PUBLIC SYMPATHY
We have just seen Columbus land in chains at Cadiz. We next see him
free, traveling in great splendor to that scene of his first successful
interview with Isabella--Granada. What had happened meanwhile to lift
him out of misery and disgrace? Simply what always happens when a really
great man is too harshly punished, a reaction in the public mind.
In all Spain Columbus had hardly a friend; yet when the people of Cadiz
saw him leave Villejo's ship in chains, they were moved with deepest
sympathy. They began telling each other that, no matter what his faults
might be, he had been the first man deliberately to put out across the
dreaded Atlantic and reveal to the world that land, and not monsters,
lay on the other side. Had any one else ever begged, during seven years,
for the privilege thus to risk his life for the benefit of Spain in
particular, and all mankind in general? Even the Portuguese, greatest of
exploring nations, had only hugged the African coast cautiously; but
this man had sailed straight away from land into the setting sun. Even
landsmen appreciated the fine courage that required.
And the first man bold enough to wish to go out and unravel the mystery
of the west now walked in chains from a Spanish ship to a Spanish
prison! It was monstrous ingratitude, all declared; and they did not
hesitate to show their sympathy. The story of his disgrace traveled
rapidly, and everywhere it brought out the better nature of the Spanish
people, who accordingly denounced this harsh treatment by their
sovereigns.
And what had Columbus himself done to help matters along? The wisest
thing that he could have done; he had refrained from writing to
Ferdinand and Isabella. His silence spoke in his favor; for they did not
learn what had happened till a lady-in-waiting at court, a friend of
Columbus and of the queen, received a letter which Columbus had written
during the voyage, and which the good Villejo sent off by a trusty
messenger the minute the ship reached Spain. This lady carried the
shocking news to the queen, perhaps even read the whole letter to her;
if so, Isabella must have winced at this passage: "I have been wounded
extremely by the fact that a man should have been sent out to make
inquiry into my conduct who knew that if he sent home a very aggravated
account against me, he could remain himself at the head of the
government."
Hardly had the queen heard this letter when there came a report from
Villejo containing the same story of Bobadilla's brutal haste in dealing
with the Admiral. And directly after this came an inquiry from the
alcalde (mayor) of Cadiz asking what he should do with his distinguished
prisoner.
Isabella saw it was all too true; Bobadilla had gone to the uttermost
limit of authority without even waiting to try less offensive measures.
She saw that she had selected a very unworthy person for the delicate
task of removing a great man from office. Even Ferdinand, who, as we
have seen, had no great opinion of Columbus, was grieved over the
unhappy affair. Immediately they dispatched a courier to the alcalde
with instructions to set the Admiral free, and to treat him with every
consideration. Then they invited Columbus to come to them at court, and
ordered a credit of two thousand ducats for him, a large sum in those
days, for it was equal to about ten thousand dollars in our money. This
they did without even waiting to hear Bobadilla's side of the story.
Columbus reached Granada in December, 1500; nine years precisely after
the memorable journey that Friar Juan Perez had caused him to make to
the same place. As on his return from the second voyage, when he was
expecting royal reproaches, he received instead only the kindest
treatment. Both Ferdinand and Isabella made him feel, instantly, that,
whatever had gone wrong, they knew his worth and considered him a
distinguished man.
So overcome was he by this magnanimity that it was some minutes before
the white-haired, worn-out man could control his feelings sufficiently
to tell his story. Finally, however, he managed to speak. He admitted
all that had gone amiss in Espanola and said his only excuse was his
inexperience in governing. (Ah, good Admiral, if only you had remembered
your inexperience on that January day in that same city of Granada, when
you insisted on being made Viceroy of all the lands you might discover!)
The queen, while she pitied Columbus profoundly in his distress, was too
wise a woman to let her pity run away with her prudence; so she answered
cautiously:--
"Common report accuses you of acting with a degree of severity quite
unsuitable for an infant colony, and likely to incite rebellion in it.
But the thing I find hardest to pardon is your reducing to slavery many
Indians who had done nothing to deserve such a fate. This was contrary
to my express orders. As ill fortune willed it, just at the time that
news came to me of this breach of my instructions, everybody was
complaining of you; no one spoke a word in your favor. I felt obliged to
send a commissioner to the Indies to investigate and give me a true
report, and, if necessary, to put limits to the authority you were
accused of overstepping. If he found you guilty of the charges against
you, he was to relieve you of the government and send you to Spain to
give an account of your stewardship. This was the extent of his
commission. I find that I have made a bad choice in my agent, and I
shall take care to make an example of Bobadilla so as to warn others not
to exceed their power. But I cannot promise at once to reinstate you as
governor. As to your rank of Admiral, I never intended to deprive you of
it. But you must abide your time and trust in me."
Isabella's reply is a model of fairness and prudence so far as Columbus
is concerned, but it is hardly fair to Bobadilla. The comendador had
been brutal, it is true; but it was not true that he had gone beyond the
extent of his commission. His brutality consisted in pouncing upon the
offender without any preliminaries whatever. Yet it turned out that, in
acting thus, he did the best possible thing for Columbus's subsequent
treatment. There is no doubt that had he proceeded slowly, with a fair
and formal inquiry into all the complaints against the Admiral, it would
have been clearly shown that, from the very beginning, everything had
gone wrong in the colony. The Indians, once friendly, were now bitter
against the Spaniards. The colonists were a bad lot, but Columbus
himself had examined and accepted most of them before the ships left
Spain.
If mistakes were committed while he was absent exploring Cuba, they were
made by his brothers and by those whom he himself had selected to rule
in his absence. All of this evidence would have been against Columbus,
who in consequence would have been deposed as governor and sent home to
answer Bobadilla's charges before a royal court of inquiry. Arriving as
a man disgraced after a fair trial, nobody's sympathies would have been
stirred. It was precisely because Bobadilla had acted like a brute
instead of like a wise judge that everybody denounced him and pitied his
victim.
Considering all this, and considering that Columbus himself had admitted
his "inexperience in government" to the queen, it is astonishing to
learn that he was deeply hurt because she did not reinstate him
instantly as ruler of the island! Experience had taught the great
discoverer but little. At a moment when he should have fallen on his
knees in thankfulness because he would never again have to be
responsible for that colony of vicious men, he instead felt hurt! He
wanted to return and start the whole sorry business over again.
Moreover, he protested, as indeed he had been doing for years, because
other navigators were imploring the monarchs to break their contract
giving _him_ a monopoly of western exploration, and to allow them
to undertake voyages, asking no government assistance whatsoever. Now
was the time for him to say, "It is to Spain's interest that she send as
many explorers as possible over to these new lands, in order that we may
quickly determine how many islands there really are, and whether what I
last visited was the mainland; only, pray let me hasten back free from
every responsibility except that of a navigator; so that I, who so
justly deserve the first chance of exploring the new lands, may get
there ahead of these others who are clamoring to go."
Had Columbus been businesslike enough to make this proposition to the
monarchs, he need not have died in ignorance of the prodigious fact that
he had discovered a great continent undreamed-of by Europeans. But,
instead of renouncing his monopoly, he complained that licenses had been
granted to others to sail west in violation of the agreement that he
alone, and his descendants after him, should sail among the new lands.
This attitude annoyed King Ferdinand exceedingly.
For Columbus to hope to keep this monopoly in his own family was
madness; as by this time other countries, having heard of his opening up
the way, had sent out explorers to plant their standards. John and
Sebastian Cabot had gone out from Bristol, England, to Newfoundland, and
had discovered, in June, 1497, the North American continent before
Columbus had touched South America. Early in 1499 one of the pilots who
had accompanied Columbus on his Cuban trip secured a license, and not
only explored the Central American coast for several hundred miles, but
traded his European trifles and gewgaws with the natives for gold and
silver, returning to Spain with real profits.
That same year, 1499, Vicente Pinzon of Palos, who with his brother
Martin had made the first voyage, also secured a license and sailed
southwest over the equator, discovering the Amazon River and taking
possession of Brazil for Spain. Our adventurous acquaintance Ojeda also
had been busy. When the Paria pearls arrived in Sevilla, he asked his
friend Fonseca to show him both the pearls and Columbus's map of
Trinidad and the neighboring coast. Although Ojeda had recently been in
open rebellion against the Admiral in Haiti, as we have seen, Fonseca
did not hesitate to let him see where the pearl land lay; and so Ojeda,
with an Italian named Vespucci, whom we shall meet later, sailed to
Paria and gathered its wealth.
Also, in this year so great for navigation, a Portuguese fleet of
thirteen ships set out from Lisbon to round the Cape of Good Hope. In
trying to escape the long calms which had beset Bartolome Dias in the
Gulf of Guinea, Pedro Cabral, commander of the fleet, struck out quite
far from the Morocco coast and got into the Equatorial Current. The
existence of this powerful westward current had never been suspected by
either Spanish or Portuguese mariners. Wind and current combining,
Cabral and his captains found themselves, in about a month's time, on
the coast of Brazil near the present Rio de Janeiro. Thus a current
never before known carried them to land never before known. And thus for
the second time, if the shipwrecked pilot told the truth, America was
discovered by accident.
All this had given Europe some idea of the vastness of the world to the
west. If Columbus was to bring his own discoveries to a glorious finish,
it was high time that, instead of quibbling over maintaining a contract,
he should have given up the empty honors that were to have been his, and
have asked only for permission to hurry back and discover more land.
Ferdinand, who now saw that the islands would need not one but a dozen
governors if ever they were to be colonized and developed, would not
hear of reinstating Columbus as governor. The most the monarchs would
give him in the way of satisfaction was that Bobadilla should be removed
and another man, who had had nothing to do thus far with the quarrels of
the New World, should be appointed for two years. This new governor,
whose name was Nicolas de Ovando, was specially instructed to protect
Columbus's profits in the colony, if profits there should ever be.
Orders were given that the property of Columbus and his brothers, which
Bobadilla had confiscated, was to be restored; and whenever gold was
found and smelted, Columbus's share was to be put aside for him. This
proved that the sovereigns intended to be just to Columbus, but the
latter was nevertheless much depressed over his lost dignities.
The Comendador Ovando, of the famous religious order called the Knights
of Alcantara, was appointed to succeed Bobadilla, and began his
preparations with certain definite and practical ideas on the subject of
colonizing. He was the first to see that respectable married men with
their wives and children were needed to give the settlement character;
so he offered, or asked the sovereigns to offer, proper inducement to
married men. He also secured as many trained workers as possible--
artisans and craftsmen. His other measures appear less wise; that is, he
felt he must go in state and dignity, else the people would not regard
his authority; so he took many body servants and house servants, and
rich priestly robes, for he relied a great deal on the appearance of
power. No less than thirty-five vessels would suffice to carry his
twenty-five hundred passengers (among them Bartolome de las Casas) to
San Domingo; and when he started in all his state, the heart of Columbus
was sad and sore.
"Ah," thought he, "if only _I_ had had decent men, instead of jail-
birds and loafers!" and he pondered sadly on his many misfortunes.
And still the monarchs kept him waiting and would not furnish him with a
fleet. While he was waiting came the bitter and disquieting news that
Portuguese explorers were returning in a stream from the Indian Ocean
with exceedingly rich cargoes, all justly traded for in the markets of
Calcutta. Why, he groaned, had _his_ India been so barren of
riches?
He began to ponder over all the theories he had read concerning the
geography of the world, and to wonder what his discoveries might really
be. If it dawned upon him that he had struck islands fringing on
absolutely new, unsuspected land, he appears to have dismissed the
extraordinary idea, and to have come back to Martin Alonzo Pinzon's
theory that he, by sailing west over the globe, had come to Asiatic
regions. It must be so, he argued. Marco Polo had made known the fact
that an ocean bounded Asia on the east, and that ocean must be the
Atlantic, which continued across to Europe. The Indian Ocean which the
Portuguese had crossed must be the southern part of the Atlantic, where
it curved around Asia's southern shores. Ah, if only he could reach it!
If only he had sailed straight for the rich mainland, instead of wasting
his time on those pretty islands, inhabited only by a "poor people"!
He began to recall how the land north of the Gulf of Paria stretched far
west; how the southern shore of Cuba stretched far west; how the
currents of the Caribbean Sea indicated, by the fact that they had
washed Cuba, Haiti, and Porto Rico into their long narrow east-and-west
shape that somewhere in the west they passed through a strait which
separated some large island from southeastern Asia; and that strait must
lead into the Indian Ocean--the very ocean the Portuguese were now
sailing so profitably! He wisely resolved to linger no longer in Spain,
importuning for his lost governorship, but to undertake a fourth voyage
and find this passage.
Good reasoning, all this about "the strait," if only facts had been
geographically correct; and a brave determination, too, for an old man
afflicted with rheumatism and fever and bad sight to resolve to put out
once more on that boisterous ocean. We salute you, Don Cristobal! You
are a true navigator, never afraid of hardships and labor and perplexing
problems. Even had you not discovered America for us, we still would
salute you, because you were a tremendous worker!
Full of his new plan, Columbus left beautiful Granada where he had spent
two empty years and went to Sevilla. King Ferdinand readily granted him
four ships, for the Admiral Cristobal Colon, off on a voyage of
discovery, was not nearly so troublesome as the deposed governor and
viceroy, lingering around the court to obtain his lost title and
revenues.
The fitting out of the ships restored his spirits considerably. Whenever
Christopher had to do with boats and sea preparations he was in his
element. He now grew optimistic, and, with his usual fatal habit of
promising great results, he told his Sevilla acquaintances that he
expected to circumnavigate the world. Fatal habit, yes; but it meant
that he still kept that rich imagination, without which he never would
have made his first voyage.
Meanwhile, he realized that he was getting old, and that he might never
come back from this trip. His thoughts often turned to his native Genoa,
where he had played so happily as a child in the Vico Dritto di
Ponticello; so, one day he sat down and generously wrote to the
authorities of Genoa that, should his claims against the Spanish Crown
ever be settled, a part of his money was to be used in paying the
Genoese tax on wheat and wine, so that the poor might buy these two
staples at a lower price.
Finally all was ready; four small, weather-beaten ships; a crew of one
hundred and fifty men and boys; a few months' provisions. His brother
Bartholomew, not very willingly, and his son Fernando, almost too
eagerly, accompanied him. This, his fourth and last voyage, started from
Cadiz on May 9, 1502.