THE DEGRADATION AND DISHEARTENMENT OF COLUMBUS.
1500.
Columbus, writing to the Spanish sovereigns from Española, said, in
reference to the lifelong opposition which he had encountered:--
[Sidenote: Opponents of Columbus.]
"May it please the Lord to forgive those who have calumniated and still
calumniate this excellent enterprise of mine, and oppose and have
opposed its advancement, without considering how much glory and
greatness will accrue from it to your Highnesses throughout all the
world. They cannot state anything in disparagement of it except its
expense, and that I have not immediately sent back the ships loaded with
gold."
[Sidenote: Charges against Columbus.]
Was this an honest statement? Columbus knew perfectly well that there
had been much else than disappointment at the scant pecuniary returns.
He knew that there was a widespread dissatisfaction at his personal
mismanagement of the colony; at his alleged arrogance and cupidity as a
foreigner; at his nepotism; at his inordinate exaltation of promise, and
at his errant faith that brooked no dispute. He knew also that his
enthusiasm had captivated the Queen, and that as long as she could be
held captive he could appeal to her not in vain. If there had been any
honesty in the Queen's professions in respect to the selling of slaves,
he knew that he had outraged them. Even when he was writing this letter,
it came over him that there was a fearful hazard for him both in the
persistency of this denunciation of others against him and in the
heedless arrogance of such perverseness on his own part.
"I know," he says, "that water dropping on a stone will at length make a
hole." We shall see before long that foreboding cavity.
[Sidenote: Columbus and Roldan.]
[Sidenote: Guevara.]
[Sidenote: Anacaona's daughter.]
[Sidenote: Adrian do Moxica.]
The defection of Roldan turned so completely into servility is but one
of the strange contrasts of the wonderful course of vicissitudes in the
life of Columbus. There presently came a new trial for him and for
Roldan. A young well-born Spaniard, Fernando de Guevara, had appeared in
Española recently, and by his dissolute life he had created such
scandals in Santo Domingo that Columbus had ordered him to leave the
island. He had been sent to Xaragua to embark in one of Ojeda's ships;
but that adventurer had left the coast when the outlaw reached the port.
While waiting another opportunity to embark, Guevara was kept in that
part of the island under Roldan's eye. This implied no such restraint as
to deny him access to the society of Anacaona, with whose daughter,
Higuamota, who seems to have inherited something of her mother's
commanding beauty and mental qualities, he fell in love, and found his
passion requited. He sought companionship also with one of the
lieutenants of Roldan, who had been a leader in his late revolt, Adrian
de Moxica, then living not far away, who had for him the additional
attachment of kinship, for the two were cousins. Las Casas tells us that
Roldan had himself a passion for the young Indian beauty, and it may
have been for this as well as for his desire to obey the Admiral that he
commanded the young cavalier to go to a more distant province. The
ardent lover had sought to prepare his way for a speedy marriage by
trying to procure a priest to baptize the maiden. This caused more
urgent commands from Roldan, which were ostentatiously obeyed, only to
be eluded by a clandestine return, when he was screened with some
associates in the house of Anacaona. This queenly woman seems to have
favored his suit with her daughter. He was once more ordered away, when
he began to bear himself defiantly, but soon changed his method to
suppliancy. Roldan was appeased by this. Guevara, however, only made it
the cloak for revenge, and with some of his friends formed a plot to
kill Roldan. This leaked out, and the youth and his accomplices were
arrested and sent to Santo Domingo. This action aroused Roldan's old
confederate, Moxica, and, indignant at the way in which the renegade
rebel had dared to turn upon his former associates, Moxica resolved upon
revenge.
[Sidenote: Moxica's plot.]
[Sidenote: Moxica taken.]
To carry it out he started on a tour through the country where the late
mutineers were settled, and readily engaged their sympathies. Among
those who joined in his plot was Pedro Riquelme, whom Roldan had made
assistant alcalde. The old spirit of revolt was rampant. The
confederates were ready for any excess, either upon Roldan or upon the
Admiral. Columbus was at Conception in the midst of the aroused
district, when a deserter from the plotters informed him of their plan.
With a small party the Admiral at once sped in the night to the
unguarded quarters of the leaders, and Moxica and several of his chief
advisers were suddenly captured and carried to the fort. The execution
of the ringleader was at once ordered. Impatient at the way in which the
condemned man dallied in his confessions to a priest, Columbus ordered
him pushed headlong from the battlements. The French canonists screen
Columbus for this act by making Roldan the perpetrator of it. The other
confederates were ironed in confinement at Conception, except Riquelme,
who was taken later and conveyed to Santo Domingo.
The revolt was thus summarily crushed. Those who had escaped fled to
Xaragua, whither the Adelantado and Roldan pursued them without mercy.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Columbus and his colony.]
Columbus had perhaps never got his colony under better control than
existed after this vigorous exhibition of his authority. Such a show of
prompt and audacious energy was needed to restore the moral supremacy
which his recusancy under the threats of Roldan had lost. The fair
weather was not to last long.
[Sidenote: 1500. August 23. Bobadilla arrives.]
Early in the morning of August 23, 1500, two caravels were descried off
the harbor of Santo Domingo. The Admiral's brother Diego was in
authority, Columbus being still at Conception, and Bartholomew absent
with Roldan. Diego sent out a canoe to learn the purpose of the
visitors. It returned, and brought word that a commissioner was come to
inquire into the late rebellion of Roldan. Diego's messengers had at the
same time informed the newcomer of the most recent defection of Moxica,
and that there were still other executions to take place, particularly
those of Riquelme and Guevara, who were confined in the town. As the
ships entered the river, the gibbets on either bank, with their dangling
Spaniards, showed the commissioner that there were other troublous times
to inquire into than those named in his warrant. While the commissioner
remained on board his ship, receiving the court of those who early
sought to propitiate him, and while he was getting his first information
of the condition of the island, mainly from those who had something to
gain by the excess of their denunciations, it is necessary to go back a
little in time, and ascertain who this important personage was, and what
was the mission on which he had been sent.
[Illustration: VILLE DE S^T. DOMINGUE.
SANTO DOMINGO. 1754.]
[Sidenote: Growth of the royal dissatisfaction with Columbus.]
The arrangements for sending him had been made slowly. They were even
outlined when Ojeda had started on his voyage, for he had, in his
interviews with Roldan, blindly indicated that some astonishment of this
sort was in store. Evidently Fonseca had not allowed Ojeda to depart
without some intimations.
[Sidenote: Charges against Columbus.]
Notwithstanding Columbus professed to believe that nothing but the lack
of pecuniary return for the great outlays of his expeditions could be
alleged against them, he was well aware, and he had constantly acted as
if well aware, of the great array of accusations which had been made
against him in Spain, with a principal purpose of undermining the
indulgent regard of the Queen for him. He had known it with sorrow
during his last visit to Spain, and had found, as we have seen, that he
could not secure men to accompany him and put themselves under his
control unless he unshackled criminals in the jails. He little thought
that such utter disregard of the morals and self-respect of those whom
he had settled in the New World would, by a sort of retributive justice,
open the way, however unjustly, to put the displaced gyves on himself,
amid the exultant feelings of these same criminals. Such reiterated
criminations were like the water-drops that wear the stone, and he had,
as we have noted, felt the certainty of direful results.
[Sidenote: His exaggerations of the wealth of the Indies.]
[Sidenote: Columbus deceives the Crown.]
[Sidenote: Columbus's sons hooted at in the Alhambra.]
How much the disappointment at the lack of gold had to do with
increasing the force of these charges, it is not difficult to imagine.
Columbus was certainly not responsible for that; but he was responsible
for the inordinate growth of the belief in the profuse wealth of the
new-found Indies. His constantly repeated stories of the wonderful
richness of the region had done their work. His professions of a purpose
to enrich the world with noble benefactions, and to spend his treasure
on the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre, were the vain boastings of a man
who thought thereby to enroll his name among the benefactors of the
Church. He did not perceive that the populace would wonder whence these
resources were to come, unless it was by defrauding the Crown of its
share, and by amassing gold while they could not get any. There is
something ludicrous in the excuse which he later gave for concealing
from the sovereigns his accumulation of pearls. He felt it sufficient to
say that he thought he would wait till he could make as good a show of
gold! There were some things that even fifteenth-century Christians held
to be more sacred than wresting Jerusalem from the Moslem, and these
were money in hand when they had earned it, and food to eat when their
misfortunes had beggared their lives. It was not an uncalled-for strain
on their loyalty to the Crown, when the notion prevailed that the
sovereigns and their favorite were gathering riches out of their
despair. There was little to be wondered at, in the crowd of these
hungry and debilitated victims, wandering about the courts of the
Alhambra, under the royal windows, and clamoring for their pay. There
was nothing to be surprised at in the hootings that followed the
Admiral's sons, pages of the Queen, if they passed within sight of these
embittered throngs.
[Sidenote: Ferdinand's confessed blunder.]
It was quite evident that Ferdinand, who had never warmed to the
Admiral's enthusiasm, had long been conscious that in the exclusive and
extended powers which had been given to Columbus a serious
administrative blunder had been made. He said as much at a later day to
Ponce de Leon.
The Queen had been faithful, but the recurrent charges had given of late
a wrench to her constancy. Was it not certain that something must be
wrong, or these accusations would not go on increasing? Had not the
great discoverer fulfilled his mission when he unveiled a new world? Was
it quite sure that the ability to govern it went along with the genius
to find it? These were the questions which Isabella began to put to
herself.
[Sidenote: Isabella begins to doubt.]
[Sidenote: Columbus to be superseded.]
[Sidenote: Witnesses against Columbus.]
She was not a person to hesitate at anything, when conviction came. She
had shown this in the treatment of the Jews, of the Moors, and of other
heretics. The conviction that Columbus was not equal to his trust was
now coming to her. The news of the serious outbreak of Roldan's
conspiracy brought the matter to a test, and in the spring of 1499 the
purpose to send out some one with almost unlimited powers for any
emergency was decided upon. Still the details were not worked out, and
there were occurrences in the internal and external affairs of Spain
that required the prior attention of the sovereigns. Very likely the
news of Columbus's success in finding a new source of wealth in the
pearls of Paria may have had something to do with the delay. When the
ships which carried to Spain a crowd of Roldan's followers arrived, the
question took a fresh interest. Columbus's friends, Ballester and
Barrantes, now found their testimony could make little headway against
the crowd of embittered witnesses on the other side. Isabella, besides,
was forced to see in the slaves that Columbus had sent by the same ships
something of an obstinate opposition to her own wishes. Las Casas tells
us that so great was the Queen's displeasure that it was only the
remembrance of Columbus's services that saved him from prompt disgrace.
To be sure, the slaves had been sent in part by virtue of the
capitulation which Columbus had made with the rebels, but should the
Viceroy of the Indies be forced to such capitulations? Had he kept the
colony in a condition worthy of her queenly patronage, when it could be
reported to her that the daughters of caciques were found among these
natives bearing their hybrid babes? "What authority had my viceroy to
give my vassals to such ends?" she asked.
[Sidenote: Columbus and the slave trade.]
[Sidenote: Bobadilla appointed commissioner.]
There were two things in recent letters of Columbus which damaged his
cause just at this juncture. One was his petition for a new lease of the
slave trade. This Isabella answered by ordering all slaves which he had
sent home to be sought out and returned. Her agents found a few. The
other was the request of Columbus for a judge to examine the dispute
between himself and Roldan. This Ferdinand answered by appointing the
commissioner whose arrival at Santo Domingo we have chronicled. He
was Francisco de Bobadilla, an officer of the royal household.
Before disclosing what Bobadilla did in Santo Domingo, it is best to try
to find out what he was expected to do.
[Sidenote: His character.]
There is no person connected with the career of Columbus--hardly
excepting Fonseca--more generally defamed than this man, who was,
nevertheless, if we may believe Oviedo, a very honest and a very
religious man. The historians of Columbus need to mete out to Bobadilla
what very few have done, the same measure of palliation which they are
more willing to bestow on Columbus. With this parallel justice, it may
be that he will not bear with discredit a comparison with Columbus
himself, in all that makes a man's actions excusable under provocation
and responsibility. An indecency of haste may come from an excess of
zeal quite as well as from an unbridled virulence.
It may be in some ways a question if the conditions this man was sent to
correct were the result of the weakness or inadaptability of Columbus,
or merely the outcome of circumstances, enough beyond his control to
allow of excuses. There is, however, no question that the Spanish
government had duties to perform towards itself and its subjects which
made it properly disinclined to jeopardize the interests which accompany
such duties.
[Sidenote: Bobadilla's powers.]
Bobadilla was, to be sure, invested with dangerous powers, but not with
more dangerous ones than Columbus himself had possessed. When two such
personations of unbridled authority come in antagonism, the possessor of
the greater authority is sure to confirm himself by commensurate
exactions upon the other. Bobadilla's commission was an implied warrant
to that end. He might have been more prudent of his own state, and
should have remembered that a trust of the nature of that with which he
was invested was sure to be made accountable to those who imparted to
him the power, and perhaps at a time when they chose to abandon their
own instructions. He ought to have known that such an abandonment comes
very easy to all governments in emergencies. He might have been more
considerate of the man whom Spain had so recently flattered. He should
not have forgotten, if almost everybody else had, that the Admiral had
given a new world to Spain.
[Sidenote: Columbus and the criminals.]
He should not have been unmindful, if almost every one else was, that
this new world was a delusion now, but might dissolve into a beatific
vision. But all this was rather more than human nature was capable of in
an age like that. It is to be said of Bobadilla that when he summoned
Columbus to Santo Domingo and prejudged him guilty, he had shown no more
disregard of a rival power, which he was sent to regulate, than Columbus
had manifested for a deluded colony, when he selfishly infected it with
the poison of the prisons. It must not, indeed, be forgotten that the
strongest support of the new envoy came from the very elements of vice
which Columbus had implanted in the island. He grew to understand this,
and later he was forced to give a condemnation of his own act when he
urged the sending of such as are honorably known, "that the country may
be peopled with honest men."
[Sidenote: Bobadilla's character.]
[Sidenote: Did he exceed his powers?]
Las Casas tells us of Bobadilla that his probity and disinterestedness
were such that no one could attack them. If it be left for posterity to
decide between the word of Las Casas and Columbus, in estimates of
virtue and honesty, there is no question of the result. When Bobadilla
was selected to be sent to Española, there was every reason to choose
the most upright of persons. There was every reason, also, to instruct
him with a care that should consider every probable attendant
circumstance. After this was done, the discretion of the man was to
determine all. We can read in the records the formal instructions; but
there were beside, as is expressly stated, verbal directions which can
only be surmised. Bobadilla was accused of exceeding the wishes of the
Queen. Are we sure that he did? It is no sign of it that the monarchs
subsequently found it politic to disclaim the act of their agent. Such a
desertion of a subordinate was not unusual in those times, nor indeed
would it be now.
If Isabella, "for the love of Christ and the Virgin Mary," could
depopulate towns, as she said she did, by the ravages of the
inquisition, and fill her coffers by the attendant sequestrations, it is
not difficult to conceive that, with a similar and convenient conviction
of duty, she would give no narrow range to her vindictiveness and
religious zeal when she came to deal with an Admiral whom she had
created, and who was not very deferential to her wishes.
[Sidenote: Bobadilla's powers.]
A synopsis of the powers confided to Bobadilla in writing needs to be
presented. They begin with a letter of March 21, 1499, referring to
reports of the Roldan insurrection, and directing him, if on inquiry he
finds any persons culpable, to arrest them and sequestrate their
effects, and to call upon the Admiral for assistance in carrying out
these orders. Two months later, May 21, a circular letter was framed and
addressed to the magistrates of the islands, which seems to have been
intended to accredit Bobadilla to them, if the Admiral should be no
longer in command. This order gave notice to these magistrates of the
full powers which had been given to Bobadilla in civil and criminal
jurisdiction. Another order of the same date, addressed to the "Admiral
of the ocean sea," orders him to surrender all royal property, whether
forts, arms, or otherwise, into Bobadilla's hands,--evidently intended
to have an accompanying effect with the other. Of a date five days later
another letter addressed to the Admiral reads to this effect:--
"We have directed Francisco de Bobadilla, the bearer of this, to tell
you for us of certain things to be mentioned by him. We ask you to give
faith and credence to what he says, and to obey him. May 26, 1499."
[Sidenote: His verbal orders.]
[Sidenote: 1500. July. Bobadilla leaves Spain.]
This is an explicit avowal on the sovereigns' part of having given
verbal orders. In addition to these instructions, a royal order required
the commissioner to ascertain what was due from the Crown for unpaid
salaries, and to compel the Admiral to join in liquidating such
obligations so far as he was bound for them, "that there may be no more
complaints." If one may believe Columbus's own statements as made in his
subsequent letter to the nurse of Prince Juan, it had been neglect, and
not inability, on his part which had allowed these arrears to accrue.
Bobadilla was also furnished with blanks signed by the sovereigns, to be
used to further their purposes in any way and at his discretion. With
these extraordinary documents, and possessed of such verbal and
confidential directions as we may imagine rather than prove, Bobadilla
had sailed in July, 1500, more than a year after the letters were dated.
His two caravels brought back to Española a number of natives, who were
in charge of some Franciscan friars.
[Sidenote: Bobadilla lands at Santo Domingo.]
We left Bobadilla on board his ship, receiving court from all who
desired thus early to get his ear. It was not till the next day that he
landed, attended by a guard of twenty-five men, when he proceeded to the
church to mass.
[Sidenote: His demands.]
This over, the crowd gathered before the church. Bobadilla ordered a
herald to read his original commission of March 21, 1499, and then he
demanded of the acting governor, Diego, who was present, that Guevara,
Riquelme, and the other prisoners should be delivered to him, together
with all the evidence in their cases, and that the accusers and
magistrates should appear before him. Diego referred him to the Admiral
as alone having power in such matters, and asked for a copy of the
document just read to send to Columbus. This Bobadilla declined to give,
and retired, intimating, however, that there were reserved powers which
he had, before which even the Admiral must bow.
The peremptoriness of this movement was, it would seem, uncalled for,
and there could have been little misfortune in waiting the coming of the
Admiral, compared with the natural results of such sudden overturning of
established authority in the absence of the holder of it. Urgency may
not, nevertheless, have been without its claims. It was desirable to
stay the intended executions; and we know not what exaggerations had
already filled the ears of Bobadilla. At this time there would seem to
have been the occasion to deliver the letter to Columbus which had
commanded his obedience to the verbal instructions of the sovereigns;
and such a delivery might have turned the current of these hurrying
events, for Columbus had shown, in the case of Agueda, that he was
graciously inclined to authority. Instead of this, however, Bobadilla,
the next day, again appeared at mass, and caused his other commissions
to be read, which in effect made him supersede the Admiral. This
superiority Diego and his councilors still unadvisedly declined to
recognize. The other mandates were read in succession; and the gradual
rise to power, which the documents seemed to imply, as the progress of
the investigations demanded support, was thus reached at a bound. This
is the view of the case which has been taken by Columbus's biographers,
as naturally drawn from the succession of the powers which were given
to Bobadilla. It is merely an inference, and we know not the directions
for their proclamations, which had been verbally imparted to Bobadilla.
It is this uncertainty which surrounds the case with doubt. It is
apparent that the reading of these papers had begun to impress the
rabble, if not those in authority. That order which commanded the
payment of arrears of salaries had a very gratifying effect on those who
had suffered from delays. Nothing, however, moved the representatives of
the Viceroy, who would not believe that anything could surpass his
long-conceded authority.
[Sidenote: Bobadilla assaults the fort.]
There is nothing strange in the excitement of an officer who finds his
undoubted supremacy thus obstinately spurned, and we must trace to such
excitement the somewhat overstrained conduct which made a show of
carrying by assault the fortress in which Guevara and the other
prisoners were confined. Miguel Diaz, who commanded the fort,--the same
who had disclosed the Hayna mines,--when summoned to surrender had
referred Bobadilla to the Admiral from whom his orders came, and asked
for copies of the letters patent and orders, for more considerate
attention. It was hardly to be expected that Bobadilla was to be
beguiled by any such device, when he had a force of armed men at his
back, aided by his crew and the aroused rabble, and when there was
nothing before him but a weak citadel with few defenders. There was
nothing to withstand the somewhat ridiculous shock of the assault but a
few frail bars, and no need of the scaling ladders which were
ostentatiously set up. Diaz and one companion, with sword in hand, stood
passively representing the outraged dignity of command. Bobadilla was
victorious, and the manacled Guevara and the rest passed over to new and
less stringent keepers.
[Sidenote: Bobadilla in full possession.]
Bobadilla was now in possession of every channel of authority. He
domiciled himself in the house of Columbus, took possession of all his
effects, including his papers, making no distinction between public and
private ones, and used what money he could find to pay the debts of the
Admiral as they were presented to him. This proceeding was well
calculated to increase his popularity, and it was still more enhanced
when he proclaimed liberty to all to gather gold for twenty years, with
only the payment of one seventh instead of a third to the Crown.
[Sidenote: Columbus hears of Bobadilla.]
[Sidenote: Columbus and the Franciscans.]
Let us turn to Columbus himself. The reports which reached him at Fort
Conception did not at first convey to him an adequate notion of what he
was to encounter. He associated the proceedings with such unwarranted
acts as Ojeda's and Pinzon's in coming with their ships within his
prescribed dominion. The greater audacity, however, alarmed him, and the
threats which Bobadilla had made of sending him to Spain in irons, and
the known success of his usurpation within the town, were little
calculated to make Columbus confident in the temporary character of the
outburst. He moved his quarters to Bonao to be nearer the confusion, and
here he met an officer bearing to him a copy of the letters under which
the government had been assumed by Bobadilla. Still the one addressed to
Columbus, commanding him to acquiesce, was held back. It showed palpably
that Bobadilla conceived he had passed beyond the judicial aim of his
commission. Columbus, on his part, was loath to reach that conclusion,
and tried to gain time. He wrote to Bobadilla an exculpating and
temporizing letter, saying that he was about to leave for Spain, when
everything would pass regularly into Bobadilla's control. He sent other
letters, calculated to create delays, to the Franciscans who had come
with him. He had himself affiliated with that order, and perhaps thought
his influence might not be unheeded. He got no replies, and perhaps
never knew what the spirit of these friars was. They evidently reflected
the kind of testimony which Bobadilla had been accumulating. We find
somewhat later, in a report of one of them, Nicholas Glassberger,--who
speaks of the 1,500 natives whom they had made haste to baptize in Santo
Domingo,--some of the cruel insinuations which were rife, when he speaks
of "a certain admiral, captain, and chief, who had ill treated these
natives, taking their goods and wives, and capturing their virgin
daughters, and had been sent to Spain in chains."
[Sidenote: Bobadilla sends the sovereigns' letter to Columbus.]
Columbus as yet could hardly have looked forward to any such indignity
as manacles on his limbs. Nor did he probably suspect that Bobadilla was
using the signed blanks, entrusted to him by the sovereigns, to engage
the interests of Roldan and other deputies of the Viceroy scattered
through the island. Columbus, in these uncertainties, caused it to be
known that he considered his perpetual powers still unrevoked, if indeed
they were revocable at all. This state of his mind was rudely jarred by
receiving a little later, at the hands of Francisco Velasquez, the
deputy treasurer, and of Juan de Trasierra, one of the Franciscans, the
letter addressed to him by the sovereigns, commanding him to respect
what Bobadilla should tell him. Here was tangible authority; and when it
was accompanied by a summons from Bobadilla to appear before him, he
hesitated no longer, and, with the little state befitting his disgrace,
proceeded at once to Santo Domingo.
[Sidenote: Columbus approaches Santo Domingo.]
[Sidenote: 1500. August 23. Columbus is imprisoned in chains.]
The Admiral's brother Diego had already been confined in irons on one of
the caravels; and Bobadilla, affecting to believe, as Irving holds, that
Columbus would not come in any compliant mood, made a bustle of armed
preparation. There was, however, no such intention on Columbus's part,
nor had been, since the royal mandate of implicit obedience had been
received. He came as quietly as the circumstances would permit, and when
the new governor heard he was within his grasp, his orders to seize him
and throw him into prison were promptly executed (August 23, 1500). In
the southeastern part of the town, the tower still stands, with little
signs of decay, which then received the dejected Admiral, and from its
summit all approaching vessels are signaled to-day. Las Casas tells us
of the shameless and graceless cook, one of Columbus's own household,
who riveted the fetters. "I knew the fellow," says that historian, "and
I think his name was Espinosa."
While the Adelantado was at large with an armed force, Bobadilla was not
altogether secure in his triumph. He demanded of Columbus to write to
his brother and counsel him to come in and surrender. This Columbus did,
assuring the Adelantado of their safety in trusting to the later justice
of the Crown. Bartholomew obeyed, as the best authorities say, though
Peter Martyr mentions a rumor that he came in no accommodating spirit,
and was captured while in advance of his force. It is certain he also
was placed in irons, and confined on one of the caravels. It was
Bobadilla's purpose to keep the leaders apart, so there could be no
concert of action, and even to prevent their seeing any one who could
inform them of the progress of the inquest, which was at once begun.
[Sidenote: Charges against Columbus.]
It seems evident that Bobadilla, either of his own impulse or in
accordance with secret instructions, was acting with a secrecy and
precipitancy which would have been justifiable in the presence of armed
sedition, but was uncalled for with no organized opposition to embarrass
him. Columbus at a later day tells us that he was denied ample clothing,
even, and was otherwise ill treated. He says, too, he had no statement
of charges given to him. It is a later story, started by Charlevoix,
that such accusations were presented to him in writing, and met by him
in the same method.
The trial was certainly a remarkable procedure, except we consider it
simply an _ex parte_ process for indictment only, as indeed it really
was. Irving lays stress on the reversal by Bobadilla of the natural
order of his acts, amounting, in fact, to prejudging a person he was
sent to examine. He also thinks that the governor was hurried to his
conclusions in order to make up a show of necessity for his precipitate
action. It has something of that look. "The rebels he had been sent to
judge became, by this singular perversion of rule," says Irving,
"necessary and cherished evidences to criminate those against whom they
had rebelled." This is the mistake of the apologists for Columbus.
Bobadilla seems to have been sent to judge between two parties, and not
to assume that only one was culpable. Even Irving suspects the true
conditions. He allows that Bobadilla would not have dared to go to this
length, had he not felt assured that "certain things," as the mandate to
Columbus expressed it, would not be displeasing to the king.
The charges against the Admiral had been stock ones for years, and we
have encountered them more than once in the progress of this narrative.
They are rehearsed at length in the documents given by Navarrete, and
are repeated and summarized by Peter Martyr. It is perhaps true that
there was some novelty in the asseveration that Columbus's recent
refusal to have some Indians baptized was simply because it deprived him
of selling them as slaves. This accusation, considering Columbus's
relations to the slave trade which he had created, is as little to be
wondered at as any.
[Sidenote: Columbus and slavery.]
Las Casas tells us how indignant Isabella had been with his presumptuous
way of dealing with what she called her subjects; and by a royal order
of June 20, 1500, she had ordered, as we have seen, the return in
Bobadilla's fleet of nineteen of the slaves who had been sold. There was
no better way of commending Bobadilla's action to the Queen, apparently,
than by making the most of Columbus's unfortunate relations to the slave
trade.
As the accusations were piled up, Bobadilla saw the inquest leading, in
his mind, to but one conclusion, the unnatural character of the Viceroy
and his unfitness for command,--a phrase not far from the truth, but
hardly requiring the extraordinary proceedings which had brought the
governor to a recognition of it. There is little question that the
public sentiment of the colony, so far at least as it dare manifest
itself, commended the governor. Columbus in his dungeon might not see
this with his own eyes, but if the reports are true, his ears carried it
to his spirit, for howls and taunts against him came from beyond the
walls, as the expression of the hordes which felt relieved by his fate.
Columbus himself confessed that Bobadilla had "succeeded to the full" in
making him hated of the people. All this was matter to brood upon in his
loneliness. He magnified slight hints. He more than suspected he was
doomed to a violent fate. When Alonso de Villejo, who was to conduct him
to Spain, in charge of the returning ships, came to the dungeon,
Columbus saw for the first time some recognition of his unfortunate
condition. Las Casas, in recounting the interview, says that Villejo was
"an hidalgo of honorable character and my particular friend," and he
doubtless got his account of what took place from that important
participant.
"Villejo," said the prisoner, "whither do you take me?"
"To embark on the ship, your excellency."
"To embark, Villejo? Is that the truth?"
"It is true," said the captain.
For the first time the poor Admiral felt that he yet might see Spain and
her sovereigns.
[Sidenote: 1500. October. Columbus sent to Spain.]
[Sidenote: His chains.]
The caravels set sail in October, 1500, and soon passed out of earshot
of the hootings that were sent after the miserable prisoners. The new
keepers of Columbus were not of the same sort as those who cast such
farewell taunts. If the _Historie_ is to be believed, Bobadilla had
ordered the chains to be kept on throughout the voyage, since, as the
writer of that book grimly suggests, Columbus might at any time swim
back, if not secured. Villejo was kind. So was the master of the
caravel, Andreas Martin. They suggested that they could remove the
manacles during the voyage; but the Admiral, with that cherished
constancy which persons feel, not always wisely, in such predicaments,
thinking to magnify martyrdom, refused. "No," he said; "my sovereigns
ordered me to submit, and Bobadilla has chained me. I will wear these
irons until by royal order they are removed, and I shall keep them as
relics and memorials of my services."
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Degradation of Columbus.]
[Sidenote: His letter to the nurse of Prince Juan analyzed.]
[Sidenote: Charges against Columbus.]
The relations of Columbus and Bobadilla bring before us the most
startling of the many combinations of events in the history of a career
which is sadder, perhaps, notwithstanding its glory, than any other
mortal presents in profane history. The degradation of such a man
appeals more forcibly to human sympathy than almost any other event in
the record of humanity. That sympathy has obscured the import of his
degradation, and that mournful explanation of the events, which, either
on his voyage or shortly after his return, Columbus wrote and sent to
the nurse of Prince Juan, has long worked upon the sensibilities of a
world tender for his misfortunes. We cannot indeed read this letter
without compassion, nor can we read it dispassionately without
perceiving that the feelings of the man who wrote it had been despoiled
of a judicial temper by his errors as well as by his miseries. His
statements of the case are wholly one-sided. He never sees what it pains
him to see. He forgets everything that an enemy would remember. He finds
it difficult to tell the truth, and trusts to iterated professions to be
taken for truths. He claims to have no conception why he was imprisoned,
when he knew perfectly well, as he says himself, that he had endeavored
to create an opposition to constituted authority "by verbal and written
declarations;" and he reiterates this statement after he had bowed to
royal commands that were as explicit as his own treatment of them had
been recalcitrant. Indeed, he puts himself in the rather ridiculous
posture of answering a long series of charges, of which at the same time
he professes to be ignorant.
In the course of this letter, Columbus set up a claim that he had been
seriously misjudged in trying to measure his accountability by the laws
that govern established governments rather than by those which grant
indulgences to the conqueror of a numerous and warlike nation. The
position is curiously inconsistent with his professed intentions, as the
sole ruler of a colony, to be just in the eyes of God and men. The Crown
had given him its authority to establish precisely what he claims had
not been established, a government of laws kindly disposed to protect
both Spaniard and native, and yet he did not understand why his doings
were called in question. He had boasted repeatedly how far from warlike
and dangerous the natives were, so that a score of Spaniards could put
seven thousand to rout, as he was eager to report in one case. The chief
of the accusations against him did not pertain to his malfeasance in
regard to the natives, but towards the Spaniards themselves, and it was
begging the question to consider his companions a conquered nation. If
there were no established government as respects them, he would be the
last to admit it; and if it were proved against him, there was no one so
responsible for the absence of it as himself. Again he says: "I ought to
be judged by cavaliers who have gained victories themselves,--by
gentlemen, and not by lawyers." The fact was that the case had been
judged by hidalgoes without number, and to his disgrace, and it was
taken from them to give him the protection of the law, such as it was;
and, as he himself acknowledges, there is in the Indies "neither civil
right nor judgment seat." As he was the source of all the bulwarks of
life and liberty in these same Indies, he thus acknowledges the
deficiencies of his own protective agencies. There is something
childishly immature in the proposition which he advances that he should
be judged by persons in his own pay.
[Sidenote: Palliation.]
It is of course necessary to allow the writer of this letter all the
palliation that a man in his distressed and disordered condition might
claim. Columbus had in fact been perceptibly drifting into a state of
delusion and aberration of mind ever since the sustaining power of a
great cause had been lifted from him. From the moment when he turned his
mule back at the instance of Isabella's message, the lofty purpose had
degenerated to a besetting cupidity, in which he made even the Divinity
a constant abettor. In this same letter he tells of a vision of the
previous Christmas, when the Lord confronted him miraculously, and
reminded him of his vow to amass treasure enough in seven years to
undertake his crusade to Jerusalem. This visible Godhead then comforted
him with the assurance that his divine power would see that it came to
pass. "The seven years you were to await have not yet passed. Trust in
me and all will be right." It is easy to point to numerous such
instances in Columbus's career, and the canonizers do not neglect to do
so, as evincing the sublime confidence of the devoted servant of the
Lord; but one can hardly put out of mind the concomitants of all such
confidence. The most that we can allow is the unaccountableness of a
much-vexed conscience.