Great events generally choose great men for their accomplishment, though not unfrequently we see no small dust raised by an insignificant agent. As a mariner and discoverer, Columbus had no superior; as colonist and governor, he had by this time proved himself a failure. There are some things great men cannot do as well as their inferiors. It was one thing to rule at sea, and quite another to rule on shore. In bringing to his India these unruly Spaniards, he had sown for himself the whirlwind. Had he been more judicious in the selection of his followers, his later days would have been more successful as well as more peaceful. Discovery was his infatuation; he was never for a moment unattended by a consuming curiosity to find a western way to civilized India. Had he been possessed of sound practical judgment in the matter, of the same knowledge of himself and of political affairs that he had of navigation, he would have seen that he could not, at the same time, gratify his passion for discovery and successfully govern colonies. In his fatal desire to assume rulership, and upon the ill-understood reports of simple savages, with no knowledge of the resources or capabilities of the country, without definite purpose or mature plans, he had brought upon himself an avalanche of woes. Beside his incapacity for such a task, his position was rendered all the more trying by the fact that he was a foreigner, whose arbitrary acts galled his impatient subordinates, and finally wrought them to the pitch of open rebellion. The Spaniards were quick enough to perceive that this Genoese sailor was in no wise fitted to lay the foundation of a prosperous Spanish colony; and when during his absence he left in command his brother, to whom attached no prestige of high achievement to make up for his misfortune in not being born in Spain, complications grew daily worse. Even the ecclesiastics were against the admiral; for with a foresight born of a deep study of human nature they saw that between the fires of the real and the unreal this man was becoming mad. They saw the religious hypochondria, which had already inflamed his intellect, now aggravated by the anxieties incident to the government of a turbulent element under circumstances unprecedented, undermining his health, and bringing rapidly upon him those mental and physical distempers which rendered the remainder of his life prolonged misery. Thus we may plainly see how Columbus brought upon himself the series of calamities which are commonly found charged to unscrupulous sovereigns and villainous rivals.
And thickly enough misfortunes were laid upon him on his return to Isabela. Margarite, who had been ordered to explore the island, leaving Ojeda in command at Santo Tomás, had abandoned himself to licentious idleness, followed by outrages upon the natives, which notwithstanding their pacific disposition had driven them to retaliation.
TREATMENT OF THE NATIVES.
And here was the beginning of these four centuries of such rank injustice, such horrible atrocities inflicted by the hand of the stronger upon the weaker, of the civilized upon the savage, that should make a man blush to own kinship to a race so defiled before its maker in whose image it was created.
It is the self-same story, old and new, from Española to Darien and Mexico, from Brazil to Labrador, and from Patagonia to Alaska, by sailor and cavalier, Spaniard and Englishman, by gold-hunter and fur-hunter—the unenlightened red man welcoming with wonder his destroyer, upon whom he is soon forced to turn to save himself, his wife, his children, but only at last to fall by the merciless arm of development beneath the pitiable destiny of man primeval.
Throwing off all pretence of allegiance to Columbus, when satiated with his excesses, Margarite, with a mutinous crew at his heels and accompanied by Father Buil, had taken such ships as best suited them and had departed for Spain. Two caciques, or native chieftains, Guatiguana, and Caonabo the Carib, with their followers had arisen in arms, had killed some of the Spaniards, had besieged Magdalena and Santo Tomás, and had even cast an ominous eye on Isabela. Such were the chief occurrences at the settlement during the absence of the admiral.
First of all, Columbus made his brother Bartolomé adelantado, that is to say, leader of an enterprise, or governor of a frontier province. Then he sent relief to the fortress of Magdalena, and established another military post near where was subsequently Santiago, which he called Concepcion. Later the chain was continued by building other posts; one near the Rio Yaquí, called Santa Catalina, and one on the river Yaquí, called Esperanza. Meanwhile Ojeda offered to take the redoubtable Carib, Caonabo, by stratagem; which was accomplished, while he was surrounded by a multitude of warriors, by first winning the admiration and confidence of the cacique, and then on the plea of personal ornamentation and display obtaining his consent to wear some beautiful bright manacles, and sit bound behind Ojeda on his steed; in which plight he was safely brought by the dashing cavalier at the head of his horsemen into Isabela.
About this time Antonio de Torres arrived with four ships from Spain, and was sent back with the gold which had been collected, and five hundred Indians to be sold as slaves. By this departure went Diego Colon to refute the charges of incompetency and maladministration now being preferred against his brother at court.
Though suffering from a fresh attack of fever, on the 27th of March, 1495, accompanied by the adelantado and all his available forces, Columbus set out from Isabela to subjugate the caciques of the island, who had combined to extirpate the Spaniards. Charging the naked red men amidst the noise of drum, trumpet, and halloo, with horse and bloodhound, lance, sabre, and firelock, a peace was soon conquered. Multitudes of the inhabitants were butchered, and upon the rest was imposed such cruel tribute that they gradually sank beneath the servitude. But when the white men thus had the domain to themselves, they did not know what to do with it. It was not for them to till the soil, or labor in the mines; hence famine threatened, and they were finally reduced to the last extremity.
There is little wonder, under the circumstances, that orders were issued in Spain to depose Columbus, first by the appointment of a commission of inquiry, and finally by removal.