[IV-20] Although used by most Spanish and English writers as a proper name, the word quibian is an appellative, and signifies the chief of a nation, or the ruler of a dynasty, as the cacique of the Cubans, the inca of the Peruvians, the ahau of the Quichés, etc. Columbus, writing from Jamaica, employs the term el Quibian de Veragua; and again, Carta de Colon, in Navarrete, Col. de Viages, i. 302, 'Asenté pueblo, y dí muchas dádivas al Quibian, que así llaman al Señor de la tierra.' Napione and De Conti write il Quibio o cacico di Beragua. See their Biog. di Colombo, 388:—"Il Prefetto andò colle barche al mare per entrare nel fiume e portarsi alla popolazione del Quibio, cosi chiamato da quei popoli il loro Re.'
[IV-21] Rio de la Concepcion.
[IV-22] Irving, Columbus, ii. 402, carelessly calls him 'the chief notary,' confounding him with Diego de Porras, who was notary of the expedition. The notary was not a fighting man, but rather must withhold himself from action that he might write down what was done by others.
[IV-23] 'Y como luego mandó prender al Cacique do se le fizo mucho daño que le quemaron su poblacion, que era la mejor que habia en la costa é de mejores casas, de muy buena madera, todas cubiertas de fojas de palmas, é prendieron á sus fijos, é aquí traen algunos dellos de que quedó toda aquella tierra escandalizada, desto no sé dar cuenta sino que lo mandó facer é aun apregonar escala franca.' Diego de Porras, in Navarrete, Col. de Viages, i. 286-7.
[IV-24] There are two accounts of this affair; one by Fernando Colon, and one by Diego Mendez. Both are biased; the former in favor of Bartolomé, the latter in favor of the writer. Fernando tells how, when the settlement was taken by surprise, his uncle seized a lance, and supported by seven men fought with desperate valor until the main body of the Spaniards came to his relief, when the enemy was routed. The other states, Relacion hecha por Diego Mendez, in Navarrete, Col. de Viages, i. 317, that the admiral had just left the harbor, accompanied by the larger part of the Spaniards, who had gone to say farewell. Mendez, newly appointed contador, held the town of Belen with twenty men. Suddenly four hundred Indians appeared on the hill above, and sent upon the Spaniards a shower of darts and arrows. Fortunately the yells were in advance of the weapons, and thus time was given Mendez to arm. The fight was desperate, and lasted three hours. Ten natives who ventured to close with their war clubs were slain by the sword. Seven of the twenty Christians were killed; but a miracle at last gave victory to the remainder. During the next four days, by the ingenuity of Mendez, and under his direction, the effects of the colony were placed on shipboard, and in return for his invaluable services he was made captain of Tristan's ship.
[IV-25] The final burial-place, not only of Columbus, but of his son Diego, and of his grandson Luis, was the cathedral of Santo Domingo. For seven years after his death the remains of Columbus lay in the convent of San Francisco at Valladolid. Then they were removed to Seville and placed in the monastery of Las Cuevas; and in 1536 were transferred to Santo Domingo. When Española was ceded to France in 1795, the Spanish naval commander asked permission to remove the remains to Cuba, which was granted; and what were supposed to be the remains were so removed midst pomp and ceremony in December-January following. But later investigations, the result of long-standing suspicions, satisfied many that a blunder had been committed; and that the bones of Columbus still rest at Santo Domingo. This has been proved beyond a doubt by the recent researches of the distinguished French savant and Americaniste A. Pinart.
[IV-26] I have remarked at some length on Fernando Colon's life of his father, and on the letters of the admiral, and other documents in Navarrete, Salvá and Baranda, Pacheco and Cárdenas, and Mendoza, and elsewhere. The standard historians, Las Casas, Oviedo, Peter Martyr, Gomara, and Herrera, I will pass for the present, only remarking that each in his own way tells the story of the admiral, and all must be carefully considered in a study of his life and achievements. Other early or important authorities are Zorzi, Paesi Nouamente retrouati, Vicentia, 1507; Ruchamer, Newe unbekanthe landte, Nuremberg, 1508; Stamler, Dyalogvs, Augsburg, 1508; Marineo, Obra Compuesta de las Cosas Memorables e Claros Varones de España, Alcala, 1530; Geraldini, Itinerarivm ad Regiones svb Æqvinoctiali, Rome, 1631; Grynævs, Novvs Orbis Regionvm ac Insularvm veteribvs incognitarvm, Basle, 1532; Maffei, Historiarum indicarum, Florence, 1588; Gambaræ, De navigatione Christophori Columbi, Rome, 1585; Charlevoix, Histoire de l'Isle-Espagnole, Paris, 1730; Cladera, Investigaciones historicas, Madrid, 1794; Bossi, Vita di Colombo, Milan, 1818. Die vierdte Reise so vollenbracht hat Christoffel Columb, at page 6 of Löw, Meer oder Seehanen Buch, Cologne, 1598, should be read in reference with the maps, to be appreciated. See also Ramusio, Viaggi, iii. 16-18 and 98-9; Benzoni, Hist. Mondo Nvovo, 27-30; Galvano's Discov., 100-1; Humboldt, Exam. Crit., passim; Major's Select Letters of Columbus, Hakluyt Soc., London, 1847; Castellanos, Elegías de Varones ilustres de Indias, 42-3; Acosta, Compend. Hist Nueva Granada, 1-17; Repertorio Americano, iii. 186-225; Vetancvrt, Teatro Mex., 3-6 and 101-6; Lerdo de Tejada, Apuntes Hist., 77-80; Remesal, Hist. Chyapa, 162-3; Gordon's Hist. Am., i. 247-64; Lardner's Hist. Discov., ii. 16; Payno, Cronología Mex., in Soc. Mex. Geog.; Robertson's Hist. Am., i. 59-175; Corradi, Descub. de la Am., i. 6-312; Simon, Conq. tierra firme, 44-50; Mesa y Leompart, Hist. Am., i. 1-64; Torquemada, i. 20-1, and iii. 283-94; Vega, Comentarios Reales, ii. 7; Acosta, Hist. Ind., passim; Villagvtierre, Hist. Conq. Itza, 5-19; Mendieta, Hist. Ecles., 13-39; Cavanilles, Hist. España, v. 27-55 and 104-9; Nueva España, Breve Resumen, MS., i. 1-14; Maglianos, St Francis and Franciscans, 521-32; Aa, Naaukeurige Versameling, ii. and iii. passim; Holmes' Annals Am., i. 1-16; Puga, Cedulario, 4-5; Gonzalez Dávila, Teatro Ecles., i. 255-6; Burke's Europ. Set., i. 1-45; Major's Prince Henry, 347-67; Help's Span. Conq., passim; Heylyn's Cosmog., 1083; Ogilby's Am., 55-6; Ens, West- und Ost-Indischer Lustgart, 178-84 and 408-9; Campe, Hist. Descub. Am., 1-133; Poussin, De la Puissance Américaine, passim; Hist. Mag., Aug. and Sept. 1864, and Feb. 1868; Mariana, Hist. España, vi. 307 etc. and vii. 80; Muñoz, Hist. Nuevo Mundo, i. 27-312; Morelli, Fasti Novi Orbis, 11-12; Purchas, His Pilgrimes, v. 801-4; Pizarro y Orellana, Varones Ilvstres del Nvevo Mvndo, 1-53; Montanus, De Nieuwe en Onbekende Weereld, 1-43; and Laet, Nov. Orb., 345-6. The first work to throw a clear light on the question of birthplace was the Della patria di Cristoforo Colombo, by Conte Napione di Coconato, Florence, 1808, a dissertation published by the Academy of Sciences, of Turin. In this and supplementary works the ability and zeal of the author are manifest. In 1853, at Rome, was issued a new edition of Napione and de Conti, entitled Patria e Biografia Del Grande Ammíraglio D. Cristóforo Colombo ... rischiarita e comprovata dai celebri scrittori Gio. Francesco Conte Napione di Coconato e Vincenzo de Conti, the latter author of Storia del Monferrato, in which appears a wealth of new information second only to the original narratives and documents themselves. The Dissertazioni epistolari bibliografiche, Rome, 1809, of Francesco Cancellieri, which Leclerc calls 'savante et fort curieuse,' should not be overlooked. John S. C. Abbott throws together a Life of Christopher Columbus, New York, 1875, in popular form, in which extracts are conspicuous, the author having made quite free with the writings of his predecessors.
[V-1] Chief judge, or highest judicial officer in the colony, to take the place of Roldan, who was to be returned to Spain. Irving, Columbus, ii. 331, writes erroneously alguazil mayor, evidently confounding the two offices. For Las Casas, Hist. Ind., iii. 18, says plainly enough:—'Trujo consigo por Alcalde mayor un caballero de Salamanca y licenciado, llamado Alonso Maldonado.' An alguacil mayor was a chief constable, or high sheriff, a very different person from a chief judge. These terms, and the offices represented by them, will be fully explained in another place.
[V-2] As this word will often occur in these pages, and as neither the term nor the institution it symbolizes has any equivalent in English, I will enter here a full explanation. Residencia was the examination or account taken of the official acts of an executive or judicial officer during the term of his residence within the province of his jurisdiction, and while in the exercise of the functions of his office. This was done at the expiration of the term of office, or at stated periods, or in case of malefeasance at any time. The person making the examination was appointed by the king, or in New World affairs by the Consejo de Indias, or by a viceroy, and was called a juez de residencia. Before this judge, within a given time, any one might appear and make complaint, and offer evidence against the retiring or suspended official, who might refute and rebut as in an ordinary tribunal. The residencia of any officer appointed by the crown must be taken by a judge appointed by the crown; the residencia of officers appointed in the Indies by viceroys, audiencias, or president-governors, was taken by a judge appointed by the same authority. Following are some of the changes rung upon the subject by royal decrees, the better to make it fit the government of the Indies. The 10th of June, 1523, and again the 17th of November, 1526, Charles V. decreed that appeal might be made from the judge of residencia to the Council of the Indies, except in private demands not exceeding 600 pesos de oro, when appeal was to the audiencia. In 1530 viceroys and president-governors were directed to take the residencia of visitadores de Indios that wrong-doing to the natives might not escape punishment; and by a later law proclamations of residencias must be made in such manner that the Indians might know thereof. The Ordenanzas de Audiencias of Philip II. of 1563 and 1567, state that in some cities of the Indies it was customary to appoint at certain seasons two regidores, who, with an alcalde, acted as fieles ejecutores. At the beginning of every year the viceroy, or the president, in a city which was the residence of an audiencia, had to appoint an oidor to take the residencia of the fieles ejecutores of the previous year. The same was to be done if those offices had been sold to the city, villa, or lugar; but in such cases it was left to the discretion of the viceroy or president to cause them to be taken when necessary, not allowing them to become too commonplace. Philip II. in 1573, and his successors as late as 1680, directed that in residencias of governors and their subordinates, when the fine did not exceed 20,000 maravedís, execution should issue immediately; in damages granted from private demands to the amount of 200 ducats, the condemned was to give bonds to respond. While an official was undergoing his residencia it was equivalent to his being under arrest, as he could neither exercise office nor, except in certain cases specified, leave the place. Thus the law of 1530, reiterated in 1581, stated that from the time of the proclamation of a residencia till its conclusion alguaciles mayores and their tenientes should be suspended from carrying the varas, or from exercising any of the functions of office. In 1583, in 1620, and in 1680, it was ordered that such judges of residencia as were appointed in the Indies should be selected by a viceroy and audiencia, or by a president and audiencia, acting in accord. Salaries of jueces de residencia were ordered by Felipe III. in 1618 to be paid by the official tried if found guilty, if not by the audiencia appointing. Before this, in 1610, the same sovereign had ordered notaries employed in residencias taken by corregidores to be paid in like manner. The next monarch directed that ships' officers should be subject to residencia in the form of a visita; and in visitas to galeones and flotas none but common sailors, artillerymen, and soldiers should be exempt. Cárlos II. in 1667 decreed that the residencia of a viceroy must be terminated within six months from the publication of the notice of the judge taking it. Felipe III. in 1619, and Cárlos II. in 1680, ordered that viceroys and presidents should send annually to the crown lists of persons suitable for conducting residencias, so that no one might be chosen to act upon the official under whose jurisdiction he resided. See Recop. de Indias, ii. 176-89. Of the report of the residencia the original was sent to the Council of the Indies, and a copy deposited in the archives of the audiencia. So burdensome were these trials, so corrupt became the judges, that later, in America, the residencia seemed rather to defeat than to promote justice, and in 1799 it was abolished so far as the subordinate officers were concerned.
[V-3] Originally written fijodalgo, son of something. Later applied to gentlemen, country gentlemen perhaps more particularly. Oviedo, ii. 466, calls Diego de Nicuesa 'hombre de limpia sangre de hijosdalgo,' a man of pure gentle blood. Concerning the origin of the word hidalgo, Juan de la Puente states that during the Moorish wars, whenever a large town was captured the king kept it; the villages he gave to captains who had distinguished themselves, and who were called at first ricos homes, and afterward grandes. To minor meritorious persons something less was given, a portion of the spoils or a grant of land, but always something; hence their descendants were called fijosdalgos, hijosdalgos, or hidalgos, sons of something. In the Dic. Univ. authorities are quoted showing that the word hidalgo originated with the Roman colonists of Spain, called Itálicos, who were exempt from imposts. Hence those enjoying similar benefits were called Itálicos, which word in lapse of time became hidalgo.