy the rights and dignities
of his government both peacefully and beneficially to the crown. The
newly-selected governor was Nicolas de Ovando, who, though described by
Las Casas as a man of prudence, justice, and humanity, certainly betrayed
a want both of generosity and justice in his subsequent transactions with
Columbus. It is possible that the delay manifested by the sovereigns
in redeeming their promise might have continued until the death of
Columbus, had not a fresh stimulant to the cupidity of Ferdinand been
suggested by a new project of discovering a strait, of the existence of
which Columbus felt persuaded from his own observations, and which would
connect the New World which he had discovered with the wealthy shores
of the east. His enthusiasm on the subject was heightened by an emulous
consideration of the recent achievements of Vasco da Gama and Cabral, the
former of whom had, in 1497, found a maritime passage to India by the
Cape, and the latter, in 1500, had discovered for Portugal the vast and
opulent empire of Brazil. The prospect of a more direct and safe route
to India than that discovered by da Gama, at length gained for Columbus
the accomplishment of his wish for another armament; and, finally, on the
9th of May, 1502, he sailed from Cadiz on his fourth and last voyage of
discovery.