Footnote 503: My account of these proceedings at La Rábida differs in some particulars from any heretofore given, and I think gets the events into an order of sequence that is at once more logical and more in harmony with the sources of information than any other. The error of Ferdinand Columbus—a very easy one to commit, and not in the least damaging to his general character as biographer—lay in confusing his father's two real visits (in 1484 and 1491) to Huelva with two visits (one imaginary in 1484 and one real in 1491) to La Rábida, which was close by, between Huelva and Palos. The visits were all the more likely to get mixed up in recollection because in each case their object was little Diego and in each case he was left in charge of somebody in that neighbourhood. The confusion has been helped by another for which Ferdinand is not responsible, viz.: the friar Juan Perez has been confounded with another friar Antonio de Marchena, who Columbus says was the only person who from the time of his first arrival in Spain had always befriended him and never mocked at him. These worthy friars twain have been made into one (e. g. "the prior of the convent, Juan Perez de Marchena," Irving's Columbus, vol. i. p. 128), and it has often been supposed that Marchena's acquaintance began with Columbus at La Rábida in 1484, and that Diego was left at the convent at that time. But some modern sources of information have served at first to bemuddle, and then when more carefully sifted, to clear up the story. In 1508 Diego Columbus brought suit against the Spanish crown to vindicate his claim to certain territories discovered by his father, and there was a long investigation in which many witnesses were summoned and past events were busily raked over the coals. Among these witnesses were Rodriguez Cabejudo and the physician Garcia Fernandez, who gave from personal recollection a very lucid account of the affairs at La Rábida. These proceedings are printed in Navarrete, Coleccion de viages, tom. iii. pp. 238-591. More recently the publication of the great book of Las Casas has furnished some very significant clues, and the elaborate researches of M. Harrisse have furnished others. (See Las Casas, lib. i. cap. xxix., xxxi.; Harrisse, tom. i. pp. 341-372; tom. ii. pp. 237-231; cf. Peragallo, L' autenticità, etc., pp. 117-134.)—It now seems clear that Marchena, whom Columbus knew from his first arrival in Spain, was not associated with La Rábida. At that time Columbus left Diego, a mere infant, with his wife's sister at Huelva. Seven years later, intending to leave Spain forever, he went to Huelva and took Diego, then a small boy. On his way from Huelva to the Seville road, and thence to Cordova (where he would have been joined by Beatriz and Ferdinand), he happened to pass by La Rábida, where up to that time he was evidently unknown, and to attract the attention of the prior Juan Perez, and the wheel of fortune suddenly and unexpectedly turned. As Columbus's next start was not for France, but for Granada, his boy was left in charge of two trustworthy persons. On May 8, 1492, the little Diego was appointed page to Don John, heir-apparent to the thrones of Castile and Aragon, with a stipend of 9,400 maravedis. On February 19, 1498, after the death of that young prince, Diego became page to Queen Isabella.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 504: In popular allusions to Columbus it is quite common to assume or imply that he encountered nothing but opposition from the clergy. For example the account in Draper's Conflict between Science and Religion, p. 161, can hardly be otherwise understood by the reader. But observe that Marchena who never mocked at Columbus, Juan Perez who gave the favourable turn to his affairs, the great prelates Deza and Mendoza, and the two treasurers Santangel and Quintanilla, were every one of them priests! Without cordial support from the clergy no such enterprise as that of Columbus could have been undertaken, in Spain at least. It is quite right that we should be free-thinkers; and it is also desirable that we should have some respect for facts.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 505: Our Scandinavian friends are fond of pointing to this demand of Columbus as an indication that he secretly expected to "discover America," and not merely to find the way to Asia. But how about Ferdinand and Isabella, who finally granted what was demanded, and their ministers who drew up the agreement, to say nothing of the clerks who engrossed it? What did they all understand by "discovering islands and continents in the ocean"? Were they all in this precious Vinland secret? If so, it was pretty well kept. But in truth there was nothing singular in these stipulations. Portugal paid for discovery in just this way by granting governorships over islands like the Azores, or long stretches of continent like Guinea, along with a share of the revenues yielded by such places. See for example the cases of Gonzalo Cabral, Fernando Gomez, and others in Major, Prince Henry the Navigator, pp. 238, 321, and elsewhere. In their search for the Indies the Portuguese were continually finding new lands, and it was likely to be the same with the western route, which was supposed (see Catalan, Toscanelli, and Behaim maps) to lead among spice islands innumerable, and to Asiatic kingdoms whose heathen people had no rights of sovereignty that Christian monarchs felt bound to respect.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 506: Las Casas, op. cit. tom i. p. 243.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 507: See his letter of February, 1502, to Pope Alexander VI. in Navarrete, tom. ii. p. 280; and cf. Helps, Spanish Conquest in America, vol. i. p. 96; Roselly de Lorgues, Christophe Colomb, p. 394.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 508: I cite this version from Irving's Columbus, vol. i. p. 142, making a slight amendment in the rendering; the original text is in Navarrete, tom. ii. p. 7. A few days later the title of "Don" was granted to Columbus and made hereditary in his family along with the offices of viceroy and governor-general.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 509: A police organization formed in 1476 for suppressing highway robbery.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 510: It is not easy to give an accurate account of the cost of this most epoch-making voyage in all history. Conflicting statements by different authorities combine with the fluctuating values of different kinds of money to puzzle and mislead us. According to M. Harrisse 1,000,000 maravedis would be equivalent to 295,175 francs, or about 59,000 gold dollars of United States money at present values. Las Casas (tom. i. p. 256) says that the eighth part, raised by Columbus, was 500,000 maravedis (29,500 dollars). Account-books preserved in the archives of Simancas show that the sums paid from the treasury of Castile amounted to 1,140,000 maravedis (67,500 dollars). Assuming the statement of Las Casas to be correct, the amounts contributed would perhaps have been as follows:—
| Queen Isabella, from Castile treasury | $67,500 |
| "loan from Santangel | 59,000 |
| Columbus | 29,500 |
| Other sources, including contribution levied upon the town of Palos | 80,000 |
| ————— | |
| Total | $236,000 |
This total seems to me altogether too large for probability, and so does the last item, which is simply put at the figure necessary to make the total eight times 29,500. I am inclined to suspect that Las Casas (with whom arithmetic was not always a strong point) may have got his figures wrong. The amount of Santangel's loan also depends upon the statement of Las Casas, and we do not know whether he took it from a document or from hearsay. Nor do we know whether it should be added to, or included in, the first item. More likely, I think, the latter. The only item that we know with documentary certainty is the first, so that our statement becomes modified as follows:—