Spain

by Frederick A. Ober

After the death of Isabella, which occurred on November 26, 1504, Ferdinand’s diplomacy continued him in power as regent and sovereign, except for a brief term; and it was to him that Columbus vainly appealed for justice when, weak and broken from his four transatlantic voyages, he came back to endure poverty and neglect.

CHAPTER XIV.

WHEN SPAIN WAS GREAT.

Although Queen Isabella assumed all responsibility for the first voyage of Columbus, and is said to have declared, “I am ready to pawn my jewels for the expenses,” yet the treasury of Aragon has the credit of providing the necessary funds. Already fifty-six years of age when he started on this voyage, Columbus had spent eighteen of the best years of his life supplicating at courts and pleading for recognition; so he was no longer blessed with health and vigour. Returning from the first triumphant achievement early in 1493, the same year he sailed from Cadiz with a larger fleet, and discovered islands farther to the south than those which he first saw and landed on, as well as the island of Jamaica. In 1498 yet another voyage revealed the island of Trinidad and a portion of the north coast of South America; but, through the course of events which we can not follow in this history, he was sent home to Spain in chains by his enemy, Bobadilla. The queen, though she received him with distinction, and did all she could to soothe his wounded sensibilities, yet was unable to secure him another command until 1502, when he sailed on his last and most disastrous voyage, which ended in the wreck of his ships on the north coast of Jamaica, and his final return to Spain, worn with disease and broken-hearted from abuse. Two years after the death of Isabella he too departed this life, in the year 1506, at the city of Valladolid, where the house in which he died is still pointed out to the stranger. His remains were at first deposited in Valladolid, then taken to Seville, and about the year 1540 transported to Santo Domingo, in accordance with his last request.

Following closely in the wake of Columbus were other voyagers and other discoverers, notably Americus Vespucci, who, together with a valiant Spaniard named Ojeda, sailed along the north coast of South America from the Pearl Islands to the Gulf of Maracaibo, in the year 1499, trading with the natives, and finally returning with a rich cargo of pearls and other valuable products of their barter. They not only obtained the beautiful pearls which unfortunate Columbus had somehow overlooked the year before, but they first saw those curious people, the Lake Dwellers, in the Gulf of Maracaibo, whose settlements over the water suggested the name by which the region adjacent is known to-day, of Venezuela, or Little Venice. Americus Vespucci was further rewarded, on his return, by being appointed chart-maker to the king, and eventually his name came to be applied to the continent discovered by Columbus in 1498. That, at least, was long held to be the case, but of late years it has been noticed that the word “America” may have been derived from the native name of one of the provinces on that coast, Americapan.

So we might go on tracing the extension of Spanish conquests, until these pages, which we have dedicated to outlining the history of Spain, would be filled with the doings of her valiant sons, and the numerous adventurers attracted to her service by the reports of her growing greatness. But still we can not ignore these brave conquistadores who sought fame and riches in the New World, the path to which had been opened by Columbus. Two or three years after the death of Columbus the gallant Ponce de Leon, then governor of a province of Santo Domingo, went across the channel and conquered Puerto Rico, whence, in 1512, he sailed to the discovery of Florida, after his romantic search for the fabled “Fountain of Youth.” To note how, when once started, the stream of exploration and conquest flowed on unimpeded, we have but to turn to the island of Santo Domingo, discovered by Columbus in 1492, and where the first schemes of colonization were carried out.

In the year 1509 the son of Columbus, Don Diego, was appointed governor and viceroy of the island, in tardy recognition of the claim of his father to the title of “High Admiral of the Ocean-Sea.” In 1511 one Velasquez sailed over to Cuba and there established a colony, and with him, among others who subsequently became famous, was an obscure individual named Hernando Cortes, who, fired by the reports of a new land discovered to the west, was placed in command of an expedition, by Velasquez, who fitted it out; and the result was the ultimate conquest of the vast territory of Mexico, which was first brought to notice by Hernandez de Cordova in 1517. From this conquest, which was not achieved until about 1521-’22, flowed millions and millions in treasure to fill the coffers of Spain. Cortes himself, a man of humble origin, was born in Spain in 1485, only seven years before Columbus sailed on his first voyage; yet he added a kingdom to the realms of Spain before he was forty years of age!

In the year 1513 the brave but unfortunate Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, from a high point in the Isthmus of Darien, saw, first of all Europeans, the vast Pacific; yet it was not until nearly twenty years afterward that Francisco Pizarro, the ignorant soldier, who was born in the same province as Cortes, in Spain, and who had served with Gonsalvo de Cordova in Italy, subjugated the native people of Peru, and made himself a virtual king. By the conquest of Peru and the murder of the Inca by Pizarro more than fifteen million dollars in treasure was secured, and ultimately the mines of that country enriched Spain for many, many years.