GOVERNMENT OF THE INDIES.
Thus far the government of the Indies, as the New World began to be called, had been administered solely by the admiral, according to agreement, with Fonseca as superintendent in Spain. None but they were permitted to freight or despatch any vessel to the New World. Columbus was authorized to appoint two subordinate officers subject to royal sanction; and yet the sovereigns took offense when he named Bartolomé adelantado, which office was not that of lieutenant-governor, as many writers aver, but nearer that of territorial governor, with political as well as military powers, usually appointed by and subject only to the king. Assuming a certain degree of state, the admiral appeared at Isabela richly dressed, with ten escuderos de á pié, or squires of foot, and twenty familiares, composing his civil and military family. He had been directed before leaving Spain to appoint in each of the several settlements or colonies which should be planted an alcalde, or justice, exercising the combined duties of mayor and judge, with jurisdiction in civil and criminal cases, appeal being to the admiral; also an alguacil mayor, or high sheriff; and, if necessary, an ayuntamiento, or town council. All edicts, orders, and commissions must be issued in the name of the sovereigns, countersigned by the notary, with the royal seal affixed. The admiral had been further directed to build a warehouse where the royal stores should be kept, and all traffic should be subject to his direction. When he sailed upon his Cuban expedition he left for the direction of the colony a junta, of which his brother Diego was president, and Alonso Sanchez Carvajal, Juan de Luxan, Pedro Fernandez Coronel, and Father Buil, councillors.
Diego Colon was a well-meaning man, gentle and discreet, approaching in visage and dress nearer the priest than the cavalier; he was neither shrewd nor energetic. Bartolomé was quite the opposite, and in many respects was the ablest of the brothers. Powerful in mind and body, authoritative and determinate in demeanor, generous in disposition, fearless in spirit, a thorough seaman, a man of no narrow worldly experience, fairly educated, and talented with the pen, he was neither the amiable, inefficient Diego, nor the dreamy, enthusiastic admiral.
Quick to notice in their deputy any indication of misrule, or undue assumption of authority, their Majesties did not fail to lend an attentive ear to the charges preferred against him. Yet the record does not show from first to last that either Isabella or Ferdinand ever really desired or intended to do Columbus injustice or injury. When Torres returned from Spain, after the first accusation had been made, the sovereigns, besides a letter expressing the warmest confidence in the discoverer, and high consideration for the affairs of the colony, sent a special real provision ordering all to obey the admiral as themselves, under penalty of ten thousand maravedís for every offence. When further accusations came, instead of divesting him of his authority, they sent as commissioner of inquiry Juan Aguado, a warm friend of the admiral. Often they checked Fonseca's too harsh measures with regard to Columbus and his brothers, and interposed their royal protection from such officers as acted too severely under the exasperating folly of the admiral. To satisfy the discoverer would have been impossible for any patron, so wild were his desires, so chimerical his plans, so injudicious his acts.
Aguado arrived at Isabela in October. He brought four caravels laden with supplies, and Diego Colon, passenger. Soon it was noised abroad that the conduct of the admiral was to be questioned, whereat both white men and red rejoiced. Aguado could but see the pitiable state of things upon the island, idleness, poverty, excesses, and disobedience among the colonists, folly and mismanagement among the rulers, and seeing, could but report accordingly; for which, and for no other reasons that I am able to discover, the biographers of Columbus heap upon the commissioner opprobrious epithets.
When Aguado returned to Spain, Columbus accompanied him to make such excuses before the sovereigns as best he might. They embarked from Isabela March 10, 1496, leaving the adelantado in command, and carrying with them two hundred and twenty-five disaffected colonists, and a number of Indian captives, among whom was the proud and once powerful chieftain, Caonabo, so treacherously taken by Ojeda. Contrary winds and starvation attended them, Caonabo dying during the voyage. Arrived at Cádiz in June, the admiral found Pedro Alonso Niño about to sail with three caravels for Hayti. Niño carried out more priests, and brought back more slaves.
Columbus appeared in Spain in a Franciscan garb and with dejected demeanor. To all the world, except to himself, it was by this time evident that his gorgeous India was a myth, and settlement on the supposition of its existence a mistake. He seemed now dazed by reverses, as formerly he had been dazed by successes. Nevertheless, he continued to make as much as possible of his discoveries, parading a brother of Caonabo in a broad gold collar with a massive gold chain attached.
Still the sovereigns were gracious. They scarcely alluded to the complaints and ever-increasing charges against the admiral, but confirmed anew his dignities, enlarged his perquisites, and showed him every kindness. The title of adelantado was formally vested by them in Bartolomé. When asked for more ships and money, they readily granted both; moreover, they offered the admiral a tract of land in Hayti, twenty-five by fifty leagues, which, however, he declined; they offered him sixty sailors, a hundred and forty soldiers, one hundred miners, mechanics, and farmers, and thirty women, the services of all to be paid by the crown. But because there was some delay, occasioned by the operations in Italy and the armada for Flanders, the biographers of the admiral again break out in abuse of the sovereigns and their servants. The truth is, Ferdinand and Isabella stood by the Genoese much longer than did their subjects. For example, when certain millions of maravedís, equivalent to over a hundred thousand dollars to-day, had been appropriated, and eight vessels equipped, so unpopular had the admiral and his enterprises become, that it was found necessary to press sailors into the service, and empty the prisons for colonists. And it was only when their admiral, viceroy, and governor of the Indies so far forgot himself, when on the point of sailing, as publicly, and with his own hand and foot, to strike down and kick Jimeno de Berviesca, an official under Fonseca, that the sovereigns began to realize the unfitness of Columbus for the management of colonies. It was a serious offense to attack a public servant; and when this was done under the very eyes of royalty, and by the man they had so delighted to honor, the truth came home to them, and they never afterward regarded the Genoese with the same degree of favor. Yet for his great merits, his genius, enthusiasm, and perseverance, and for the glory unparalleled conferred by him on Spain, they would ever be to him just and generous. He could never become again the pauper pilot, as he had been called at Granada while begging help for his first voyage.
THIRD VOYAGE.
Two vessels were despatched to the colony under Pedro Fernandez Coronel early in 1498. On the 30th of May Columbus embarked from San Lúcar with six vessels, arrived at the northern seaboard of South America, and discovered there the isle of Trinidad the 31st of July, sailed through the gulf of Paria, where gold and pearls were seen in profusion, discovered the Margarita Islands, and came to Hayti, arriving off the river Ozema, on the southern side of the island, the 30th of August.