Christopher Columbus: His Life and His Work

by Charles Kendall Adams

But after all these mitigations are admitted, and after Columbus has received every credit that can be accorded him, there still remains the fact that the island had been in turmoil almost from the first; that the Indians, who, according to the testimony of Columbus himself, had been at the first everywhere friendly and peaceable, had now become universally hostile; that even if these disorders had largely occurred in the absence of the Admiral, it was nevertheless true that they had all occurred under officers appointed by Columbus himself; that even if, as he said, vast numbers of men had gone to the Indies “who did not deserve water from God or man,” still, all the men that had gone had been accepted for the purpose by the Admiral himself; that if he complained that the Spanish settlers “would give as much for a woman as for a farm,” and that “this sort of trading is very common,” still this iniquity was all under an administration of which he himself was the head, and directly under subordinates whom he himself had appointed to command and, most important of all, under a system which he himself had recommended, and for which he alone was responsible. It may well be asserted that the comprehensive nature of his own commission, and the fact that his appointments had not been interfered with, estopped him from asserting that all responsibility for failure was to be charged to the wickedness and the weakness of his subordinates. Had Columbus been completely adequate to the situation, he would have bound his subordinates to him in unquestioning loyalty. The truth is, however, that from first to last, with the exception of his brothers, those who were nearest him in command sooner or later became his enemies,—and generally the enmity was not long delayed.

But there were other considerations that led Ferdinand to hesitate. The colony had not been prosperous from any point of view. It had been a continuous and unlessening source of expense, and had brought as yet very small returns. The hopes that the early reports of Columbus had aroused had ended in disappointment. The Admiral had confidently expected to come upon all the wealth of the Great Khan and of Cathay. Even the gold mines of Ophir, which he believed he had at length discovered, brought no returns.

In the mean time, however, the court was besieged with the importunities of enterprising navigators who desired permission to make explorations without governmental support. The only favour they asked was the privilege of sailing and of bringing back to the royal treasury the due quota of their gains. They promised to plant the Spanish standard in all the lands of the west, and thus, without depleting the treasury, maintain and even advance the glories of the Spanish discoveries.

To such importunities the Government began to yield as early as 1495. The privileges that were granted were in obvious violation of the exclusive rights bestowed upon Columbus before the first voyage. But it was not easy to observe the letter of that contract. The lands discovered were so much vaster in extent than even Columbus had anticipated that it would be unreasonable to expect a comprehensive observance of the monopoly granted. Though the Admiral made repeated and not unreasonable complaints of the privileges bestowed upon others in violation of his charter, yet the custom of granting such privileges was never completely discontinued. Nor would it have been reasonable to suppose that a monopoly of navigation and government in the western world could forever remain exclusively in the sacred possession of a single family. It was simply a question as to when that monopoly should cease. That there was no purpose to do injustice, was shown in the requirement that the interests of Columbus in the products of the island should be respected to the letter by Bobadilla and his successors.

During the eight years that had now elapsed since the first voyage of the Admiral, a considerable number of navigators had already immortalized themselves by important discoveries and explorations. The Cabots, going out from Bristol, where they had doubtless learned of the projects and the success of Columbus, sailed westward by a more northerly route, and after reaching the continent a year before South America was touched by the Spanish navigator, explored the coast as far as from Newfoundland to Florida. As early as 1487, after seventy years of slow advances down the six thousand miles of western African coast, the Portuguese, under Bartholomew Diaz, as we have already noted, had reached the Cape of Good Hope; and ten years later, just as Columbus was preparing for his third voyage, Vasca da Gama doubled the Cape, and in the following spring cast anchor in the bay at Calicut. In the spring of 1499 Pedro Alonzo Nino, who had accompanied Columbus as a pilot in the voyage to Cuba and Paria, obtained a license, and not only explored the coast of Central America for several hundred miles, but traded his European goods to such advantage as to enable him to return after one of the most extensive and lucrative voyages yet accomplished. In the same year, Vincente Yanez Pinzon, who had commanded one of the ships in the first expedition of Columbus, pushed boldly to the southwest, and, crossing the equator, came finally to the great headland which is now known as Cape St. Augustine, and for their Catholic Majesties not only took possession of the territories called the Brazils, but discovered what was afterwards appropriately named the River of the Amazons. In the year 1500 Diego Lepe, fired with the zeal for discovery that had set the port of Palos aglow, went still farther to the south, and, turning Cape St. Augustine, ascertained that either the mainland or an enormous island ran far away to the southwest.

Most important and significant of all, the fleet which, in the year 1500, was sent out from Portugal under Pedro Cabral, for the Cape of Good Hope, in striving, according to the advice of Da Gama, to avoid the dangers of the coast islands, drifted so far west that when it was caught in a violent easterly storm, it was driven upon the coast of Brazil, and thus proved that even if Columbus had not lived and sailed, America would have been made known to Europe in the very first year of the sixteenth century.

Thus it was that, not to speak in detail of the explorations of navigators of lesser note, the English explorers in the north, and the Spanish and Portuguese in the south, had, before the end of the year 1500, given to Europe a definite, though an incorrect, conception of the magnitude of the new world. There is no evidence that as yet anybody had supposed the newly discovered lands to be any other than the eastern borders of Asia and Africa. But it must have been evident enough to many others, as well as to King Ferdinand, that these new possessions were too vast and too important to be intrusted to the governorship of any one man. They appealed alike to ambition, to avarice, and to jealousy.

The policy adopted was one of delay. Columbus was naturally impatient to return to the office of which he had been deprived. The court, however, while treating him with every external consideration, would not bring itself to give an affirmative answer. Another course was finally adopted. It was agreed that Bobadilla should be removed, that another governor, who had had no part in the administrative quarrels, should be appointed for a term of two years, and that Columbus should be intrusted with a new exploring expedition.

The person chosen to supersede Bobadilla was Nicholas de Ovando, a commander of the Order of Alcantara. The picture given of him by Las Casas is one that might well conciliate the prepossessions of the reader. According to this high authority, he was gracious in manner, fluent in speech, had great veneration for justice, was an enemy to avarice, and had such an aversion to ostentation that when he arose to be grand commander, he would never allow himself to be addressed by the title attaching to his office. Yet he was a man of ardent temper, and so, in the opinion of Las Casas, was incapable of governing the Indians, upon whom he inflicted incalculable injury.

Before Ovando was ready to sail, there was considerable delay. It had been decided to give him command, not only of Hispaniola, but also of the other islands and of the mainland. The fleet was to be the largest yet sent to the western world. When at length it was ready, it mustered thirty sail, and had on board about twenty-five hundred souls.