The Franciscans.
Back of Isabella in this spasmodic interest in the Indians was the celebrated Archbishop of Granada, Fernando de Talavera, whom we have earlier known as the prior of Prado. He had been since 1478 the confessor of the Queen, and when the time came for sending missionaries to the Antilles it was natural that they were of the order of St. Jerome, of which Talavera was himself a member. Columbus, through a policy which induced him to make as apparent as possible his mingling of interests with the Church, had before this adopted the garb of the Franciscans, and this order was the second in time to be seen in Española in 1502. They were the least tolerant of the leading orders, and had already shown a disposition to harass the Indians, and were known to treat haughtily the Queen's intercessions for the poor souls. It was not till after the death of Columbus that the Dominicans, coming in 1510, reinforced the kindly spirit of the priests of St. Jerome. Still later they too abandoned their humanity.
Columbus's mercenary impulses.
His praise of gold.
The downfall of Columbus began when he wrested from the reluctant monarchs what he called his privileges, and when he insisted upon riches as the accompaniment of such state and consequence as those privileges might entail. The terms were granted, so far as the King was concerned, simply to put a stop to importunities, for he never anticipated being called upon to confirm them. The insistency of Columbus in this respect is in strange contrast to the satisfaction which the captains of Prince Henry, Da Gama and the rest, were content to find in the unpolluted triumphs of science. The mercenary Columbus was forced to the utterance of Solomon: "I looked upon the labor that I had labored to do, and behold all was vanity and vexation of spirit." The Preacher never had a better example. Columbus was wont to say that gold gave the soul its flight to paradise. Perhaps he referred to the masses which could be bought, or to the alms which could propitiate Heaven. He might better have remembered the words of warning given to Baruch: "Seekest thou great things for thyself? Seek them not. For, saith the Lord, thy life will I give unto them for a prey in all places whither thou goest." And a prey in all places he became.
Humboldt seeks to palliate this cupidity by making him the conscious inheritor of the pecuniary chances which every free son of Genoa expected to find within his grasp by commercial enterprise. Such prominence was sought because it carried with it power and influence in the republic.
If Columbus had found riches in the New World as easily as he anticipated, it is possible that such affluence would have moulded his character in other ways for good or for evil. He soon found himself confronting a difficult task, to satisfy with insufficient means a craving which his exaggerations had established. This led him to spare no device, at whatever sacrifice of the natives, to produce the coveted gold, and it was an ingenious mockery that induced him to deck his captives with golden chains and parade them through the Spanish towns.
Nicolas de Conti.
The world's disgust.