THE DESCENT OF COLUMBUS'S HONORS.

His kinsfolk.

Columbus had left behind him, as the natural guardians of his name and honors, the following relatives: his brother Bartholomew, who in December, 1508, had issue of an illegitimate daughter, his only child so far as known; his brother Diego, who, as a priest, was precluded from having lawful issue; his son Diego, now become the first inheritor of his honors; his natural son, Ferdinand, the most considerable in intellectual habit of all Columbus's immediate kin.

His son Diego.

The descent of his titles depended in the first instance on such a marriage as Diego might contract. Within a year or two Diego had had by different women two bastard children, Francisco and Cristoval, shut off from heirship by the manner of their birth. Diego was at this time not far from four and twenty years of age.

Ten or twelve days after Diego succeeded to his inheritance, Philip the Handsome, now sharing the throne of Castile as husband of Juana, daughter of Isabella, ordered that what was due to Columbus should be paid to his successor. This order reached Española in June, 1506, but was not obeyed promptly; and when Ferdinand of Aragon returned from Italy in August, 1507, and succeeded to the Castilian throne, he repeated the order on August 24.

Diego's income.

Diego presses for a restitution of Columbus's honors.

It would seem that in due time Diego was in receipt of 450,000 ounces of gold annually from the four foundries in Española. This, with whatever else there may have been, was by no means satisfactory to the young aspirant, and he began to press Ferdinand for a restitution of his inherited honors and powers with all the pertinacity which had characterized his father's urgency.

1508. Suit against the Crown.

Upon the return of Ferdinand from Naples, Diego determined to push the matter to an issue, but Ferdinand still evaded it. Diego now asked, according to Las Casas and Herrera, to be allowed to bring a suit against the Crown before the Council of the Indies, and the King yielded to the request, confident, very likely, in his ability to control the verdict in the public interests. The suit at once began (1508), and continued for several years before all was accomplished, and in December of that same year (1508), we find Diego empowering an attorney of the Duke of Alva to represent his case.

The defense of the Crown was that a transmission of the viceroyalty to the Admiral's son was against public policy, and at variance with a law of 1480, which forbade any judicial office under the Crown being held in perpetuity. It was further argued in the Crown's behalf that Columbus had not been the chief instrument of the first discovery and had not discovered the mainland, but that other voyagers had anticipated him. In response to all allegations, Diego rested his case on the contracts of the Crown with his father, which assured him the powers he asked for. Further than this, the Crown had already recognized, he claimed, a part of the contract in its orders of June 2, 1506, and August 24, 1507, whereby the revenues due under the contracts had been restored to him. It was also charged by the defense that Columbus had been relieved of his powers because he had abused them, and the answer to this was that the sovereigns' letter of 1502 had acknowledged that Bobadilla acted without authority. A number of navigators in the western seas were put on the stand to rebut the allegation of existing knowledge of the coast before the voyages of Columbus, particularly in substantiating the priority of the voyage of Columbus to the coast of Paria, and the evidence was sufficient to show that all the alleged claims were simply perverted notions of the really later voyage of Ojeda in 1499. It is from the testimony at this time, as given in Navarrete, that the biographers of Columbus derive considerable information, not otherwise attainable, respecting the voyages of Columbus,—testimony, however, which the historian is obliged to weigh with caution in many respects.

Diego wins.

The case was promptly disposed of in Diego's favor, but not without suspicions of the Crown's influence to that end. The suit is, indeed, one of the puzzles in the history of Columbus and his fame. If it was a suit to secure a verdict against the Crown in order to protect the Crown's rights under the bull of demarcation, we can understand why much that would have helped the position of the fiscal was not brought forward. If it was what it purported to be, an effort to relieve the Crown of obligations fastened upon it under misconceptions or deceits, we may well marvel at such omission of evidence.

Diego marries Maria de Toledo.

Diego waives his right to the title of Viceroy.

It was left for the King to act on the decision for restitution. This might have been by his studied procrastination indefinitely delayed but for a shrewd movement on the part of Diego, who opportunely aspired to the hand of Doña Maria de Toledo, the daughter of Fernando de Toledo. This nobleman was brother of the Duke of Alva, one of the proudest grandees of Spain, and he was also cousin of Ferdinand, the King. The alliance, soon effected, brought the young suitor a powerful friend in his uncle, and the bride's family were not averse to a connection with the heir to the viceroyalty of the Indies, now that it was confirmed by the Council of the Indies. Harrisse cannot find that the promised dower ever came with the wife; but, on the contrary, Diego seems to have become the financial agent of his wife's family. A demand for the royal acquiescence in the orders of the Council could now be more easily made, and Ferdinand readily conceded all but the title of Viceroy. Diego waived that for the time, and he was accordingly accredited as governor of Española, in the place of Ovando.

Ovando recalled.

Isabella had indeed, while on her death-bed, importuned the King to recall Ovando, because of the appalling stories of his cruelty to the Indians. Ferdinand had found that the governor's vigilance conduced to heavy remittances of gold, and had shown no eagerness to carry out the Queen's wishes. He had even ordered Ovando to begin that transference of the poor Lucayan Indians from their own islands to work in the Española mines which soon resulted in the depopulation of the Bahamas. Now that he was forced to withdraw Ovando he made it as agreeable for him as possible, and in the end there was no lack of commendation of his administration. Indeed, as Spaniards went in those days, Ovando was good enough to gain the love of Las Casas, "except for some errors of moral blindness."

1509. June 9. Diego sails for Española.

It was on May 3, 1509, that Ferdinand gave Diego his instructions; and on June 9, the new governor with his noble wife sailed from San Lucar. There went with Diego, beside a large number of noble Spaniards who introduced, as Oviedo says, an infusion of the best Spanish blood into the colony, his brother Ferdinand, who was specially charged, as Oviedo further tells us, to found monasteries and churches. His two uncles also accompanied him. Bartholomew had gone to Rome after Columbus's death, with the intention of inducing Pope Julius II. to urge upon the King a new voyage of discovery; and Harrisse thinks that this is proved by some memoranda attached to an account of the coasts of Veragua, which it is supposed that Bartholomew gave at this time to a canon of the Lateran, which is now preserved in the Megliavecchian library, and has been printed by Harrisse in his Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima. It was perhaps on this visit that the Adelantado took to Rome that map of Columbus's voyage to those coasts which it is usually said was carried there in 1505, when he may possibly have borne thither the letter of Columbus to the Pope.

Bartholomew Columbus, and Diego Mendez.

The position which Bartholomew now went with Diego to assume, that of the Chief Alguazil of Santo Domingo, caused much complaint from Diego Mendez, who claimed the credit of bringing about the restitution of Diego's power, and who had, as he says, been promised both by Columbus and by his son this office as recompense for his many services.

1509. July 10. Diego reaches his government.

The fleet arrived at its destination July 10, 1509. The wife of the governor had taken a retinue, which for splendor had never before been equaled in the New World, and it enabled her to maintain a kind of viceregal state in the little capital. It all helped Diego to begin his rule with no inconsiderable consequence. There was needed something of such attraction to beguile the spirits of the settlers, for, as Benzoni learned years afterwards, when he visited the region, the coming of the son of Columbus had not failed to engender jealousies, which attached to the imposition of another foreigner upon the colony.

Ojeda and Nicuessa.

The King was determined that Diego's rule should be confined to Española, and, much to the governor's annoyance, he parceled out the coasts which Columbus had tracked near the Isthmus of Panama into two governments, and installed Ojeda in command of the eastern one, which was called New Andalusia, while the one beyond the Gulf of Uraba, which included Veragua, he gave to Diego de Nicuessa, and called it Castilla del Oro.

POPE JULIUS II.

Porto Rico.

Faction of Passamonte.

1511. October 5. Audiencia.

This action of the King, as well as his effort to put Porto Rico under an independent governor, incited new expostulations from Diego, and served to make his rule in the island quite as uncomfortable as its management had been to his father. There also grew up the same discouragement from faction. The King's treasurer, Miguel Passamonte, became the head of the rebellious party, not without suspicion that he was prompted to much denunciations in his confidential communications with the King. Reports of Diego's misdeeds and ambitions, threatening the royal power even, were assiduously conveyed to the King. The sovereign devised a sort of corrective, as he thought, of this, by instituting later, October 5, 1511, a court of appeals, or Audiencia, to which the aggrieved colonists could go in their defense against oppression or extortion. Its natural effect was to undermine the governor's authority and to weaken his influence. He found himself thwarted in all efforts to relieve the Indians of their burdens, as nothing of that sort could be done without disturbing the revenues of leading colonists. There was no great inducement to undo measures by which no one profited in receipts more than himself, and the cruel devastation of the native population ran on as it had done. He certainly did not show himself averse to continuing the system of repartimientos for the benefit of himself and his friends.

Diego, who had been for a while in Spain, returned in 1512 to Española, and later new orders were sent out by the King, and these included commands to reduce the labor of the Indians one third, to import negro slaves from Guinea as a measure of further relief to the natives, and to brand Carib slaves, so as to protect other Indians from harsh treatment intended for the Caribs alone.

Bartholomew Columbus died.

Diego was again in Spain in 1513, and the attempts of Ojeda and Nicuessa having failed, later orders in 1514 so far reinstated Diego in his viceregal power as to permit him to send his uncle Bartholomew to take possession of the Veragua coast. But the life of the Adelantado was drawing to a close, and his death soon occurring nothing was done.

1515. Diego in Spain.

Affairs had come to such a pass that Diego again felt it necessary to repair to Court to counteract his enemies' intrigues, and once more getting permission from the King, he sailed for Spain, April 9, 1515, leaving the Vice-Queen with a council in authority.

Diego found the King open and kindly, and not averse to acknowledging the merits of his government. He again pressed his bonded rights with the old fervency. "I would bestow them willingly on you," said the King; "but I cannot do so without intrusting them also to your son and to his successors." "Is it just," said Diego, "that I should suffer for a son which I may never have?" Las Casas tells us that Diego repeated this colloquy to him.

CHARLES THE FIFTH.

1516. January 23. Ferdinand died.

The King found it reasonable to question if Columbus had really sailed along all the coasts in which Diego claimed a share, and ordered an examination of the matter to be made. While these claims were in abeyance, the King died, January 23, 1516.

Diego again in Española.

1520. Diego in Spain.

Diego partially reinstated.

This event much retarded the settlement of the difficulties. Cardinal Ximenes, who held power for a while, was not willing to act, and nothing was done for four years, during part of which period Diego was certainly in Española. We know also that he was present at the convocation of Barcelona, presided over by the Emperor, when Las Casas made his urgent appeals for the Indians and pictured their hardships. Finally, in 1520, when Charles V. was about to embark for Flanders, Diego was in a position to advance to the Emperor so large a sum as ten thousand ducats, which was, as it appears, about a fifth of his annual income from Española at this time. This financial succor seemed to open the way for the Emperor to dismiss all charges against Diego, and to reinstate him in qualified authority as Viceroy over the Indies.

1520. September. Diego returns to Española.

This seeming restitution was not without a disagreeable accompaniment in the appointment of a supervisor to reside at his viceregal court and report on the Viceroy's doings. In September, 1520, Diego sailed once more for his government, and on November 14 we find him in Santo Domingo, and shortly afterwards engaged in the construction of a lordly palace, which he was to occupy, and which is seen there to-day. The substantialness of its structure gave rise to rumors that he was preparing a fortress for ulterior aims.

Negro slaves increase.

Diego soon found that various administrative measures had not gone well in his absence. Commanders of some of the provinces had exceeded their powers, and it became necessary to supersede them. This made them enemies as a matter of course. The raising of sugar-cane had rapidly developed under the imported African labor, and the revenues now came for the most part from the plantations rather than from the mines. The negroes so increased that it was not long before some of them dared to rise in revolt, but the mischief was stopped by a rapid swoop of armed horsemen.

RUINS OF DIEGO COLON'S HOUSE.

1523. Diego in Spain.

1526. February 23. Diego dies.

The jealousies and revengeful accusations of Diego's enemies were not so easily quelled, and before long he was summoned to Spain to render an account of his doings, for Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon had presented charges against him. On September 16, 1523, Diego embarked, and landed at St. Lucar November 5. He presented himself before the Emperor at Vittoria in January, 1524, and reviewed his conduct. This he succeeded in doing in a manner to disarm his foes; and this success encouraged him to press anew for his inherited rights. The demand ended in the questions in dispute being referred to a board; and Diego for two years followed the Court in its migrations, to be in attendance on the sessions of this commission. His health gave way under the strain, so that, with everything still unsettled, he died at Montalvan, February 23, 1526, having survived his father for twenty troublous years. His remains were laid in the monastery of Las Cuevas by the side of Columbus. Being later conveyed to the cathedral at Santo Domingo, they were, if one may credit the quite unproved statements of the priests of the cathedral, mistaken for those of his father, and taken to Havana in 1795.

His family.

Luis Colon succeeds.

The Vice-Queen and her family were still in Santo Domingo, and her children were seven in number, four daughters and three sons. The descent of the honors came eventually to the descendants of one of these daughters, Isabel, who married George of Portugal, Count of Gelves. Of the three sons, Luis succeeded his father, who was in turn succeeded by Diego, a son of Luis's brother Cristoval.

The Vice-Queen, after making an ineffectual attempt to colonize Veragua, in which she was thwarted by the royal Audiencia at Española, returned to Spain in 1529. Her son Luis, the heir, was still a child, having been born in 1521 or 1522. For fourteen years his mother pressed his claims upon the Emperor, Charles V., and she was during a part of the time in such distress that she borrowed money of Ferdinand Columbus and pledged her jewels. She lived till 1549, and died at Santo Domingo.

1536. The Crown's compromise with Luis.

Duke of Veragua.

1540. Luis in Española.

Early in 1536 the Cardinal Garcia de Loyasa, in behalf of the Council of the Indies, rendered a decision in which he and Ferdinand Columbus had acted as arbiters, which was confirmed by the Emperor in September of the same year. This was that, upon the abandonment by Luis of all claims upon the revenues of the Indies, of the title of Viceroy, and of the right to appoint the officers of the New World, he should be given the island of Jamaica in fief, a perpetual annuity of ten thousand ducats, and the title of Duke of Veragua, with an estate twenty-five leagues square in that province, to support the title and functions of Admiral of the Indies. In 1540 Luis returned to Española with the title of Captain-General, and in 1542 married at Santo Domingo, much against his mother's wish, Maria de Orozco, who later lived in Honduras and married another. While she was still living, Luis again espoused at Santo Domingo Maria de Mosquera. In 1551 he returned to Spain.

Columbus's privileges gradually abridged.

1556. All Columbus's territorial rights abandoned.

Whatever remained of the rights which Columbus had sought to transmit to his heirs had already been modified to their detriment by Charles, under decrees in 1540, 1541, and 1542; and when Charles was succeeded by Philip II., early in 1556, one of the first acts of the latter was to force Luis to abandon his fief of Veragua and to throw up his power as Admiral. The Council of the Indies took cognizance of the case in July, 1556, and on September 28 following, Philip II., at Ghent, recompensed the grandson of Columbus, for his submission to the inevitable, by decreeing to Luis the honorary title of Admiral of the Indies and Duke of Veragua, with an income of seven thousand ducats. So in fifty years the dreams of Columbus for territorial magnificence came to naught, and the confident injunctions of his will were dissipated in the air.

Luis a polygamist.

1572. Luis dies.

Immediately after this, Luis furtively married, while his other wives were still living, Ana de Castro Ossorio. The authorities found in these polygamous acts a convenient opportunity to get another troublesome Colon out of the way, and arrested Luis in 1559. He was held in prison for nearly five years, and when in 1563 judgment was got against him, he was sentenced to ten years of exile, half of which was to be passed in Oran, in Africa. While his appeal was pending, his scandalous life added crime to crime, and finally, in November, 1565, his sentence being confirmed, he was conducted to Oran, and there he died February 3, 1572.

[THE COLUMBUS PEDIGREE.]

Note. Dotted lines mark illegitimate descents; the dash-and-dot lines mark pretended descents. The heavy face numerals show the successful holders of the honors of Columbus. The lines a a, b b, and c c join respectively.

THE COLUMBUS PEDIGREE (1).
[1st part]
[THE COLUMBUS PEDIGREE. (complete view)]

THE COLUMBUS PEDIGREE (2).
[2nd part]
[THE COLUMBUS PEDIGREE. (complete view)]

His heirs.

His daughter marries her cousin Diego, the male heir.

Columbus's male line extinct.

Luis left two illegitimate children, one a son; but his lawful heirs were adjudged to be the children of Maria de Mosquera, two daughters, one a nun and the other Filipa. This last presented a claim for the titles in opposition to the demands of Diego, the nephew of her father. She declared this cousin to be the natural, and not the lawful, son of Luis's brother. It was easy enough to forget such imputations in coming to the final conclusion, when Filipa and Diego took each other in marriage (May 15, 1573) to compose their differences, the husband becoming Duke of Veragua. Filipa died in November, 1577, and her husband January 27, 1578. As they had no children, the male line of Columbus became extinct seventy years after his death.

The long lawsuit and its many contestants.

The lawsuit which followed for the settlement of the succession was a famous one. It lasted thirty years. The claimants were at first eight in number, but they were reduced to five by deaths during the progress of the trials.

The first was Francesca, own sister of Diego, the late Duke. Her claim was rejected; but five generations later the dignities returned to her descendants.

The second was the representative of Maria, the daughter of Luis, and sister-in-law of Diego. The claim made by her heir, the convent of San Quirce, was discarded.

The third was Cristoval, the bastard son of Luis, who claimed to be the fruit of a marriage of Luis, concluded while he was in prison accused of polygamy. Cristoval died in 1601, before the cause was decided.

The fourth was Alvaro de Portogallo, Count of Gelves, a son of Isabel, the sister of Luis. He had unsuccessfully claimed the titles when Luis died, in 1572, and again put forth his claims in 1578, when Diego died, but he himself died, pending a decision, in 1581. His son, Jorge Alberto, inherited his rights, but died in 1589, before a decision was reached, when his younger brother, Nuño de Portogallo, became the claimant, and his rights were established by the tribunal in 1608, when he became Duke of Veragua. His enjoyment of the title was not without unrest, but the attempts to dispossess him failed.

The fifth was Cristoval de Cardona, Admiral of Aragon, son of Maria, elder sister of Luis. This claimant died in 1583, while his claim, having once been allowed, was held in abeyance by an appeal of his rivals. His sister, Maria, was then adjudged inheritor of the honors, but she died in 1605, before the final decree.

The sixth was Maria de la Cueva, daughter of Juana, sister of Luis, who died before December, 1600, while her daughter died in 1605, leaving Carlos Pacheco a claimant, whose rights were disallowed.

The seventh was Balthazar Colombo, a descendant of a Domenico Colombo, who was, according to the claim, the same Domenico who was the father of Columbus. His genealogical record was not accepted.

The eighth was Bernardo Colombo, who claimed to be a descendant of Bartholomew Columbus, the Adelantado, a claim not made good.

These last two contestants rested their title in part on the fact that their ancestors had always borne the name of Colombo, and this was required by Columbus to belong to the inheritors of his honors. The lineal ancestors of the other claimants had borne the names of Cardona, Portogallo, or Avila.

Nuño de Portogallo succeeds, and the line later changes.

From Nuño de Portogallo the titles descended to his son Alvaro Jacinto, and then to the latter's son, Pedro Nuño. His rights were contested by Luis de Avila (grandson of Cristoval, brother of Luis Colon), who tried in 1620 to reverse the verdict of 1608, and it was not till 1664 that Pedro Nuño defeated his adversaries. He was succeeded by his son, Pedro Manuel, and he by his son, Pedro Nuño, who died in 1733, when this male line became extinct.

The titles were now illegally assumed by Pedro Nuño's sister, Catarina Ventura, who by marriage gave them to her husband, James Fitz-James Stuart, son of the famous Duke of Berwick, and by inheritance in his own right, Duke of Liria. When he died, in 1738, the titles passed to his son, Jacobo Eduardo; thence to the latter's son, Carlos Fernando, who transmitted them to his son, Jacobo Filipe. This last was obliged, by a verdict in 1790, which reversed the decree of 1664, to yield the titles to the line of Francesca, sister of Diego, the fourth holder of them. This Francesca married Diego Ortegon, and their grandchild, Josefa, married Martin Larreategui, whose great-great-grandson, Mariano (by decrees 1790-96), became Duke of Veragua, from whom the title descended to his son, Pedro, and then to his grandson, Cristoval, the present Duke, born in 1837, whose heir, the next Duke, was born in 1878. The value of the titles is said to-day to represent about eight or ten thousand dollars, and this income is chargeable upon the revenues of Cuba and Porto Rico.

In concluding this rapid sketch of the descent of the blood and honors of Columbus, two striking thoughts are presented. The Larreateguis are a Basque family. The blood of Columbus, the Genoese, now mingles with that of the hardiest race of navigators of western Europe, and of whom it may be expected that if ever earlier contact of Europe with the New World is proved, these Basques will be found the forerunners of Columbus. The blood of the supposed discoverer of the western passage to Asia flows with that of the earliest stock which is left to us of that Oriental wave of population which inundated Europe, in the far-away times when the races which make our modern Christian histories were being disposed in valleys and on the coasts of what was then the Western World.

[APPENDIX.]