The painting by Lotto is said by critics to be a striking example in color and in general treatment of this artist’s early style. As a portrait, it unquestionably has admirable and striking characteristics; though it is impossible to form any positive opinion as to the accuracy of the likeness. It bears a general resemblance to the picture in the Ministry of the Marine at Madrid, as well as to the Capriolo engraving and to the portrait in the collection of Count D’Orchi at Como. It is scarcely too much to say that Lotto, more than any of the others, seems to have succeeded in delineating certain subtleties of feature and expression which reveal unmistakable character. Whatever the opportunities of this artist for knowing the personal appearance of Columbus, it is certain that he was contemporaneous with the Admiral, and that he lived in an Italian city that was greatly moved by the work of the discoverer. It is known, moreover, that the Venetian ambassador and his secretary were at that time sending home glowing accounts of the significance of the recent voyages. The pre-eminent excellence of the painting, the mood and character which it reveals, and its very striking correspondence with the descriptions of the discoverer by his acquaintances, have led to its selection for the frontispiece of this volume. The portrait was purchased in the summer of 1891 by an enterprising art collector of Chicago.
It remains only to say a concluding word in regard to the estimation in which the character and the work of Columbus are finally to be held.
It is not easy to establish a standard by which to judge of a man whose life was in an age that is past. In defiance of all scholarship, the judgments of critics continue to differ in regard to Alexander, Julius Cæsar, and even Frederick the Great, and Napoleon. On the one hand, nothing can be more unjust than to bring to the judgment of the present age a man whose activities were exerted amid surroundings and influences that have long since changed and passed away; while, on the other, nothing is more unsafe than to regard the opinions of contemporaries as the just and final judgment of humanity. Between these two dangers we must seek the basis of a judgment in those eternal verities which are applicable to every age. Since civilization began, good men have ever recognized certain principles of right and justice as applicable to all men and all time. Did his life and his work tend to the elevation of mankind? If so, did these results flow from his conscious purpose? If temporary wrong and injustice were done, were these accessory to the firmer establishment of those broad principles which must underlie all security and happiness? These, or such as these, are the questions which it is necessary to ask when we undertake to form a judgment in regard to any man that has performed a great part or exerted a great influence. If we apply these principles in forming an opinion of Columbus, what will be the result?
In point of character,—considering the term in the largest and broadest possible sense,—we shall probably not find very much to admire. The moral atmosphere which he created about him was not much better or much worse than the general atmosphere of the age in which he lived. He entered no protest against any of the abuses of the time. On the contrary, he was ever ready to avail himself of those abuses whenever he could do so to his own advantage. In his age the most sensitive natures were beginning to revolt against the horrors of the slave-trade. But Columbus, in his letters and his journal describing his first voyage, points out the riches that would result to Spain by filling the slave-markets with captives from the newly discovered islands. He repeatedly urged a policy of slave-catching upon the Government; and gave just offence by persistency in such a policy, after receiving a plain intimation that it could not be adopted. There is no evidence that he ever abandoned the idea that a true policy required that ships in going from the mother-country to the islands should be loaded with cattle, and that the same ships in going back from the islands to the mother-country should be loaded with slaves. His first letters glow with accounts of the gentleness and hospitality of the natives. The Indians regarded the new comers as visitors from heaven. When Columbus’s own vessel was shipwrecked, the inhabitants on the coast not only rendered every possible assistance, but offered to give up everything they had for the accommodation of the unfortunate visitors. Columbus himself testifies that the native cacique shed “tears of sympathy.” Such was the spirit with which the Spaniards were met, and such was the spirit until the policy of kidnapping and devastation was begun. Gradually the Spaniards began to seize the natives as prisoners whenever opportunity offered. Men were found to be less desirable captives than women and children.
Las Casas, the most discriminating and thoughtful, as well as the most humane, of all writers of the time, has in a single sentence described the beginning of the evil. These are his fruitful words: “Since men are never accustomed to fall into a single error, nor into a sin to be committed alone, without a greater one by and by following, so it fell out that the Admiral ... sent a boat with certain sailors to a house that stood on the side of the river toward the west, and they took and carried off seven women, small and great, with three children. This he says he did because Spaniards with women behave themselves better than without them. A genteel excuse has he given to colour and justify a deed so nefarious.” From a general policy, the beginning of which is so significantly described by Las Casas, it came about very naturally that, notwithstanding the noteworthy gentleness of the natives, it was soon discovered that they were not absolutely devoid of the instincts and impulses of human nature. The inevitable result followed. The natives determined to defend their wives and their children. A war of extermination ensued. The number of the inhabitants upon these islands was variously estimated by Las Casas and others of his day. The lowest estimate that can now be reconciled with the original accounts is forty thousand. In the course of the fourteen years between the discovery and Columbus’s death the number had been reduced by fully one half; and it was only a few years later when the last of them, hunted like beasts and torn by bloodhounds, perished from the earth. We are accustomed to regard Cortez and Pizarro as exceptional embodiments of inhumanity and cruelty. But Cortez and Pizarro only followed the example that had already been set.
Nor is it possible to acquit Columbus of responsibility for the course that was taken. His position gave him plenary powers. No man ever had fewer scruples in the exercise of all the authority conferred upon him. It is indeed true that the policy of the Spaniards showed itself at its worst after the authority of Columbus was at an end. But it is also true that this policy in all its most deplorable features was inaugurated by him; and therefore he is to be held responsible at the bar of history for the evil consequences that ensued.
Nor, again, can we say that the end justified the means. Columbus never expected or desired to discover a new country. His motive in urging the support of the voyages was twofold. He desired, on the one hand, to bring back the wealth that would enable his sovereigns to conquer Jerusalem for Christianity; and, on the other, to acquire wealth and fame for himself. The only condition of success was the finding of vast amounts of gold. The reports of John de Mandeville and Marco Polo had filled his mind with confidence that the necessary gold existed and could be acquired, if only it could be found. Hence his restless activity. Never dreaming till the day of his death that the islands he had discovered were not off the coast of Asia, he thought himself not far away from the mines that had brought such wealth to Cipango and Cathay. Everything, therefore, was made to contribute to this fruitless search. No thoughtful person can read the original accounts of the four voyages without being impressed with the fact that he was constantly led on from one thing to another by the alluring reports of gold. This endless and fruitless quest was the cause of the worst features of his misgovernment. The gold mines stubbornly refused to reveal themselves. Recourse was then had to that pitiless system of repartimientos, or enforced labour, which everywhere threw the natives into despair. Then it was that, in the words of Las Casas, “The Admiral went over a great part of the island, making cruel war on all the kings and peoples who would not come into obedience.” Elsewhere the same great authority says: “In those days and months the greatest outrages and slaughter of people and depopulation of villages went on, because the Indians put forth all their strength to see if they could drive from their territories a people so murderous and cruel.” The original authorities prove beyond question that the policy was simply one of unqualified cupidity, cruelly and relentlessly enforced.
We have already seen that the death of Columbus attracted no general attention and awakened no general comment. This remarkable fact was in strict consonance with the spirit of the time, for the exploits of other voyagers had already caught the public ear and monopolized public attention. Americus Vespucius had returned from his second voyage and had aroused the attention of all Europe by means of his glowing accounts of the new continent. The Cabots from England had at least skirted along the coasts of what is now known as North America. The Portuguese had discovered a safe passage to the Indies by sailing to the south and east, and had begun to raise the question of their rights in consequence of the independent discovery of Brazil, in the year 1500, by Pedro Cabral. Pizarro had learned the art of war under the unscrupulous Ojeda, and Cortez had had the schooling of long interviews with Columbus at San Domingo. Balboa and Magellan had already completed their apprenticeship, and were now about to astonish the world by revealing to it the Pacific Ocean. In the very year of Columbus’s death, fishermen from Portugal were already plying their vocation with profit on the banks of Newfoundland; and less than a year later, the Spaniard Velasco had entered the St. Lawrence. Within the short life of one generation the whole coast from Cape Breton to the Straits of Magellan became the scene of maritime activity. In all parts of the Old World, as well as of the New, it was evident that Columbus had kindled a fire in every mariner’s heart. That fire was the harbinger of a new era, for it was not to be extinguished.