Chapter Page I [Portuguese Voyages of Discovery—The Youth of Columbus—His Arrival at Lisbon] 11 II [Columbus’ Scheme Rejected in Lisbon—He Goes to Madrid and Has an Interview with Ferdinand and Isabella, after which he Endures Bitter Disappointments] 22 III [Three Vessels Fitted Out for Columbus—The First Voyage of Discovery is Made from Palos, August 3, 1492—Columbus on the Open Sea] 30 IV [Ocean Phenomena, Unknown to Columbus and his Crew, Increase the Fear of the Latter] 35 V [“Land, Land!”] 38 VI [Columbus Discovers Several Islands, among them Guanahani, Cuba, and Haiti—Traffic with the Natives] 44 VII [Prince Guakanahari—The Admiral’s Vessel Wrecked—Forty-three Men Remain Behind—The Return Voyage Begins] 52 VIII [The Return Voyage—Storm on the Way—Arrival at the Azores, Lisbon, and Palos] 60 IX [Columbus’ Second Journey in 1493—Several Islands Discovered—The Spaniards Find their Fort Destroyed and the Colonists Dead] 67 X [New Discoveries—Columbus in Great Danger—Uprising of the Natives] 75 XI [The Natives are Subjugated—Columbus is Traduced in Spain—He Returns to Europe and Suffers Many Hardships on the Voyage] 82 XII [Columbus is Graciously Received by Ferdinand and Isabella—His Enemies Unable to Shake their Confidence in Him—The Third Voyage in 1498—Discovery of the Island of Trinidad at the Mouth of the Orinoco] 87 XIII [Wretched Condition of the Colony—Vasco da Gama Sails around the Cape of Good Hope to the East Indies—Ojeda’s Undertaking—Cabral Discovers Brazil] 93 XIV [Columbus Again Calumniated at the Spanish Court—Bobadilla is Ordered to San Domingo on a Tour of Investigation—He Sends Columbus Back to Spain in Fetters—Columbus Vindicated by his Sovereigns—Ovando Sails to the New Countries with a Fleet of Thirty-two Vessels] 101 XV [Ovando Calls the Audacious Bobadilla to Account—Columbus Undertakes his Fourth Voyage in 1502] 108 XVI [Columbus Vainly Attempts to Find the Passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans] 115 XVII [Columbus Abandons the Hope of Discovering a Passage to the Pacific and Returns to Jamaica, where his Vessels are Exposed to Great Danger—Two Boats are Sent to Haiti for Help] 122 XVIII [Conspiracy against Columbus at Jamaica—He Returns to Spain and Vainly Seeks Reinstatement—He Dies at Valladolid in 1506] 131 XIX [Diego, Columbus’ Son, Secures the Rights Coming to him from his Father—The Spaniards Extend their Authority in Central America and Rule Cruelly—Ponce de Leon’s Discovery of Florida] 144 [Appendix] 154
Illustrations
Page [Christopher Columbus]Frontispiece [Columbus Planning the Discovery of America]28 [In Sight of the New World]42 [Landing of Columbus]44 [The Return of Columbus from his First Voyage]68
Christopher Columbus
Chapter I
Portuguese Voyages of Discovery—The Youth of Columbus—His Arrival at Lisbon
The ancient Greeks were not the only nation which imagined there was a region in the Atlantic Ocean, an island beyond the Pillars of Hercules, the sea highway, now called the Straits of Gibraltar. The traditions of other people tell of a land where only happy mortals dwell. Greek poetry assigned this region to the ocean, which was supposed to surround the world as it was known at that time. The Romans also believed in this distant western land, and in the Christian Middle Ages these same traditions were carefully preserved. It was told that many an adventurer sought these Islands of the Blest but never returned home.
The seafarers of the Middle Ages must have been timid navigators for they never reached the open sea but contented themselves with cruising along its shore. At last the Genoese and Venetians, whose cities were very prosperous in the fourteenth century, because of their expanding commerce, ventured out of the Straits of Gibraltar. Their course, however, was not southward but north of the straits which connect the Mediterranean Sea with the ocean, for it is well known that the Venetians in 1318 reached Antwerp by vessel.
Simultaneously with these efforts of the Italians to reach the north, the Portuguese were striving to discover a passage to the rich Indies in vessels manned almost entirely by Italian sailors. The Genoese also undertook independent voyages of discovery. Two ships which passed through the Straits of Gibraltar at the close of the thirteenth century never came back. A Genoese expedition at the beginning of the fourteenth century discovered the Canary Islands, but the explorers declared they were not the Islands of the Blest. Before the year 1335 a Portuguese vessel returned to Lisbon from the Canaries with products of the soil and kidnapped natives. In July, 1341, two large and well armed vessels, under command of a Genoese and a Florentine, reached the Canaries in five days from Lisbon. They held possession of the islands until November. It is also known that Europeans stopped for some time at Teneriffe,[1] where they found almost naked but fierce natives who lived in stone houses, tilled the soil, and worshipped idols. About the close of the fourteenth century thirteen friars attempted the conversion of the natives of the larger Canaries but were massacred by the savages.
About this time the islands of Madeira and the Azores were discovered but they were uninhabited. The Canaries alone had inhabitants, called Guanches.[2] These Guanches lived upon seven islands, but, as there were no means of communication between them, they knew little of each other. Their dialects indeed were so different that they could not understand one another. Wheat and barley were cultivated. The natives on the islands of Gomera and Palma went naked, lived in caves, and subsisted upon roots and goats’ milk, and were dangerous enemies with their stone weapons and horn-tipped spears. The natives on the larger Canaries were the most civilized and had two large cities and thirty-three communities. Their two kings were at constant variance. The warlike Guanches were only subjugated after fierce encounters, for they climbed with the ease of goats and were such fleet runners that they could overtake the hare. When asked about their origin, they replied: “After the submission of our ancestors the gods placed us in these islands, left us here, and forgot us.”
Remarkable success crowned the explorations of the Portuguese owing to the enterprise and zeal of the Infante, Henry,[3] third son of King John the First, who was surnamed by posterity “The Navigator.” His lean, angular person hardly bespoke his real greatness. His perseverance and indomitable resolution were apparent alone in his clear, open look. He was a man of great abstemiousness. Wine never passed his lips. He spent his revenues upon exploration and conquests on the west coast of Africa. The voyages of the Portuguese discoverers began in the Autumn of 1415 but the first navigators returned after reaching Cape Bajador, for they dared not venture out into the open sea because of the breakers and dangerous ledges. Four years later two explorers, driven out to sea by a storm, reached the island of Porto Santo, previously discovered by the Italians, and from there went to Madeira, or the “Forest Island,” as it was called. It was not until 1434 that Cape Bajador was circumnavigated by a daring man who had offended the Infante and by this exploit regained his favor. He brought back flowers in earthen vessels to prove that floral beauty was not lacking on the other side of the dreaded cape.