Brigantine.
It is often remarked with wonder in what small and apparently insecure vessels the early navigators traversed perilous seas and explored unknown coasts. That shipwreck so often attended their ventures is less surprising than that so many escaped destruction. Two of the three vessels employed by Columbus were open boats, according to March y Labores, Historia de la Marina Real Española, i. 98, of forty tons each, and the decked Santa María, only sixty tons. The term caravel was originally given to ships navigated wholly by sails as distinguished from the galley propelled by oars. It has been applied to a great variety of vessels of different size and construction. The caravels of the New World discoverers may be generally described as long, narrow boats of from twenty to one hundred tons burden, with three or four masts of about equal height carrying sometimes square and sometimes lateen sails, the fourth mast set at the heel of the bowsprit carrying square sails. They were usually half-decked, and adorned with the lofty forecastle and loftier poop of the day. The latter constituted over that part of the vessel a double or treble deck, which was pierced for cannon. A class of vessels like the Santa María, beside a double stern deck, had a forward deck armed with small pieces for throwing stones and grape. In the archives of Mallorca is a picture of a caravel drawn in 1397, and a very fair representation of those in use a century later may be found on Juan de la Cosa's map. The large decked ships of from 100 to 1200 tons had two, three, or four masts, and square sails, with high poop and sometimes high prow. In naval engagements and in discovery the smaller vessels seemed to be preferred, being more easily handled. Columbus, at Paria, complained of his vessel of 100 tons as being too large. In his ordenanzas de poblaciones of 1563 Philip II. required every discoverer to take at least two vessels of not over sixty tons each, in order to enter inlets, cross the bars of rivers, and pass over shoals. The larger ships, if any were of the expedition, must remain in a safe port until another safe port was found by the small craft. Thirty men and no more were to go in every ship, and the pilots must write down what they encountered for the benefit of other pilots. Recop. de Indias, ii. 5-6. The galera was a vessel of low bulwarks, navigated by sails and oars, usually twenty or thirty oars on either side, four or five oarsmen to a bench. It frequently carried a large cannon, called cruxia, two of medium size, and two small guns. The galeaza was the largest class of galera, or craft propelled wholly or in part by oars. It had three masts; it commonly carried twenty cannon, and the poop accommodated a small army of fusileers and sharpshooters. A galeota was a small galera, having only sixteen or twenty oarsmen on a side, and two masts. The galeon was a large armed merchant vessel with high bulwarks, three or four decks, with two or three masts, square-rigged spreading courses and top-sails, and sometimes top-gallant sails. One fleet of twelve galleons, from 1000 to 1200 tons burden, was named after the twelve apostles. Those which plied between Acapulco and Manila were from 1200 to 2000 tons burden. A galeoncillo was a small galeon. The carac was a large carrying vessel, the one intended for Columbus' second voyage being 1250 toneles, or 1500 tons. A nao, or navío, was a large ship with high bulwarks and three masts. A nave was a vessel with deck and sails; the former distinguishing it from the barca, and the absence of oars from a galera. The bergantin, or brig, had low bulwarks; the bergantin-goleta was a hermaphrodite brig, or brigantine, built for fast sailing. The name brigantine was applied in America also to an open flat-bottomed boat which usually carried one sail and from eight to sixteen men, with a capacity for about 100 persons.
[III-5] The Spanish league varies with time and place. It was not until 1801 that the diverse measurements of the several original kingdoms were by royal order made uniform, the legal league then becoming throughout all Spain 20,000 Spanish feet. Of these leagues there are twenty to the degree, making each three geographical miles, being, as specified by the law, the distance travelled on foot at a steady gait in one hour. The land league was, by law of Alfonso the Wise, 3000 paces, as specified by the Siete Partidas. The discoverers roughly estimated a league at from two and a half to three and a half English miles. A marine or geographical league at that time was about 7500 varas, or little less than four English miles, there being nearly 17½ to a degree of latitude. In different parts of Spanish America the league is different, being sometimes quite short. In Cuba a league consists of 5078 varas, and in Mexico of 5000 varas. The vara is the Spanish yard, comprising three Spanish feet of eleven English inches each. Since the decline of Roman influence, the Spaniards have had no equivalent for the English mile.
[III-6] See next chapter, [note 18].
[III-7] Called by the Venetians bissas, and by the Spaniards broma; a terrible pest to tropical navigators before the days of copper-bottoming. This, and another tropical marine worm, the Simnoria terebrans, brought hither by ships, play havoc with the wharf-piling of San Francisco and other west-coast harbors.
[III-8] The early chroniclers make their reckonings of values under different names at different times. Thus during the discoveries of Columbus we hear of little else but maravedís; then the peso de oro takes the lead, together with the castellano; all along marco and ducado being occasionally used. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, and before and after, Spanish values were reckoned from a mark of silver, which was the standard. A mark was half a pound either of gold or silver. The gold mark was divided into fifty castellanos; the silver mark into eight ounces. In the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the mark was divided by law into 65 reales de vellon of 34 maravedís each, making 2210 maravedís in a mark. To show how changeable were the values of subsidiary Spanish coins, and how utterly impossible it is accurately and at all times to determine by their names the amount of metal they represent, it is only necessary to state that in the reign of Alfonso XI., 1312-1350, there were 125 maravedís to the mark, while in the reign of Ferdinand VII., 1808-1833, a mark was divided into 5440 maravedís. In Spanish America a real is one eighth of a peso, and equal to 2½ reales de vellon. The peso contains one ounce of silver; it was formerly called peso de ocho reales de plata, whence came the term pieces of eight, a vulgarism at one time in vogue among the merchants and buccaneers in the West Indies. This coin is designated more particularly as peso fuerte, or peso duro, to distinguish it from peso sencillo, equivalent in value to four fifths of the former. The mutilator of Herrera translates pesos de oro as pieces of eight, in which as in other things he is about as far as possible wrong. The castellano, the one fiftieth of the golden mark, in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, was equivalent to 490 maravedís of that day. The peso de oro, according to Oviedo, was exactly equivalent to the castellano, and either was one third greater than the ducado, or ducat. The doblon, the popular name for the excelente, was first struck by Ferdinand and Isabella as a gold coin of the weight of two castellanos. The modern doubloon is an ounce of coined gold, and is worth 16 pesos fuertes. Reduced to United States currency the peso fuerte, as slightly alloyed bullion, is in weight nearly enough equivalent to one dollar. Therefore a mark of silver is equal to eight dollars; a piece of eight, equal to one peso, which equals one dollar; a real de vellon, five cents; a Spanish-American real, 12½ cents; a maravedí, 100/276 of a cent; a castellano, or peso de oro, $2.56; a doubloon, $5.14; a ducat, $1.92; a mark of gold, $128, assuming the United States alloy. The fact that a castellano was equivalent to only 490 maravedís shows the exceedingly high value of silver as compared with gold at the period in question. The modern ounce, or doubloon, is valued at about $16. As to the relative purchasing power of the precious metals at different times during the past four centuries economists differ. The returns brought by the first discoverers began the depreciation, which was rapidly accelerated by the successive conquests, notably of Mexico and Peru. Any one may estimate; no one can determine with exactness. Robertson, Prescott, and other writers make but guess-work of it (see Hist. America, and Conq. Mexico, passim) when they attempt to measure the uncertain and widely diversified denominations of centuries ago by the current coin of to-day.
[III-9] Las Casas, who was at Santo Domingo when the shipwrecked mariners arrived, saw Bastidas, and part of his gold, and the natives of Darien whom he had brought, and who in place of the Adamic fig-leaf wore a funnel-shaped covering of gold. There were great riches, it was said; three chests full of gold and pearls, which on reaching Spain were ordered to be publicly displayed in all the towns through which the notary passed on his way to court. This, as an advertisement of the Indies, was done to kindle the fires of avarice and discontent in sluggish breasts, that therefrom others might be induced to go and gather gold and pay the king his fifth. Afterward Bastidas returned with his wife and children to Santo Domingo, and became rich in horned cattle, having at one time 8000 head; and that when a cow in Española was worth 50 pesos de oro. In 1504 he again visited Urabá, in two ships, and brought thence 600 natives, whom he enslaved in Española. In 1520 the emperor gave him the pacification of Trinidad with the title of adelantado; which grant being opposed by Diego Colon, on the ground that the island was of his father's discovering, Bastidas waived his claim, and accepted the governorship of Santa Marta, where he went with 450 men, and was assassinated by his lieutenant, Villafuerte, who thought to succeed him, and to silence the governor's interposed objections to the maltreatment of the natives. Thus if the humane Bastidas, in accordance with the custom of the day, did inhumanly enslave his fellow-creatures, he gave his life at last to save them from other cruelties; which act, standing as it does luminous and alone in a century of continuous outrage, entitles him to the honorable distinction of Spain's best and noblest conquistador. As the eloquent Quintana says: 'Bastidas no se hizo célebre ni como descubridor ni como conquistador; pero su memoria debe ser grata á todos los amantes de la justicia y de la humanidad, por haber sido uno de los pocos que trataron á los indios con equidad y mansedumbre, considerando aquel pais mas bien como un objeto de especulaciones mercantiles con iguales, que como campo de gloria y de conquistas.'
Among the standard authorities mention is made of Bastidas and his voyage by Las Casas, Hist. Ind., iii. 10-12, who refutes certain of Oviedo's unimportant statements in Historia General y Natural de las Indias, i. 76-7; ii. 334-5; by Herrera, i. 148-9; Gomara, Hist. Ind., fol. 67; and in Galvano's Discov., 99-100, and 102-3. But before these I should place original documents found in Navarrete, Col. de Viages, iii. 25-28, 545-6, and 591-3, and in the Coleccion of Pacheco and Cárdenas, of both of which works I shall presently speak more fully. In tom. ii. pp. 362-6 of this latter collection is given the Asiento que hizo con sus Majestades Católicas Rodrigo de Bastidas, before mentioned; and on pp. 366-467, same volume, is Informacion de los servicios del adelantado Rodrigo de Bastidas, conquistador y pacificador de Santa Marta. Next in importance to the chroniclers are, Historia de la Marina Real Española, i. 284; Morelli, Fasti Novi Orbis, 11; Robertson's Hist. Am., i. 159; Help's Spanish Conquest, i. 294; Acosta, Compend. Hist. Nueva Granada, 21; Irving's Columbus, iii. 53-6, and Quintana, Vidas de Españoles Célebres, 'Vasco Nuñez de Balboa,' 1. Robinson's Acct. Discov. in West, 105; Lardner's Maritime Discovery, ii. 32; Holmes' Annals of America, i. 20; Lerdo de Tejada, Apuntes Hist., 89; Harris' Voy., i. 270; Major's Prince Henry, 369, and like allusions are worthless. In Kerr's Col. Voy., ii. 58-63, is given a translation of Galvano. In Aa's collection the narrative is substantially the same as in Gottfried's.
[IV-1] His nephew, Fernando, in his Hist. Almirante, in Barcia, passim, and those who follow this author closely, as Napione and De Conti, call him El Prefecto; Herrera, Diego Mendez, Diego de Porras, Robertson, Navarrete, and others, employ the title adelantado. Herrera says he was captain of one of the ships.