The last voyages of the Admiral of the ocean sea, as related by himself and his companions

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THE LAST VOYAGES

Preface

IT is not consistent with that spirit of justice which is the inheritance of the true American that any man, however long dead, should be condemned unheard, or upon a partial record. Few among the men of action of his time left such ample declaration both of purpose and performance as did Columbus, yet none has been more mercilessly assailed upon ex parte evidence. Weighty names have of late asked the world of students to accept their individual estimates of the great sailor's character based upon their presentation of his aims and actions, treating his own utterances as insignificant or untrustworthy. Were we limited to the chronicles of his life and deeds as apprehended by contemporary or later historians, this method might be necessary ; but happily the case is otherwise. The letters and reports of Columbus are neither scanty nor difficult of access, and there is no good reason apparent to us why the reader should not be enabled to form his conclusions at first hand. There is no occasion for treating as a mystery the open book of this man's life, for he himself knew neither reserve nor artifice in its inditing. Of him it may in truth be said, that out of his own mouth is he to be judged.

The story of Columbus, as we know it, is sharply divided into two epochs, — the twelvemonth which covers the Discovery, and the fourteen years which succeeded it. The goings

6 PREFACE.

and comings of the Genoese sailor offered so little to distinguish them from those of his colleagues, before his name was connected with a preeminent exploit, that even the microscopic investigations of a Harrisse have failed to reconstruct the life of Columbus prior to 1492. Had we that volume of " Reminiscences " which the Admiral wrote in his later years, the story of his earlier days might be told with satisfactory fulness. In the absence of all but fragmentary allusions, that story must remain imperfect. It is, after all, from the years following the Discovery that an adequate conception of the Admiral's personality under varying conditions is to be gained, and it is, consequently, the more welcome that the blanks in this portion of his history are relatively so few.

In the attempt we here make to set before our readers the motives and actions of the Admiral and Viceroy, as distinguished from the finder of San Salvador, we have limited ourselves to the materials left by the participants themselves, leaving to each reader the apportionment of applause or censure as to him may seem fitting. The familiar chronicles of Oviedo, Gomara, and Bernaldez (the Cura de los Palacios) are but rarely drawn upon ; Herrera is seldom quoted, for he merely paraphrased Las Casas, — however much modern historians may quote him as an original authority ; Ferdinand Columbus is not deemed a first-rate source of knowledge except for the Fourth Voyage ; and Peter Martyr only when relating what he directly gathered from conversations or correspondence with the Admiral and his associates. Benzoni, of course, is discarded as of no weight for this period or anything relating to it, and the mass of contradictions attributed to Vespucci is taken for what it is worth. The greater portion of our narrative is drawn immediately from the writings of Columbus and some of his associates, as collected by Navarrete and scattered through the history of Las Casas.

PREFACE. 7

As a measure of justice to our readers, we have in all cases made our own translation direct from the originals of all material used. We know that the speech of Columbus was strongly tinctured with Portuguese, and the eftects of his long residence among that people are equally apparent in the extreme rudeness and compression of his written language. This often lends vigor to his expressions, but sometimes obscures his meaning ; hence more than usual care is needed in converting his phrases. Selections from his writings have been done into English by Major and Kettell ; but neither of these versions is easy of access to the general reader, and we do not assume to disparage the scholarship of either learned translator in saying that, for any serious purpose, their renderings are quite inadmissible. If any writer is worth quoting at all, he is worth quoting correctly, and harm enough has been already done the cause of honest history by drawing hasty conclusions from erroneously reported premises.

Englewood, N.J.,

October, 1892.

Contents

Chapter Page

I. New Lands beyond the Sea ii

II. Founding the Great Monopoly 32

III. The Beginning Of Emigration

SEVENTEEN vessels rode at anchor in the harbor of Cadiz, awaiting the orders of the Admiral of the Ocean Sea, Three of these were ships, properly speaking, — caracks of 200 or 300 tons burthen, — the "Gallega," a Biscayan craft, as her name indicates, the "Maria Galante," on which the Admiral sailed, and a third whose name is not given. The remaining fourteen were better adapted to purposes of exploration, being caravels of light draft and small tonnage, varying from thirty or forty to seventy or eighty tons. Among the latter was one which bore the proud distinction of having already made the hazardous passage, — one whose clumsy bows had parted the quiet waters of many a land-locked harbor in the mysterious Indies, and whose rude timbers had borne the shock of many a gale in seas whose very existence had been denied for a thousand years. We find no particular mention of the sturdy little worldfinder in the scanty chronicles of the day : if any of the thousands who watched the flotilla as it lay off the Cadiz mole pointed her out as worthy of remark, it was doubtless some weather-beaten seaman who had made the previous voyage with the Sefior Colon and spoke with pride of the "Nina" as a mute witness to the truth of the wonders he related. But, all unheralded as she was, the staunch caravel was destined to acquire fresh fame upon this new cruise and to write her name again on History's page before she joined the ships of Jason and Ulysses, of Hanno and Necho, in the shadowy realms where drift //; saeciila saecidoj-um the 50 phantom craft which have taught mankind that the horizon is but the To-morrow of the physical world.

On Tuesday, the 24th of September, all was ready aboard the fleet, and the Admiral issued his orders to weigh anchor on the following morning. It is not likely that there was much rest on the crowded ships. The spirit of ambition and adventure was too rife in that tumultuous throng to allow the eve of their departure for the Golden Indies to be passed in inglorious peace. Their plans, their hopes, their deeds, their destinies, had to be vaunted, debated, and challenged in turn on such an occasion, or the followers of the Admiral would have been no true children of sunny Spain. On shore, too, the vigil of excitement was kept, for the good people of Cadiz took both interest and pride in the sailing of the expedition. Its success meant for their city, in the near future, busy wharves and teeming warehouses; cargoes of spices, of silks, of slaves, perchance of gold; profits for their merchants and brilliant careers for their lads. Thus, as the night grew old and the land breeze drew down from the heights, it bore across the bay towards the ships the shouts and cries of friends on shore, to mingle with the louder uproar of the multitude afloat. When day dawned on Wednesday, the 25th, both the decks and the beaches were thronged with expectant crowds. The creaking of tackle and shouts of command bore witness to the immediate sailing of the fleet, and the slowly hoisting sails waved a ghostly adios through the gray morning light to the assemblage which lined the water-front. The Admiral's flagship was the first to get under weigh, leading the fleet out past the Diamond Bank and so to the open sea. As the sails filled and the vessels gathered way, the cheers from ship and shore mingled with the blare of trumpet and roll of drum, until the whole scene took on the aspect of a joyous pageant. Before the sun rose, the bows of the little squadron were breasting the Atlantic billows and the first great emigration to the New World was fairly begun.

One picturesque incident we owe to the letters of an eye-witness who was watching the stirring scene. Among the vessels at anchor in the harbor was a Venetian fleet.

which had entered the port a few days before. Now, as the Spanish squadron swept out into the open, the hardy sea-dogs of the Adriatic lined their bulwarks and shouted lustily their wishes for a fair passage and a speedy return, after the generous fashion of sailor-men. If, as he stood on the poop of his flagship, the pulse of Columbus quickened while he listened to these cheers, his pride was justifiable; for Venice was the ancient rival of Spain in the navigation of the European seas, and her sailors had been the Admiral's own foes on many an occasion in the longpast days when he sailed under the orders of his native Genoa. For centuries the Queen of the Adriatic had held the keys of the only gates to the Orient, through the world-old road of Syria and Egypt; but the caravels now exchanging vivas with her galleys in the Andalusian harbor were bound for the ports of Cipango and Cathay by a route which was still a mystery to all the world save their Majesties of Spain and their Admiral, but which the latter did not doubt was destined to wrest from Venice her long-held commercial supremacy. Unconscious as they were of any such sequel, the shouts with which the men of St. Mark hailed the new Viceroy of the Indies, as the "Maria Galante " glided by, were the Moritiiri Salutamiis of the passing traffic of the marble city in the lagoons.

In compliance with his instructions Columbus steered a southwest course as soon as he was off soundings and headed direct for the Canaries, thus avoiding all chance of an approach to the coasts of Portugal. The weather was fair, the breeze favorable, and ere long even the keenest eye could see nothing in the North but the same tumbling sea which stretched away into the haunted West.

"The fleet which their Catholic Majesties, our Sovereigns, have sent from Spain to the Indies and the government of their Admiral of the Ocean Sea, Christopher Columbus, by the divine permission set sail from Cadiz the 25th day of September in the year 1493, with weather and wind favorable for our course. This weather lasted two days, during which we made about fifty leagues ; then it changed for other two days, during which we made little or nothing. After this it pleased God that the good weather should return, so that in two days more we arrived at the Great Canary, wliere we made a port."

So opens the journal or report which Dr. Chanca, surgeon of the fleet, wrote for the information of the Municipal Council of Seville, his native city. Its prosaic baldness is strikingly indicative of the widely diverse sentiment with which the sailing of the first andfsecond expeditions of Columbus were regarded, and no homily could be more eloquent of the instability of human emotions. It was only thirteen months since the three little vessels had left Palos on their desperate undertaking ; only six since the " Nifia " had returned with her amazing evidences of prodigious discovery and her tidings were hailed by the learned of all Europe as the fulfilment of ancient prophecy; only four since, as the result of that first voyage, the burly profligate who arrogated to himself the authority of Omnipotence had bestowed the half of the world upon the monarchs who had advanced a few thousand dollars to his " beloved son Christopher Columbus " for the mighty venture. And yet, upon a repetition of that voyage, we find one of the few men of education engaged therein jotting down in colorless sentences his notes about the weather, as though a journey to the Indies were no longer an occasion for special comment. The novelty of the Admiral's famous exploit had worn off; the finding of the New World was already an old story.

To this same indifference we owe the poverty of detail concerning the companions of Columbus on this expedition. How many of his comrades of the Discovery were now returning with him we cannot determine. Some of them certainly were, but their number at best was insignificant in comparison with that of the new men who packed the vessels far beyond their normal capacity. When a muster was made, after leaving Spain, it was found that fifteen hundred souls were crowded into the quarters originally destined for one thousand. Here was more trouble assured for the near future; for the provisions which were ample for the smaller number would be scanty for half as many more. A month's voyage, in an open caravel under a tropical sun, which would be barely endurable with the larger allowance of room, would be insupportable when this was reduced by one-half; and the intruders, as "no man's men," not being in the royal pay-rolls, would have a constant pretext for complaint and mischief-making. Presumably, moreover, they were in large part those who had already been rejected when the applicants were examined at Seville, and hence •ould bear no good will towards the commander or his lieutenants. Fortunately for the Admiral, there was also a contingent of men of substance and reputation who might be depended upon to support his authoritv, — at least until this should conflict with their own pride or interests. Too many of them, indeed, held their appointments direct from the Crown and considered themselves entitled, in case of dispute, to appeal from the Admiral to their Majesties; but this source of weakness did not develop at the outset. Rather did Columbus have cause to congratulate himself as he thought of the men who had been chosen to accompany him, — officers who had won distinction in the royal armies; officials of trust and confidence in Court and Council; dignitaries of the great military orders; churchmen of noted sanctity and ardor. Surely, he might have argued, so goodly a company could be trusted to sustain him in any contingency which should arise; if not from any sentiment of personal loyalty, at least from the allegiance they owed the Crown and its interests. Only on this hypothesis can we account for the complacency with which he bade farewell to Spain and started on an absence which must necessarily be a long one, and during which, but for these men of the better sort, he must stand absolutely alone amid surroundings and in circumstances which would appal the most reckless adventurer, were he to think of facing them unsupported.

How small a proportion of his followers proved worthy of their leader's confidence the sequel will show; but there were many in the number, disloyal as well as loyal, who achieved their share of fame in the opening decades of our continent's history. Among them were Ponce de Leon, of nielancholy Floridian fame; Diego de Alvarado, who fought

SO masterfully with Pizarro ; Francisco de Garay, who ruffled it so bravely against Cortez; and many another who helped storm Mexico and threw the dice for the spoils of Cuzco. On the Admiral's flagship was his younger brother, Diego, whom Columbus had summoned from Genoa to share his fortunes when he found himself a famous man six months before. "A virtuous person, very sensible, peaceable of disposition, and rather straightforward and well-meaning than reserved or designing. He was always soberly dressed, almost like a priest, and I believe he thought to be a bishop, and that the Admiral sought to make him one, or at least to obtain for him some preferment in the Church." This is the opinion of a writer who knew all the brothers Colombo, or Columbus, — Fray Bartolom6 de las Casas, himself afterwards bishop of Chiapas in Yucatan but better known by his nobler title of Protector of the Indians. His father, Pedro de las Casas, was with Columbus on this second voyage, but not the son, as is most usually asserted. A vivid contrast to Diego Columbus, who proved himself no faint heart despite his clerical tastes, was Alonso de Hojeda, a youth of twenty-one years, who had already attracted the attention of his sovereigns by his deeds of prowess and now commanded one of the caravels. Attached to the retinue of that Duke of Medina Cell whose powerful patronage Columbus had enjoyed when he first came to Spain in 1484 and by whom his project of discovery was first presented to the Queen, Hojeda had the best of influences in his favor when he applied to the Admiral for a place in his second expedition.

We have the testimony of his commander that the sinewy young Andalusian soldier was "a very intelligent lad and possessed of a daring spirit," on which account Columbus entrusted him with more than one important mission. His fame rests less on these, however, than on his exploits when prosecuting voyages of his own along the coasts of Terra Firma; for Hojeda was the prototype of all the long line of throat-cutting Spanish butchers who, under the thin disguise of an alleged concern for their spiritual welfare, carried fire and sword among the peaceable inhabitants of the western world. Others there were in the motley throng on the caravels who achieved their measure of a like notoriety, but whatever distinction attaches to priority in evil belongs here to Hojeda, and none contributed more generously than he to the black record of cruelty, extortion and rapine which weighed so heavily against the brilliant achievements in the New World of which Castile was so justly proud. Still one more figure may be detached from the throng, — that of Juan de la Cosa, the seaman who, even in the days of Magellan, Cabot, and Cabral, came to be known as "the ablest pilot of his times." No one, not excepting Columbus, crossed the Atlantic oftener or explored more persistently the unknown coasts of the unnamed continent. Unfortunately, later on he transferred his allegiance from the Admiral to Hojeda, and met his death, like the brave Spaniard he was, fighting single-handed against a horde of savages on one of the forays led by his hot-headed associate. To him we owe the oldest map of the western world which has come down to us, and to him Americus Vespucci was in later years still more indebted for much of the knowledge of which he made such skilful use.

Vespucci himself was not engaged in this voyage. There is no evidence to show (for his own assertions as to dates go for nothing) that he ever crossed the Western Ocean before 1499.^ But he had a left-handed connection with the expedition, for he was factor, or manager, or whatever it was, for Juanoto Berardi, the contractor who supplied in large part the outfit for the fleet. No one at this late date

1 Professor Fiske, in his masterly " Discovery of America," has laid the shade of Vespucci under lasting obligations by his ingenious and powerful argument in support of Vespucci's date, 1497, for the discovery of Yucatan, Mexico, and Florida by Vicente Yaiiez Pinzon and Solis, accompanied by the Florentine in a subordinate capacity. At the same time, Vespucci himself asserts that the natives of La7-iab — which Professor Fiske identifies with the Mexican coast — called themselves Cariabi., which is obviously the same as Caribs and entirely inconsistent with the Yucatan-Mexico theory; and both Las Casas and Peter Martyr explicitly declare that Pinzon and Solis made their voyage after the return of Columbus from his last expedition in 1504. Herrera, whom Professor Fiske quotes in support of his argument, merely copied from Las Casas and omitted the latter's allusion to Columbus.

believes that the imaginative Florentine really entered into a deep-laid scheme to saddle his entirely commonplace name upon the continent he was so far from discovering. Perhaps the worst that can be charged to him is that he husbanded his eloquence when a very few words of honest disavowal would have saved him from being branded as a fraud for four hundred years, and ourselves from the necessity of explaining that, although we call ourselves "Americans," we really know better. At all events, his first connection with the continent discovered by Columbus consisted in the furnishing to this fleet of a great quantity of supplies, — provisions and ship-stores of all kinds. It may have been only an unhappy coincidence that most of the casks the contractors supplied leaked so that water became scarce and a year's store of wine ran into the bilges of the caravels within the month, and that the biscuit and salt meat could not stand the voyage. The Admiral, in reporting the facts, does not intimate that it was Vespucci's fault, for to the day of his death he was a loyal friend to the glib Florentine; but these untoward events did happen, and Vespucci was the responsible agent for the fitting-out of the ships : so that it should appear that he was no more fortunate, at this early period, in the integrity of his supplies than he was, later on, in that of his logbooks.

We wish that we might know with equal assurance of the presence on or absence from the flagship of a far more interesting personality and one far more closely connected with the finding of the western hemisphere. Whether among the Admiral's associates was to be seen the spare form of Fray Juan Perez, of Marchena, lately father superior of the convent of La Rabida at Palos, is unfortunately a disputed question. Owing to the frequent and excessive divergences which had existed in the computations made by the pilots of the "Santa Maria," "Pinta," and "Nina" in the prior voyage, Columbus had proposed to their Majesties, before leaving Seville, the appointment of an astronomer to accompany him on his return to the Indies, whose duty it should be to study the changing stars and record his observations for the greater security of the pilots in making their observations. He was himself far more deeply versed in this art than most navigators of the day and had been most fortunate in his own estimates of latitude and longitude on the former expedition; but, either because he had found the risk of relying on one set of observations to be too great, or because he wished to have the assistance of a trusty coadjutor in the work of navigation, he had brought the proposal before the King and Queen. One man there was, abundantly qualified for the position, who had the confidence both of the sovereigns and their Admiral. That one was the learned friar whose interest in astronomy and its sister science, geography, had stood Columbus in such good stead when he knocked at the gate of the little convent above Palos two years before, as he was leaving Spain, disheartened.

As successful advocate before the Queen of the plans of Columbus for a western voyage, there were peculiar reasons why the appointment of Juan Perez should be acceptable to all interested. Their Majesties accordingly forwarded to Columbus, just prior to his sailing, a commission for the office of astronomer, accompanied by a letter which strikingly manifests the extreme consideration with which they deferred to the Admiral's wishes. "It seems well to us," they wrote, "that you should take with you a capable astronomer, and that Fray Antonio of Marchena would be a good man for this office, both because he is skilled in that art and because he has always seemed to us to agree with your views. Therefore, if you think well of him for the place, let him go; if not, then any one else you may choose. We send you our commission for him with the name in blank; fill it in for whomever you think should go. But do not delay a single hour on this account; for if he does not go now he can follow in some one of the caravels which we shall have occasion to send after you to inform you of what happens here." Unhappily the record goes no further; nothing authoritative remains for us to determine whether the priest to whom- Ainerica owes so much sailed for the new lands with the man he had aided so efficiently to find them. It is not probable that he did, for Columbus makes no mention of his friend in recording, later on, the names of those who rendered service on this expedition, and an intentional omission is not conceivable. From this time Fray Juan Perez of La Rabida — the Fray Antonio of Marchena, as some called him — disappears from the record.

Little did the mass of the Admiral's followers care for the means by which the New World ^ was discovered or the people who had planned the deed. All they cared for was to reach speedily those distant shores where both spices and gold "grew," and where there were none to oppose their harvesting save naked savages or, at the worst, the illarmed levies of some Tartar prince. As for the Sea of Darkness across which lay their path, its mystery was exploded. The Admiral and his men had crossed and recrossed it in safety a few months before, and they knew whither to steer. It was small concern of any one else where the new lands lay.

On Wednesday, the 2nd of October, the eighth day after leaving Cadiz, the fleet came in sight of the Great Canary and made for the first harbor. Columbus had wished to reach Gomera, another of the Canary group, where there was a settlement of some size from which he could obtain fresh supplies and water; but one of the caravels had sprung a leak and he made for the nearest port to repair it. It was not until after midnight that he could continue his voyage, and then a succession of calms detained him until the 5 th, when he anchored before Gomera. Here he spent two days in taking on wood and water, fowls, swine (eight of these interesting animals, at seventy-five cents each), sheep, goats and calves, and a stock of seeds and cuttings of oranges, lemons, citrons, melons, and other fruits and vegetables. When he had stopped here the year before, on his outward voyage, the townspeople had filled his inexperienced sailors with wild tales of the horrors of

1 We use the phrase advisedly; not as intimating that it was so called at the time of which we.write, but that it was such in fact to all who had heard of the strange lands oversea.

the unknown Western Ocean, and prophesied for captain and crew alike a dreadful annihilation. Now they, too, looked with complacency upon the conversion of what had been from time immemorial the Sea of Terrors into an ocean highway, and cheerfully drove their thriving trade with the man whom twelve months ago they had considered a hair-brained enthusiast sailing to a certain doom. But the Admiral was in no mood to tarry at Gomera and exchange "I told thee so's" with the men who had until so lately believed that only Chaos lay west of their islands. By Tuesday, the 7th, he was ready to hoist all sail and stand for the farther side of the Atlantic. He had promised Diego de Arana and the thirty-eight men left at the fortress of Navidad under the protection of King Guacanagari that he would make all speed to return to them; and, now that all was ready, he was anxious to redeem his pledge. Before leaving Gomera he handed the pilot of each vessel a sealed packet, containing the course to be sailed in order to reach Guacanagari's territory in Hispaniola, with positive injunctions not to break the seals unless the squadron should be dispersed by some tempest. In that case the pilots were to steer direct for Navidad; but, failing such disaster, they were merely to follow his lead. This precaution he deemed necessary in order to avoid all possibility of any knowledge of his route being communicated intentionally or by accident to the Portuguese ; for he still expected to encounter them somewhere before reaching the Indies. This provision made, he weighed anchor and started on what Dr. Chanca naively describes as " the long journey it was proposed to make without seeing land." The fleet encountered calm weather shortly after leaving port, and it was not until the 13th that they passed Ferro, the westernmost of the Canaries, and got fairly out to sea. Columbus felt some anxiety to get clear of the archipelago, for it was just here that, the year before, a Portuguese flotilla had almost succeeded in intercepting him as he began his westward passage. No signs of an enemy now appeared, however, and the expedition settled down to the dull routine of the voyage that was ahead of them.

"By God's blessing favorable weather returned to us," Dr. Chanca writes, "the best that ever fleet enjoyed on so long a course; so that, having left Ferro on the 13th of October, we saw land on the twentieth day thereafter. We should have seen it in fourteen or fifteen, if the flagship had been as good a sailer as the other vessels; for often the others had to shorten sail, as they were dropping us far astern. In all this time we encountered no gale, save on the eve of St. Simon, when one fell upon us which for four hours placed us in great straits."