HIS CHARACTER AND ACHIEVEMENTS.
Hitherto we have proceeded upon the assumption that Columbus was a real
historical person. It is one of the limitations of biography that the
writer must always assume the existence of the subject of his sketch.
There are, however, grave reasons for doubting whether Christopher
Columbus ever lived. There is the matter of his birthplace. Is it
credible that he was born in seven distinct places? Nobody claims
that George Washington was born in all our prominent cities, or that
Robinson Crusoe, who was perhaps the most absolutely real person to
be found in the whole range of biography, was born anywhere except at
York. Can we believe that the whole of Columbus was simultaneously
buried in two different West Indian cities? If we can accept any
such alleged fact as this, we can no longer pretend that one of the
two Italian cities which boast the possession of the head of John the
Baptist is the victim of misplaced confidence.
And then the character of Columbus as portrayed by his admiring
biographers is quite incredible, and his alleged treatment by the King
and Queen whom he served is to the last degree improbable. The story of
Columbus is without doubt an interesting and even fascinating one; but
can we, as fearless and honest philosophers, believe in the reality of
that sweet Genoese vision--the heroic and noble discoverer of the New
World?
There are strong reasons for believing that the legend of Christopher
Columbus is simply a form of the Sun myth. We find the story in the
Italian, Spanish, and English languages, which shows, not that Colombo,
Colon, and Columbus ever lived, breathed, ate dinner, and went to bed,
but that the myth is widely spread among the Indo-Germanic races.
Columbus is said to have sailed from the east to the west, and to have
disappeared for a time beyond the western horizon, only to be found
again in Spain, whence he had originally sailed. Even in Spain, he was
said to have had his birthplace in some vague locality farther east,
and to have reached Spain only when near his maturity.
This is a beautiful allegorical description of the course of the sun
as it would appear to an unlearned and imaginative Spaniard. He would
see the sun rising in the distant east, warming Spain with his mature
and noonday rays, setting beyond the western horizon in the waters of
the Atlantic, and again returning to Spain to begin another voyage, or
course, through the heavens. The clouds which at times obscure the sun
are vividly represented by the misfortunes which darkened the career
of Columbus, and his imprisonment in chains by Bobadilla is but an
allegorical method of describing a solar eclipse. The colonists who
died of fever under his rule, like the Greeks who fell under the darts
of the Sun God, remind us of the unwholesome effects produced by the
rays of a tropical sun upon decaying vegetation; and the story that
Columbus was buried in different places illustrates the fact that the
apparent place of sunset changes at different points of the year.
There is very much to be said in favor of the theory that Columbus is a
personification of the Sun, but that theory cannot be accepted either
by a biographer or by any patriotic American. The one would have to put
his biography of the Great Admiral in the fire, and the other would
lose all certainty as to whether America had ever been discovered. We
must resolve to believe in the reality of Columbus, no matter what
learned sceptics may tell us; and we shall find no difficulty in so
doing if we found our belief on a good strong prejudice instead of
reasonable arguments.
Let us then permit no man to destroy our faith in Christopher
Columbus. We can find fault with him if we choose; we can refuse to
accept Smith’s or Brown’s or Jones’s respective estimates of his
character and deeds: but let us never doubt that Columbus was a real
Italian explorer; that he served an amiable Spanish Queen and a
miserable Spanish King; and that he sailed across a virgin ocean to
discover a virgin continent.
There prevails to a very large extent the impression that the voyages
of Columbus prove that he was a wonderfully skilful navigator, and
it is also commonly believed that the compass and the astrolabe were
providentially invented expressly in order to assist him in discovering
America. There was, of course, a certain amount of practical seamanship
displayed in keeping the _Santa Maria_ and her successors from being
swamped by the waves of the Atlantic; but it may be safely asserted
that only a very slight knowledge of navigation was either exhibited or
needed by Columbus. The ships of the period could do nothing except
with a fair wind. When the wind was contrary they drifted slowly to
leeward, and when the wind was fair a small-boy with a knowledge of the
elements of steering could have kept any one of them on her course. The
compass was a handy thing to have on board a ship, since it gave to the
sailors the comfortable feeling which an ignorant man always has in the
presence of any piece of mechanism which he fancies is of assistance
to him; but for all practical purposes the sun and the stars were as
useful to Columbus as was his compass with its unintelligible freaks of
variation. So, too, the astrolabe must have impressed the sailors as a
sort of powerful and beneficent fetish, but the log-book of Columbus
would have testified that the astrolabe was more ornamental than useful.
The system of navigation followed by Columbus was to steer as nearly
west as practicable on the way to America, and to steer as nearly east
as possible on his way back to Spain. In the one case he would be sure
to hit some part of the New World if he sailed long enough, and in the
other case persistent sailing would be sure to bring him within sight
of either Europe or Africa. In neither case could he so far overrun his
reckoning as to arrive unexpectedly at some point in the interior of
a continent. The facts prove that this was precisely the way in which
Columbus navigated his ship. When steering for America he never knew
where he would find land, and was satisfied if he reached any one of
the countless large and small West India islands; and on returning to
Spain there was as much probability that he would find himself at the
Azores or at the mouth of the Tagus as at any Spanish port.
The truth is, that neither the seamanship of Columbus nor the invention
of the compass or the astrolabe made his first voyage successful.
Probably any one of the thousands of contemporary Italian sailors could
have found the West Indies as easily as Columbus found them, provided
the hypothetical sailor had possessed sufficient resolution to sail
westward until the land should stop his way. What we should properly
be called upon to admire in Columbus as a navigator of unknown seas is
the obstinacy with which he adhered to his purpose of sailing due west
until land should be found, no matter if it should take all summer. It
was an obstinacy akin to that with which our great Union General fought
his last campaign. Such obstinacy will sometimes accomplish greater
results than the most skilful navigator or the profoundest strategist
could accomplish. Had the man who discovered our country or the man who
saved it been less obstinate, American history would have been widely
different from what it has been.
As the astrolabe has been mentioned several times in the course of
this narrative, it may be well to describe it, especially as it is
now obsolete. It was an instrument of considerable size, made of some
convenient material--usually either metal or wood, or both--and fitted
with various contrivances for the purpose of observing the heavenly
bodies. When a navigator took an observation with the astrolabe he
immediately went below and “worked it up” with the help of a slate and
pencil, and in accordance with the rules of arithmetic and algebra.
The result was a series of figures which greatly surprised him, and
which he interpreted according to the humor in which he happened to
find himself. A skilful navigator who could guess his latitude with
comparative accuracy generally found that an observation taken with the
astrolabe would give him a result not differing more than eighty or
ninety degrees from the latitude in which he had previously imagined
his ship to be, and if he was an ingenious man he could often find some
way of reconciling his observation with his guesses. Thus the astrolabe
gave him employment and exercised his imagination, and was a great
blessing to the lonesome and careworn mariner.
It is our solemn duty, as Americans, to take a warm interest in
Christopher Columbus, for the reason that he had the good taste and
judgment to discover our beloved country. Efforts have frequently been
made to deprive him of that honor. It has been urged that he was not
the first man who crossed the Atlantic, that he never saw the continent
of North America, and that he was not the original discoverer of
South America. Most of this is undoubtedly true. It is now generally
conceded the Norwegians landed on the coast of New England about six
hundred years before Columbus was born; that Americus Vespuccius was
the first European to discover the South American continent; that
Sebastian Cabot rediscovered North America after the Norwegians had
forgotten all about it; and that Columbus never saw any part of what is
now the United States of America. For all that, Columbus is properly
entitled to be called the discoverer of the New World, including the
New England, Middle, Gulf, Western, and Pacific States. Who invented
steamboats? And who invented the magnetic telegraph? Every patriotic
American echo will answer, “Fulton and Morse.” There were nevertheless
at least four distinct men who moved vessels by machinery driven by
steam before Fulton built his steamboat, and nearly twice that number
of men had sent messages over a wire by means of electricity before
Morse invented the telegraph. The trouble with the steamboats invented
by the pre-Fultonians, and the telegraphs invented by the predecessors
of Morse, was that their inventions did not stay invented. Their
steamboats and telegraphs were forgotten almost as soon as they were
devised; but Fulton and Morse invented their steamboats and telegraphs
so thoroughly that they have stayed invented ever since.
Now, the Norwegians discovered America in such an unsatisfactory way
that the discovery came to nothing. They did not keep it discovered.
They came and looked at New England, and, deciding that they had no
use for it, went home and forgot all about it. Columbus, who knew
nothing of the forgotten voyage of the Norwegians, discovered the West
India islands and the route across the Atlantic in such a workmanlike
and efficient way that his discoveries became permanent. He was the
first man to show people the way to San Domingo and Cuba, and after
he had done this it was an easy thing for other explorers to discover
the mainland of North and South America. He thus discovered the United
States as truly as Fulton discovered the way to drive the _City of
Rome_ from New York to Liverpool, or Morse discovered the method of
sending telegrams over the Atlantic cable.
We need not be in the least disturbed by the learned men who
periodically demonstrate that Leif Ericson, as they familiarly call
him, was the true discoverer of our country. We need never change
“Hail Columbia” into “Hail Ericsonia,” and there is not the least
danger Columbia College will ever be known as Leifia University.
We can cheerfully admit that Leif Ericson--or, to give him what was
probably his full name, Eliphalet B. Ericson--and his Norwegians
landed somewhere in New England, and we can even forgive the prompt
way in which they forgot all about it, by assuming that they landed
on Sunday or on a fast-day, and were so disheartened that they never
wanted to hear the subject spoken of again. We can grant all this, and
still cherish the memory of Columbus as the true and only successful
discoverer of America.
Most biographers have written of Columbus in much the same way that
a modern campaign biographer writes the life of the Presidential
candidate from whom he hopes to receives an office. They forget that
he was never nominated by any regular party convention, and that it is
therefore wrong to assume, without any sufficient evidence, that he
was the greatest and best man that ever lived. He was undoubtedly a
bold sailor, but he lived in an age when bold sailors were produced in
quantities commensurate with the demands of exploration, and we cannot
say that he was any bolder or better sailor than the Cabots or his own
brother Bartholomew. He was certainly no braver soldier than Ojeda,
and his conquests were trifling in comparison with those of Cortez and
Pizarro.
As a civil ruler he was a conspicuous failure. It is true that the
colonists over whom he was placed were, many of them, turbulent
scoundrels; but the unanimity with which they condemned his
administration, and the uniformity with which every commissioner
appointed to investigate his conduct as a ruler condemned him, compel
us to believe that he was not an able governor either of Spanish
colonists or contiguous Indians. He was not habitually cruel, as was
Pizarro, but he insisted upon enslaving the Indians for his own profit,
though Queen Isabella had forbidden him to enslave them or to treat
them harshly.
He could be magnanimous at times, but he would not undertake a voyage
of discovery except upon terms which would ensure him money and rank,
and he did not hesitate to claim for himself the reward which was
offered, during his first voyage, to the man who should first see the
land, and which was fairly earned by one of his sailors.
As an explorer, he failed to find a path to India, and he died under
the delusion that Pekin was somewhere in Costa Rica. His first voyage
across the broad Atlantic seems to us a wonderful achievement, but in
either difficulty or danger it cannot be compared with Stanley’s march
across the African continent. We must concede to Columbus a certain
amount of boldness and perseverance, but we cannot shut our eyes to the
faults of his conduct and character.
And yet Columbus was a true hero. Whatever flaws there may have been in
the man, he was of a finer clay than his fellows, for he could dream
dreams that their dull imaginations could not conceive. He belonged
to the same land which gave birth to Garibaldi, and, like the Great
Captain, the Great Admiral lived in a high, pure atmosphere of splendid
visions, far removed from and above his fellow-men. The greatness of
Columbus cannot be argued away. The glow of his enthusiasm kindles our
own, even at the long distance of four hundred years, and his heroic
figure looms grander through successive centuries.
THE END.
INDEX.
Aguado, Juan, appointed investigator, 185;
investigates, 188;
makes nothing by it, 195.
Angel, Luis de St., 56;
offers to advance money, 57.
Astrolabe, invented, 32;
description of, 276.
Black Crook, thought to have broken out in Spain, 194.
Bobadilla, Francisco de, arrives in Hispaniola, 221;
arrests Columbus, 228;
sends Columbus to Spain, 229.
Boyle, Father Bernardo, 133;
desires to burn somebody, 150, 163;
is disappointed, 174.
Caonabo, 160;
captured, 175;
dies, 193.
Cedo, Fermin, alleged scientific person, 158.
Cogoletto, alleged birthplace of Columbus, 1.
Columbus, Bartholomew, born and translated, 4;
is sent to England, 38;
arrives at Hispaniola, 171;
made Governor of Isabella, 191;
able commander, 209;
arrested, 228;
sails with fourth exploring expedition, 236;
defeats Porras, 261.
Columbus, Christopher, born, 1;
translated, 3;
anecdotes of boyhood, 5;
goes to Pavia, 9;
becomes sailor, 11;
engages in Neapolitan expedition, 12;
deceives sailors or posterity, 13;
does not arrive in Portugal, 16;
does arrive there, 18;
marries, 19;
makes maps, 20;
lives at Porto Santo, 21;
goes to Iceland or elsewhere, 28;
talks to King John, 35;
goes to Spain, 38;
deposited with Quintanilla, 41;
meets Scientific Congress, 43;
goes to Convent of Rabida, 49;
meets committee on exploration, 54;
starts for France, 56;
goes to Palos, 61;
sails on first voyage, 67;
keeps false reckoning, 72;
discovers San Salvador, 89;
sails for Spain, 97;
wrecked, 102;
founds colony, 105;
sees Mermaids, 110;
displays seamanship, 115;
arrives at Azores, 116;
arrives at Palos, 125;
flattens egg, 135;
sails on second voyage, 138;
discovers Dominica, 141;
returns to Spain, 191;
loses popularity, 196;
sails on third voyage, 200;
discovers Trinidad, 204;
invents ingenious theory, 205;
arrives at Hispaniola, 208;
arrested, 228;
sent to Spain, 229;
arrives in Spain, 230;
sails on fourth voyage, 237;
reaches Honduras, 240;
searches for Panama Canal, 240;
founds colony at Veragua, 243;
sails away, 250;
reaches Jamaica, 251;
manages lunar eclipse, 258;
reaches Hispaniola, 262;
returns to Spain, 264;
dies, 268;
is extensively buried, 268;
perhaps is a sun-myth, 269;
character, 284.
Columbus, Diego, born, 4;
Governor of Isabella, 162;
sent to Spain to wait for opening in Connecticut, 177;
returns to Hispaniola, 187;
arrested by Bobadilla, 227.
Columbus, Dominico, combs wool, 3.
Compass, variation of, 55.
Congress of Salamanca, 46;
its tediousness, 45.
Correo, Pedro, 21;
he winks, 25;
is talked to death, 34.
Enriquez, Beatrix, loves not wisely but too well, 41;
is mentioned in Columbus’s will, 267.
Ericson, Eliphalet B., discovers America, 281.
Eclipse, story of, 258.
Egg, story of, 135.
Ferdinand, King of Aragon, 40.
Guacanagari, his affection for Columbus, 101;
his suspicious leg, 150;
falls extensively in love, 152;
protects Spaniards, 175.
Isabella, Queen of Castile, 41.
John, King of Portugal, 29;
his dishonorable conduct, 34.
La Navidad, founded, 105;
destroyed, 148.
Ledesma, Pedro, swims ashore, 249.
Marchena, Juan Perez de, prior of a convent, 50;
makes a night of it with Columbus, 51.
Margarite, rebels, 174.
Mendez, Diego, tries to reach Hispaniola from Jamaica, 252;
succeeds, 254.
Mendoza, Cardinal de, gives dinner, 135.
Mexica, De, rebels, 219.
Ojeda, Alonzo de, is a just man, 158;
captures Caonabo, 175;
arrives at Xaragua, 215;
his interview with Roldan, 216.
Ovando, Nicholas de, sent to Hispaniola, 233;
refuses to let Columbus land, 237;
delays to send aid to Columbus, 255;
finally does send it, 262.
Perestrello, Mrs., mother-in-law of Columbus, 20;
her use of the stove-lid, 21.
Pinzon, Martin Alonzo, fits out ship to join Columbus, 56;
has a brilliant idea, 83;
deserts, 97;
met by Columbus, 108;
reaches Palos, 127;
displays good sense, 128.
Pinzon, Vincente Yanez, fits out ship to join Columbus, 56.
Porras, Francisco de, mutinies, 256;
defeated and captured, 261.
Prester John, who he was, 31;
who he was not, 166.
Quibian, attacks colony, 246.
Quintanilla, receives Columbus on deposit, 41.
Roldan, Francisco, rebels, 210;
compromises, 215;
outwits Ojeda, 216;
drowned, 239.
Ships, rigged by Indianians, 64.
Talavera, De, the Queen’s confessor, 43.
Triana, De, discovers land, 86;
is disgusted, 87.
Villejo, Alonzo de, risks his eyes, 229.
Transcriber’s Notes
“Æt.” is an abbreviation for the Latin “aetatis”, which means “At the
age of”. In the original book, this was printed with Columbus’ age as
running headers on the left-hand pages, and the corresponding years
were printed as running headers on the right-hand pages. In this eBook,
they have been combined, aligned on the right margin, and included
at the beginning of each chapter, as well as whenever they change.
Consecutive duplicates within chapters have been deleted. Apparent
inconsistencies between the ages and the years have not been changed.
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
unbalanced.
The index was not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page
references, but a few errors were corrected.
Page 3: “Kolompo” was printed in Fraktur.
Page 239: The phrase “Panama Canal” is in the original book, even
though the year was 1502 and the book was published in 1881.