Columbus unable to leave Valladolid to greet Philip and Juana.
There broke a glimmer of hope. The death of the Queen had left the throne of Castile to her daughter Juana, the wife of Philip of Austria, and they had arrived from Flanders to be installed in their inheritance. Columbus, who had followed the Court from Segovia to Salamanca, thence to Valladolid, was now unable to move further in his decrepitude, and sent the Adelantado to propitiate the daughter of Isabella, with the trust that something of her mother's sympathy might be vouchsafed to his entreaties. Bartholomew never saw his brother again, and was not privileged to communicate to him the gracious hopes which the benignity of his reception raised.
Negroes sent to Española.
A year had passed since the Admiral had come to the neighborhood of the Court, wherever it was, and nothing had been accomplished in respect to his personal interests. Indeed, little touching the Indies at all seems to have been done. There had been trial made of sending negro slaves to Española as indicating that the native bondage needed reinforcement; but Ovando had reported that the experiment was a failure, since the negroes only mixed with the Indians and taught them bad habits. Ferdinando cared little for this, and at Segovia, September 15, 1505, he notified Ovando that he should send some more negroes. Whether Columbus was aware of this change in the methods of extracting gold from the soil we cannot find.
1506. May 4. Codicil to his will.
As soon as Bartholomew had started on his mission the malady of Columbus increased. He became conscious that the time had come to make his final dispositions. It was on May 4, 1506, according to the common story, that he signed a codicil to his will on a blank page in a breviary which had been given to him, as he says, by Alexander VI., and which had "comforted him in his battles, his captivities, and his misfortunes." This document has been accepted by some of the commentators as genuine; Harrisse and others are convinced of its apocryphal character. It was not found till 1779. It is a strange document, if authentic.
Thought to be spurious.
Itholds that such dignities as were his under the Spanish Crown, acknowledged or not, were his of right to alienate from the Spanish throne. It was, if anything, a mere act of bravado, as if to flout at the authority which could dare deprive him of his possessions. He provides for the descent of his honors in the male line, and that failing, he bequeaths them to the republic of Genoa! It was a gauge of hostile demands on Spain which no one but a madman would imagine that Genoa would accept if she could. He bestowed on his native city, in the same reckless way, the means to erect a hospital, and designated that such resources should come from his Italian estates, whatever they were. Certainly the easiest way to dispose of the paper is to consider it a fraud. If such, it was devised by some one who entered into the spirit of the Admiral's madness, and made the most of rumors that had been afloat respecting Columbus's purposes to benefit Genoa at the expense of Spain.
1506. May 19. Ratified his will.