Christopher Columbus: His Life and His Work

by Charles Kendall Adams

These favours and promises by the sovereigns were more than Columbus had dared even to hope for. But notwithstanding the kind, if not the enthusiastic, favour of the sovereigns, the promises were not speedily to be fulfilled. There were several reasons why the furnishing of the ships was a matter of most annoying delay. During the long months of waiting, Columbus was under the roof of Andres Bernaldez, who turned to account many of his interviews with the Admiral in his History of the Spanish Kings. Columbus left with Bernaldez several important documents which the historian made the basis of much of his History. It is from Bernaldez that we get the most definite account of the temper and opposition of the people, as well as the grounds of their discontent. The whole may be expressed in the single word “disappointment.” The cost of the expeditions had been very great, and the returns very small. A tradition has assumed the form of a popular belief that the gold brought back to Spain by this second expedition was so abundant that it was used to ornament palaces and gild cathedrals. But this belief must be discarded; for we learn from Bernaldez that the gold brought back consisted mainly of personal ornaments.

There were several causes for delay in fitting out the third expedition. Spain was now at war with France in regard to that vexed question which involved the suzerainty of Naples. Besides a powerful army in Italy under Gonzalo de Cordova, Spain was obliged to keep an army on her own frontier, which was threatened with an invasion from France. A strong fleet had to be kept in the Mediterranean, and another was called for to defend the Atlantic coasts of the Spanish peninsula. But even these were not all. Ferdinand and Isabella, if not far-seeing, were far-reaching in their ambition to extend their international importance by judicious matrimonial alliances of their children. This was to be done, not simply by the marriage of Catherine of Aragon with Prince Henry of England, but also by the far more important double alliance with Austria. The arrangements for the Austrian nuptials were now complete, and a magnificent armada of a hundred and twenty ships, with twenty thousand persons on board, had been sent as a convoy of the Princess Juana to Flanders, where she was to marry Philip, the archduke of Austria, and bring back the Austrian Princess Margarita, who was to complete the double Austrian alliance by marrying Prince Juan.

These several demands quite exhausted the maritime resources of the Spanish Government. Delay therefore in the equipment of ships for the third expedition of Columbus was inevitable. But there were also other reasons that emphasized and reinforced the same tendencies. The affairs of the Indian Office, after once having been sequestered, had now been restored to the control of Fonseca. For a time they had been transferred to the direction of Antonio de Torres; but in consequence of high and unreasonable demands, he had been removed from office, and Fonseca, the Bishop of Badajoz, had been reinstated. Fonseca had never been actively helpful to Columbus, and as time had passed on, what at first had an air of indifference, gradually changed to ill-concealed enmity. In the position to which he had now been reinstated it was easy for him to impede, if not frustrate, all the navigator’s plans. The delay became intolerable. In the spring of 1498, Columbus, after nearly two years had elapsed since his second return, presented a direct appeal to the queen, making urgent representations of the misery to which the colonists had been reduced. The appeal was successful; two ships with supplies for the colony were despatched early in February, 1498.

The fitting out of the vessels that were to be commanded by Columbus himself was retarded by many very annoying conditions. Fonseca seemed determined to throw every obstacle in his way. It was everywhere evident, moreover, that the popular favour in which the Admiral had been more or less generally held was fast slipping away. At one time he thought of abandoning the enterprise altogether; and in one of his letters he intimates that he was restrained from doing so only by his unwillingness to disoblige or disappoint the queen.

Of the various annoyances that occurred, there were two that are worthy of note. The sovereigns ordered six million maravedis to be set apart for the equipment of the new expedition. But soon after the arrival of the three caravels of slaves in the autumn of 1495, word was circulated that the fleet was freighted with bars of gold. The report had so much influence on the sovereigns that they revoked their order for six million maravedis, and directed that the necessary money for the new expedition should be taken from the gold brought home. What was the chagrin of Columbus and of all his friends to find that what was only a wretched joke of one of the ship’s commanders had been taken in serious earnest even by Ferdinand and Isabella. When the truth came to be known, it was found that the bars of gold were only slaves kept behind bars, with the design of converting them into gold in the market of Seville. It is not difficult to imagine the indignation of Isabella when the truth came to be known. The other affair alluded to was the personal altercation that occurred between Columbus and Breviesca, the treasurer of Fonseca. The very day when the squadron was about to embark, Columbus was assailed in so insolent a manner by this official that he lost his self-control, and not only struck his accuser to the ground, but kicked him in his paroxysm of rage. As to the extent of the provocation, Las Casas, who relates the anecdote, leaves us in doubt; but the influence of such a spectacle could hardly have been favourable to the Admiral.

It was the 30th day of May, 1498, before the expedition was ready to sail. The fleet, consisting of six ships loaded with provisions and other necessaries for the planters in Hispaniola, was detained at the Canary and Cape de Verde islands until the 5th of July. From the island of Ferro Columbus decided to send three of the vessels to Hispaniola, and to sail in a more southerly direction with the rest, for the purpose of making further discoveries. He designed to make the course southwest until they should reach the equinoctial line, and then to take a course due west. But the currents flowed so strongly toward the north, and the heat was so severe, that this purpose was abandoned before they reached the equator. Fernando, with characteristic exaggeration, says that “had it not rained sometimes, and the sun been clouded, he thought they would have been burned alive, together with the ships, for the heat was so violent that nothing could withstand it.” Las Casas, who had other sources of authentic information besides the narrative of Columbus, declares that but for this heat and the fact that the vessels were becalmed eight days, the Admiral would have taken a course so far to the south that the fleet would have been carried to the coast of Brazil. Be this as it may, the effect of the temperature on the men and on the provisions was such that on the last day of July the Admiral, thinking they were now south of the Caribbean islands, resolved to abandon their course and make for Hispaniola. Sailing toward the northwest one day, the man at the lookout descried land to the westward, which, because of the three mountains that arose above the horizon, Columbus called Trinidad. This discovery led to a little delay. Cruising about the island for a considerable time without finding a harbour, he came to deep soundings near Point Alcatraz, where he decided to take in water and make such repairs as the shrinkage of the timbers had made necessary. From the point where they now were, the low lands about the mouth of the Orinoco were plainly visible; and the incident is memorable because, notwithstanding the assertion of Oviedo that Vespucius anticipated Columbus in reaching the mainland, it was probably here that the Spaniards obtained the first sight of the western continent. It was on the 1st day of August, 1498,—two months and ten days after Vasco da Gama had cast anchor in the bay of Calicut.

After necessary delays the little fleet resumed its westerly course. Although in his letter to the Spanish court, the Admiral gives a graphic account of the rush of waters from the Orinoco, he seems not at first to have suspected that he was in sight of the mainland. The waters delivered to the ocean by this river came with such impetuous force that they seemed to produce a ridge along the top of which the squadron was borne at a furious rate into the Gulf of Paria. “Even to-day,” wrote Columbus, “I shudder lest the waters should have upset the vessel when they came under its bows.” We now know that the tumult of the waters was very largely the result of the African current wedging in between the island of Trinidad and the mainland, and forming that stupendous flow which on emerging from the Caribbean Sea is known as the Gulf Stream.

In sailing along the coast the Admiral met with nothing but friendly treatment from the natives. The region at the left of the Gulf of Paria he called Gracia. At length the immense volume of waters passing through the mouths of the Orinoco led him to surmise that the land he had been calling an island was in fact the continent. Holding this conjecture with increasing confidence, he was unwilling to give any considerable time to further exploration; and accordingly, after passing through what he called the Boca del Drago, or Dragon’s Mouth, he sailed directly for Hispaniola. His departure was hastened by the desire, not only of landing the stores he had in charge, but also of learning the truth in regard to the reports of disturbance among the colonists that had reached Spain before his embarkation.

Before following him, however, to the unhappy colony, it may not be out of place to make note of a few of his reflections, as recorded in his own words. There is nothing in the life of Columbus more interesting than his letter to the court describing this third voyage, and commenting on the various phenomena which he observed. The minute and ingenious details of this letter not only show how easily he was captivated by delusions, but they also throw a flood of light on his general habit of mind. It is impossible to quote the letter at length, but a few of his conclusions may not be omitted.

In remarking that Ptolemy and all the other ancient writers regarded the earth as spherical, he says that they had had no opportunity of observing the region he was now exploring, and that in consequence they had fallen into error. To his mind it was clear that the form of the earth was not globular, but pear-shaped, and that the form of a pear about the stem was the form of the earth in the region he had discovered. He had at all times noted a marked change in the temperature on crossing the one hundredth meridian. The north star also perceptibly changed its relative position in regard to the horizon at this point. The deflection of the needle here changed from five degrees to the east to as many degrees to the west. The waters of the great river flowing into the Gulf of Paria could hardly come with a tumultuous volume for any other reason. As they sailed away from this region, they were so rapidly descending that they easily made sixty-five leagues in a day, which they could hardly have done on an ascending or a level sea.