If you know a boy or a girl whose mind is set on any one thing, you will
find that they are always talking about that thing. Is not this so? They
have what people call a "hobby" (which is a kind of a horse, you know),
and they are apt, as we say, to "ride their hobby to death."
If this is true of certain boys and girls, it is even more true of men
and women. They get to be what we call people of one idea, and whatever
they see or whatever they do always turns on that one idea.
It was so with Columbus. All his life his one idea had been the finding
of Asia--the Indies, or Cathay, as he called it--by sailing to the west.
He did sail to the west. He did find land. And, because of this, as we
have seen, all his voyaging and all his exploring were done in the firm
belief that he was discovering new parts of the eastern coast of Asia.
The idea that he had found a new world never entered his head.
So, when he looked toward the west, as he sailed around the island of
Trinidad and saw the distant shore, he said it was a new part of Asia.
He was as certain of this as he had before been certain that Cuba was a
part of the Asiatic mainland.
But when he sailed into the mouth of the great Orinoco River he was
puzzled. For the water was no longer salt; it grew fresher and fresher
as he sailed on. And it rushed out so furiously through the two straits
at the northern and southern ends of Trinidad (which because of the
terrible rush of their currents he called the Lion's Mouth and the
Dragon's Mouth) that he was at first unable to explain it all.
Then he had a curious idea. Columbus was a great reader of the Bible;
some of the Bible scholars of his day said that the Garden of Eden was
in a far Eastern land where a mighty river came down through it from the
hills of Paradise; as Columbus saw the beautiful land he had reached,
and saw the great river sending down its waters to the sea, he fitted
all that he saw to the Bible stories he knew so well, and felt sure that
he had really discovered the entrance to the Garden of Eden.
He would gladly have sailed across the broad bay and up the great river
to explore this heavenly land; but he was ill with gout, he was nearly
blind from his sore eyes, his ships were shaky and leaky, and he felt
that he ought to hurry away to the city of Isabella where his brothers,
Bartholomew and Diego, were in charge of affairs and were, he knew,
anxiously waiting for him to come back.
So at last he turned away from the lovely land that he thought must
be Paradise and steered toward Hayti. On the nineteenth of August he
arrived off the coast of Hayti. He sent a messenger with news of his
arrival, and soon greeted his brother Bartholomew, who, when he heard of
the Admiral's arrival, sailed at once to meet him.
Bartholomew Columbus had a sad story to tell his brother Christopher.
Things had been going badly in Hayti, and the poor Admiral grew sicker
and sicker as he listened to what Bartholomew had to tell.
You have heard it said that there are black sheep in every flock. There
were black sheep in this colony of Columbus. There were lazy men and
discontented men and jealous men, and they made great trouble, both in
the city of Isabella and in the new town which Bartholomew bad built in
another part of the island and called Santo Domingo.
Such men are sure to make mischief, and these men in Hayti had made a
lot of it. Columbus had staid so long in Spain that these men began to
say that they knew he was certainly in trouble or disgrace there, that
the king and queen were angry with him, and that his offices of viceroy
and admiral were to be taken away from him. If this were so, they were
going to look out for themselves, they said. They would no longer obey
the commands of the Admiral's brothers, Bartholomew and Diego, whom he
had left in charge.
So they rose in rebellion, and made things so uncomfortable for the two
brothers that the colony was soon full of strife and quarreling.
The leader of this revolt was one of the chief men in the colony. His
name was Roldan. When Columbus and Bartholomew sailed into the harbor
of Santo Domingo, on the thirtieth of August, they found that Roldan and
his followers had set up a camp for themselves in another part of the
island, and given out that they were determined never to have anything
more to do with the three Columbus brothers.
This rebellion weakened the colony dreadfully. Things looked desperate;
so desperate indeed that Columbus, after thinking it all over, thought
that the only way to do was to seem to give in to Roldan and patch
up some sort of an agreement by which they could all live together in
peace. But all the same, he said, I will complain to the king and have
this rebel Roldan punished.
So the Admiral wrote Roldan a letter in which he offered to forgive
and forget all that he had done if he would come back and help make the
colony strong and united again. Roldan agreed to do this, if he could
have the same position he held before, and if Columbus would see that
his followers had all the land they wanted. Columbus agreed to this and
also gave the rebels permission to use the poor natives as slaves on
their lands. So the trouble seemed to be over for a while, and Columbus
sent two of his ships to Spain with letters to the king and queen. But
in these letters he accused Roldan of rebellion and tried to explain why
it was that things were going so badly in Hayti.
But when these ships arrived in Spain the tidings they brought and the
other letters sent by them only made matters worse. People in Spain had
heard so many queer things from across the sea that they were beginning
to lose faith in Columbus. The men who had lost health and money in the
unlucky second voyage of the Admiral were now lazy loafers about the
docks, or they hung about the court and told how Columbus had made
beggars of them, while they hooted after and insulted the two sons of
Columbus who were pages in the queen's train. They called the boys the
sons of "the Admiral of Mosquitoland."
Then came the ships with news of Roldan's rebellion, but with little or
no gold. And people said this was a fine viceroy who couldn't keep order
among his own men because, no doubt, he was too busy hiding away for his
own use the gold and pearls they knew he must have found in the river of
Paradise he said he had discovered.
Then came five shiploads of Indian slaves, sent to Spain by Columbus,
and along with them came the story that Columbus had forgiven Roldan for
his rebellion and given him lands and office in Hayti.
King Ferdinand had never really liked Columbus and had always been sorry
that he had given him so much power and so large a share in the profits.
The queen, too, began to think that while Columbus was a good sailor, he
was a very poor governor. But when she heard of the shiploads of slaves
he had sent, and found out that among the poor creatures were the
daughters of some of the chiefs, or caciques, of the Indians, she was
very angry, and asked how "her viceroy" dared to use "her vassals" so
without letting her know about it. Things were indeed beginning to look
bad for Columbus. The king and queen had promised that only members
of the Admiral's family should be sent to govern the island; they had
promised that no one but himself should have the right to trade in the
new lands. But now they began to go back on their promises. If Columbus
cannot find us gold and spices, they said, other men can. So they gave
permission to other captains to explore and trade in the western lands.
And as the complaints against the Admiral kept coming they began to talk
of sending over some one else to govern the islands.
More letters came from Columbus asking the king and queen to let him
keep up his slave-trade, and to send out some one to act as a judge of
his quarrel with Roldan. Then the king and queen decided that something
must be done at once. The queen ordered the return of the slaves
Columbus had sent over, and the king told one of his officers named
Bobadilla to go over to Hayti and set things straight. And he sent a
letter by him commanding Columbus to talk with him, to give up all the
forts and arms in the colony and to obey Bobadilla in all things.
Bobadilla sailed at once. But before he got across the sea matters, as
we know, had been straightened out by the Admiral; and when Bobadilla
reached Hayti he found everything quiet there. Columbus had made friends
with Roldan (or made believe that he had), and had got things into good
running order again.
This was not what Bobadilla had reckoned upon. He had expected to find
things in such a bad way that he would have to take matters into his own
hand at once, and become a greater man than the Admiral. If everything
was all right he would have his journey for nothing and everybody would
laugh at him. So he determined to go ahead, even though there was no
necessity for his taking charge of affairs. He had been sent to do
certain things, and he did them at once. Without asking Columbus for his
advice or his assistance, he took possession of the forts and told every
one that he was governor now. He said that he had come to set things
straight, and he listened to the complaints of all the black sheep of
the colony--and how they did crowd around him and say the worst things
they could think of against the Admiral they had once been so anxious to
follow.
Bobadilla listened to all their stories. He proceeded to use the power
the king and queen had given him to punish and disgrace Columbus--which
was not what they meant him to do. He moved into the palace of the
Admiral; he ordered the Admiral and his brothers to come to him, and
when they came expecting to talk things over, Bobadilla ordered that
they be seized as prisoners and traitors, that they be chained hand and
foot and put in prison.
Columbus's saddest day had come. The man who had found a new world for
his king and queen, who had worked so hard in their service and who had
meant to do right, although he had made many mistakes, was thrust into
prison as if he were a thief or a murderer. The Admiral of the Ocean
Seas, the Viceroy of the Indies, the grand man whom all Spain had
honored and all the world had envied, was held as a prisoner in the land
he had found, and all his powers were taken by a stranger. He was sick,
he was disappointed, he was defeated in all his plans. And now he was in
chains. His third voyage had ended the worst of all. He had sailed away
to find Cathay; he had, so he believed, found the Garden of Eden and
the river of Paradise. And here, as an end to it all, he was arrested
by order of the king and queen he had tried to serve, his power and
position were taken from him by an insolent and unpitying messenger from
Spain; he was thrown into prison and after a few days he was hurried
with his brothers on board a ship and sent to Spain for trial and
punishment. How would it all turn out? Was it not a sad and sorry ending
to his bright dreams of success?