II
The significance of these early voyages of the Portuguese lies in the fact that thereby it was demonstrated that a shorter route was needed—that with the very small and badly equipped vessels of the period the trip around the Cape of Good Hope, at least for commercial purposes, was impracticable; also in the fact that with Dias had sailed the Genoese navigator Bartholomew Columbus, a brother of the discoverer of America.
Years before that first great achievement, Christopher Columbus—who had studied at the University of Pavia and had himself taken part in one or more of Prince Henry’s African expeditions, and even ventured to the northwest, probably as far as Iceland—had been converted to the theory that the world was round and that the oceans west of Europe and east of Cathay were the same. As a consequence, he had concluded, the East Indies (as India, China, Japan, and the other countries and islands east of the Indian Ocean were indiscriminately called) could be reached from Europe by sailing west. Eighteen years before he was finally enabled to put this theory to the test, he had written Toscanelli, one of the foremost astronomers of the time, asking his opinion as to this possibility. Toscanelli sent him a copy of a letter he had written shortly before to King Alfonso of Portugal on the same subject, in which he said:
“I have formerly spoken of a shorter route to the places of spices than you are pursuing by Guinea. Although I am well aware that this can be proved by the spherical shape of the earth, in order to make the point clearer I have decided to exhibit that route by means of a sailing chart, made by my own hands, whereon are laid down your coasts and the islands from which you must begin to shape your course steadily westward, the places at which you are bound to arrive and how far from the pole or equator you ought to keep away.” (Neither in the chart nor in the description was there indication of anything whatever resembling the continents of North and South America.) “From the city of Lisbon as far as the very great and splendid city of Quinsay” (Pekin), he continued, “are twenty-six spaces, each of 250 miles. This space is about a third of the whole sphere. But from the Island of Antilia, which you know, to the very splendid Island of Cipango” (Japan) “there are ten spaces. So, through the unknown parts of the route, the stretches of sea are not great.”
In his letter to Columbus he congratulates him on having undertaken an enterprise—
“Fraught with honor, as it must be, and inestimable gain and most lofty fame among all Christian peoples. It will be a voyage to powerful kingdoms” (he prophetically added, though he had never even dreamed of the empires of the Aztecs and the Incas) “and to cities and provinces most wealthy and noble. It will also be advantageous to those kings and princes who are eager to have dealings and make alliances with the Christians of other countries. For these and many other reasons, I do not wonder that you, who are of great courage, and the whole Portuguese nation, which has always had men distinguished in such enterprises, are now inflamed with a desire to make the voyage.”
Thus encouraged, Columbus began his efforts to secure patronage and money for the expedition. He tried in his birthplace, Genoa, and in Portugal and Spain, even in England, where he was accompanied by his brother Bartholomew after the latter’s return from the voyage to the Cape of Good Hope, and suffered many refusals. Toscanelli had been dead eight years before he at last succeeded; and then, had he known that the distance from Lisbon to the coast of Asia was in fact some 13,000 miles, or twice that which the astronomer had estimated, and that, even so, the route straight across was barred by the Isthmus of Panama—had he known that Cathay did not, as his mentor believed, extend some thousands of miles farther east than it does, even such a man as Columbus might have abandoned the project as chimerical when the cockleshells then available for ocean travel were taken into consideration. Nor, if she too had not been misled by the same “valuable pieces of ignorance,” is it likely that his plea would have prevailed on the practical Isabella of Castile, however elated and invincible she may have felt over the taking of the last of the Saracen strongholds at Granada and the expulsion of the Moors from Spain, for in that she was engaged when Columbus finally succeeded in securing her aid.
Fortunately, however, whatever might have happened if Toscanelli had not held the voyage to be practicable, Columbus was not only a man of indomitable spirit but possessed of a presence that inspired in others the confidence he felt in himself. A man of striking personality, he is said to have been about forty-five years of age at the time, tall, well formed, and dignified, with sharp gray eyes, alight with “that divine spark of enthusiasm which makes true genius,” and hair prematurely white. And so, in spite of his many disheartening failures, he did not abandon the project; so also was Queen Isabella sufficiently impressed by his learning and appearance to agree, in consideration of a fifth share in the profits, that he should have the rank of Admiral and govern, as Viceroy, all the lands that he might discover and bring under her dominion. With the great astronomer’s chart before him, therefore, and vowing to devote his share of the profits to the rescue of the Holy Sepulcher, he set out from Palos, Spain, on the 3d of August, 1492. His vessels, the Niña, Pinta (well named the “Pint Cup”), and Santa María, bore a company of but ninety, including the crews.
After a voyage of ten weeks, filled with difficulties and hardships, even threats of mutiny, that taxed his courage and diplomacy to the utmost, he came to land on an island (now known as Watling’s) on the outward bow of the Bahamas, to which he gave the name of San Salvador. The wild beauty of the foliage, the tropical luxuriance, the clear, fresh-water streams, the soft climate and perfume-laden breezes, more than ever delightful to men who had given themselves up for lost, and the natives themselves, bedecked with gold ornaments and dusky-skinned as those of Cathay were said to be—all seemed what might have been expected in the outlying spice islands of the east. So, supposing this to be one of those islands of which they were in quest, the adventurers cruised about for ten days more and finally arrived at Cuba, which they assumed to be Cipango.
In his infatuation, Columbus now saw his journey’s end. He had, he thought, but to sail a few courses farther to reach the mainland of Cathay, exchange compliments with the Great Khan at Quinsay, and return in triumph with the wealth he was to amass and herald the news of his wonderful achievement to a skeptical Europe. And all the while Cathay was ten thousand miles away—due west! Sailing across the strait to Hayti, he was directed south by the natives when questioned as to the source of their gold; but there, for the time being, his explorations were brought to an end. The flagship was wrecked on a sand bar and Pinzon, captain of one of the remaining two, stole treacherously away, to anticipate the Admiral in announcing the discoveries in Spain. Leaving a volunteer colony of about forty men to await his return with reinforcements, however, he at once set sail, overtook and captured the deserters, and, on the way back to Palos, was driven into the port of Lisbon by a gale.
“The news of his exploit set all Portugal afire,” says Hawthorne.
“The King was urged to have Columbus run through the body and to appropriate his discovery; but John II perceived that there was more peril than profit in such a scheme, and he invited him to court and made much of him instead. In due time he resumed his voyage and reached Palos on the 15th of March. This was Columbus’ apogee. He was called to Barcelona and welcomed in triumph; he was even allowed to sit down in the august presence of Ferdinand and Isabella. The half dozen Caribs he had brought with him were assumed to be East Indians and the Admiral’s interpretation of his discoveries was accepted without question. The little detail that nothing of oriental magnificence—no Great Khans, no mighty cities—had yet been revealed, was passed over. Land had been found and it could be nothing but Cipango and Cathay. The short route to the Indies had been discovered for Spain.”
This so completely overshadowed all that Portugal had accomplished that an intense rivalry sprang up between the two powers. The Pope, as the Vicar of Christ on earth, and accordingly the repository of the title to all lands still occupied by infidel peoples, was appealed to to confirm the discoveries to Spain. He issued a bull granting to His Most Catholic Majesty the lands then, and such as might thereafter be, discovered in the western sea, and to the Portuguese such as they might discover by way of the African route. This was supplemented by a second to the effect that only those lands lying west of a meridian of longitude a hundred miles west of the Azores and Cape Verde Islands should belong to the Spaniards. Dissatisfied even with that division, the Portuguese demanded a line still farther west, and, by a treaty signed at Tordesillas in June, 1494, Spain agreed that it should be advanced in that direction 370 leagues. This resulted eventually in giving Portugal title to the then yet undiscovered country of Brazil.
Meanwhile, on the 25th of September, 1493, Columbus set out on his second expedition—this time with seventeen ships and fifteen hundred men, among them his brothers Bartholomew and Diego and many adventurers of noble rank, for there was no lack either of men or money now. “Their dreams,” Professor Fiske tell us, “were of the marble palaces of Quinsay, of islands of spices and the treasures of the mythical Prester John. The sovereigns wept for joy as they thought that such untold riches were vouchsafed them as a reward for having overcome the Moor at Granada. Columbus shared these views and regarded himself as a special instrument for executing the divine decrees. He renewed his vow to rescue the Holy Sepulcher, promising within seven years to equip, at his own expense, a crusading army of fifty thousand foot and four thousand horse.” When the fleet arrived at Hayti and the company landed at the place where the little colony had been left, it was found that it had been annihilated. Not a whit dismayed by that, however, Columbus ordered a town to be built and the island, which he named Española (Little Spain), became the base of hundreds of exploring expeditions undertaken by the hordes of adventurers that followed in his wake and soon overran the neighboring islands.
Columbus himself made two other voyages, in the course of which he discovered Jamaica and the Island of Trinidad at the mouth of the Orinoco, reached the southern shores of Cuba, and, having heard rumors of another ocean to the west, coasted along the Central American mainland in search of a passage through. There he found stone houses and towns and what appeared to be a semi-civilized people, who wore clothes and knew how to weave cotton, embalm their dead, and carve ornaments on their tombs, and who had plenty of gold; and all this only confirmed his conviction that he was drawing nearer the countries of his quest. During this period, however, his fame was in turn overshadowed by that of Vasco da Gama, who had at last succeeded in discovering the African route to the Orient and had actually seen some of those spice islands and mighty cities that Columbus was still only searching for on the other side of the world so many thousands of miles away.
In 1506, soon after his return from his fourth expedition, he died at Valladolid, discredited and defrauded of his viceregal powers, a victim of treachery, jealousy, and intrigue, yet still believing that he had found the western route to the Indies. Even then “nobody had the faintest idea of what he had accomplished,” says Professor Fiske. “Nothing like it was ever done before and nothing like it can ever be done again. No worlds are left for future Columbuses to conquer. The era of which this great Italian was the most illustrious representative had closed forever.”