In the meanwhile Columbus, having organized a second expedition, had on September 23, 1493, set sail once more for the west. Very different in size and character was his new fleet from the former vessels of Palos with their pressed crews; for more than twice the number of men required for his fourteen caravels had applied for leave to sail with him, and not a few of those refused had chosen to embark as stowaways rather than be left behind. It was a case of unbalanced enthusiasm succeeding to unbalanced hostility, and, as often happens, the second state was to prove more dangerous than the first.
Not patriotism, nor a healthy love of adventure, nor even a cool-headed trading instinct, animated the majority of that idle, quarrelsome throng who were destined to turn the lands their discoverer at first believed the “Earthly Paradise” into a hell of human misery and wrong. It was lust of gold, no hardly-won reward of toil and sweat, but the fabulous wealth of Cipango and Cathay, to be picked in nuggets out of the flowing river, found in the turned surface of the earth, wrung by brutality if necessary from unwilling natives, that brought a wastrel nobility disgusted with orderly government at home, to serve under the standard of a man whom they secretly despised as an ill-bred foreigner. Not all were of this type. Amid the fourteen crews were some earnest souls, inspired like their Admiral by a sense of responsibility; but the prevailing element was selfish, vicious, and insubordinate.
For this Columbus himself was partly to blame. Blinded to the limits of his achievement by his faith in the glory and wealth yet to come, and, anxious at all costs to maintain the support of the Spanish sovereigns, his eloquence had painted a highly-coloured picture very likely to deceive those who listened. The small quantity of gold so far obtained was merged in the glittering accounts given by natives of kingdoms to the south, where precious metals were to be had for the asking. These, like Amazon islands and lands whose tribes had tails, proved ever beyond the distant horizon, vanishing at the Spanish approach. As they melted into thin air so also did Christopher’s inflated reputation; and those who had looked on him as a kind of magician, able to conjure up vast quantities of gold, saw him instead only as a lying adventurer, who had lured them from civilization and luxury on a false plea.
“Why hast thou taken us out into the wilderness to die?” It is the cry that from the time of Moses onwards has assailed the ears of the pioneer enthusiast. The wilderness may prove a paradise; but in that it falls short of human desires it will be condemned and despised. Not all the glory of sunshine and colour, of rich soil, luxurious vegetation, and flowing river, speaking to honest toilers of a possible kingdom of God on earth, can compensate with an idle rabble for shattered dreams of gold mines, of jewels, and of spices.
Murmurings, complaints, secret disobedience, open defiance: these were the fruits of Columbus’s autocracy. When he landed for the second time in Española, he found the fort which he had left well-stored with provisions and ammunition burnt to the ground, its garrison dead, the Indians, once his trusted allies, fleeing before him afraid into the woods. Inquiry elicited an all too circumstantial tale of Spanish profligacy, cruelty, and carelessness, once his governing hand had been removed. Then had come retribution in the form of an avenging massacre by a warlike tribe from the interior of the island. The Indians of the coast denied their participation, even swore on oath that they had helped the garrison to the best of their ability; and Columbus, anxious to believe them, tried to restore the old relations. Mutual suspicion, however, had come to reign. His followers, angry at the fate of their countrymen, accepted it as a legitimate excuse for intimidating and oppressing all natives. The hospitality and gifts once so generously lavished were now withheld or, proving totally inadequate to meet ever-growing Spanish necessities, were replaced by an enforced tribute, until the link of willing service was forged into an iron chain of bondage.
Some form of submission of native to European, of the weaker many to the stronger and more civilized few, was an inevitable solution of the racial problem. That it developed into absolute slavery was due, partly to the custom of the day, partly to the difficulties in which Columbus and his colonists soon found themselves involved. They had laid the foundations of the system in the New World when they carried off their first ten Indians in triumph to parade them through the streets of Barcelona, though the individuals in question could boast of generous treatment and a baptism with royal sponsors.
The principle of personal liberty abandoned, Columbus could declare, not without truth, that as slaves the natives would have a better chance of learning the doctrines of the Catholic Faith than in their own wild freedom. Even on the grounds of mercy and good government he could at first justify his attitude; since he and his followers contented themselves for the most part with seizing “Caribs,” a fierce cannibal tribe that preyed upon their weaker neighbours.
Among the people who are not cannibals [he wrote home] we shall gain great credit by their seeing that we can seize and take captive those from whom they are accustomed to receive injuries, and of whom they are in such terror that they are frightened by one man alone.
Alas for either pious or kindly intentions! Not these but economic considerations were really to sink the scales. Columbus had promised to find precious metals in abundance, and yet seven years after his discovery Bernaldez, the Curate of Los Palacios, made a note that the expenses of the various expeditions still continued to exceed the profits.
“Since everything passed through the Admiral’s hands,” he adds, “there was much murmuring against him, and he made greater hindrances and delays than he ought in sending back gold to the King.”