Within twenty years Arthur Helps approached the subject from the point of view of one who was determined, as he thought no one of the writers on the subject of the Spanish Conquest had been, to trace the origin of, and responsibility for, the devastating methods of Spanish colonial government; "not conquest only, but the result of conquest, the mode of colonial government which ultimately prevailed, the extirpation of native races, the introduction of other races, the growth of slavery, and the settlement of the encomiendas, on which all Indian society depended." It is not to Helps, therefore, that we are to look for any extended biography of Columbus; and when he finds him in chains, sent back to Spain, he says of the prisoner, "He did not know how many wretched beings would have to traverse those seas, in bonds much worse than his; nor did he foresee, I trust, that some of his doings would further all this coming misery." It does not appear from his footnotes that Helps depended upon other than the obvious authorities, though he says that he examined the Muñoz collection, then as now in the Royal Academy of History at Madrid.
R. H. Major.
The last scholarly summary of Columbus's career previous to the views incident to the criticism of Harrisse on the Historie of 1571 was that which was given by R. H. Major, in the second edition of his Select Letters of Columbus (London, 1870).
Aaron Goodrich.
There have been two treatments of the subject by Americans within the last twenty years, which are characteristic. The Life and Achievements of the So-called Christopher Columbus (New York, 1874), by Aaron Goodrich, mixes that unreasoning trust and querulous conceit which is so often thrown into the scale when the merits of the discoverers of the alleged Vinland are contrasted with those of the imagined Indies. With a craze of petulancy, he is not able to see anything that cannot be twisted into defamation, and his book is as absurdly constant in derogation as the hallucinations of De Lorgues are in the other direction.
H. H. Bancroft.
When Hubert Howe Bancroft opened the story of his Pacific States in his History of Central America (San Francisco, 1882), he rehearsed the story of Columbus, but did not attempt to follow it critically except as he tracked the Admiral along the coasts of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. This writer's estimate of the character of Columbus conveys a representation of what the Admiral really was, juster than national pride, religious sympathy, or kindly adulation has usually permitted. It is unfortunately, not altogether chaste in its literary presentation. His characterization of Irving and Prescott in their endeavors to draw the character of Columbus has more merit in its insight than skill in its drafting.
Winsor.
Bibliography of Columbus.