Fonseca and Diego Colon.
There was also at this time a passage of words between Fonseca and Diego Colon that was not without irritating elements. The Admiral's brother had brought some gold with him, which he claimed as his own. Fonseca withheld it, but in the end obeyed the sovereign's order and released it. It was no time to add to the complications of the Crown's relations with the distant Viceroy.
Royal letter to Columbus.
Aguado bore a royal letter, which commanded Columbus to reduce the dependents of the colony to five hundred, as a necessary retrenchment. There had previously been a thousand. Directions were also given to control the apportionment of rations. A new metallurgist and master-miner, Pablo Belvis, was sent out, and extraordinary privileges in the working of the mines were given to him. Muñoz says that he introduced there the quicksilver process of separating the gold from the sand. A number of new priests were collected to take the place of those who had returned, or who desired to come back.
Columbus and slavery.
Such were the companions and instructions that Aguado was commissioned to bear to Columbus. There was still another movement in the policy of the Crown that offered the Viceroy little ground for reassurance. The prisoners which he had sent by the ships raised a serious question. It was determined that any transaction looking to the making slaves of them had not been authorized; but the desire of Columbus so to treat them had at first been met by a royal order directing their sale in the marts of Andalusia. A few days later, under the influence of Isabella, this order had been suspended, till an inquiry could be made into the cause of the capture of the Indians, and until the theologians could decide upon the justifiableness of such a sale. If we may believe Bernaldez, who pictures their misery, they were subsequently sold in Seville. Muñoz, however, says that he could not find that the trouble which harassed the theologians was ever decided. Such hesitancy was calculated to present a cruel dilemma to the Viceroy, since the only way in which the clamor of the Court for gold could be promptly appeased came near being prohibited by what Columbus must have called the misapplied mercy of the Queen. He failed to see, as Muñoz suggests, why vassals of the Crown, entering upon acts of resistance, should not be subjected to every sort of cruelty. Humboldt wonders at any hesitancy when the grand inquisitor, Torquemada, was burning heretics so fiercely at this time that such expiations of the poor Moors and Jews numbered 8,800 between 1481 and 1498!
1495. October. Aguado at Isabella.
Aguado, with four caravels, and Diego Columbus accompanying him, having sailed from Cadiz late in August, 1495, reached the harbor of Isabella some time in October. The new commissioner found the Admiral absent, occupied with affairs in other parts of the island. Aguado soon made known his authority. It was embraced in a brief missive, dated April 9, 1495, and as Irving translates it, it read: "Cavaliers, esquires, and other persons, who by our orders are in the Indies, we send to you Juan Aguado, our groom of the chambers, who will speak to you on our part. We command you to give him faith and credit." The efficacy of such an order depended on the royal purpose that was behind it, and on the will of the commissioner, which might or might not conform to that purpose. It has been a plea of Irving and others that Aguado, elated by a transient authority, transcended the intentions of the monarchs. It is not easy to find a definite determination of such a question. It appears that when the instrument was proclaimed by trumpet, the general opinion did not interpret the order as a suspension of the Viceroy's powers. The Adelantado, who was governing in Columbus's absence, saw the new commissioner order arrests, countermand directions, and in various ways assume the functions of a governor. Bartholomew was in no condition to do more than mildly remonstrate. It was clearly not safe for him to provoke the great body of the discontented colonists, who professed now to find a champion sent to them by royal order.
Meets Columbus.
Columbus heard of Aguado's arrival, and at once returned to Isabella. Aguado, who had started to find him with an escort of horse, missed him on the road, and this delayed their meeting a little. When the conference came, Columbus, with a dignified and courteous air, bowed to a superior authority. It has passed into history that Aguado was disappointed at this quiet submission, and had hoped for an altercation, which might warrant some peremptory force. It is also said that later he endeavored to make it appear how Columbus had not been so complacent as was becoming.