Columbus and Other Heroes of American Discovery

by N. D'Anvers

Whether America was or was not visited from Europe or from Asia before the time of Columbus, however, the barbarism in which European society was sunk in medieval times prevented any recognition of the true significance of the details of adventures given by returned mariners; and their voyages thus fail to form any real link between the America of the middle ages and that of the present day. If, therefore, we would point out the true precursor of the first hero of discovery in the West, we shall find him, not in the wild Northmen bent on pillage and bloodshed, nor in the brothers Zeni of legend and romance, but in that grand central figure of the scientific annals of the 13th century, Marco Polo, whose book, revealing the existence of vast empires in the East, did much to stimulate the enthusiasm, not only of Columbus, but also of Bartholomew Diaz, Vasco da Gama, and other early heroes of travel, thus indirectly leading to the discovery alike of the Cape of Good Hope and of America.

Although Columbus never set foot on the Northern half of the American continent, with which alone we have, strictly speaking, now to do, no record of travel in any part of the New World would appear to us complete without some account of his first voyage, and of what led to that voyage. For there can be no doubt that, but for the noble steadfastness of purpose which resulted in the achievement of one discovery while its author was bent on another, the revelation of the existence of a quarter of the globe larger than Europe and Asia put together, and which was destined to be the scene of much of the most stirring history of modern times, would have been indefinitely postponed.

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.

Of the early life of Christopher Columbus little is known with any certainty. He is supposed, however, to have been born about 1435, and, as the son of a poor wool-comber of Genoa, to have enjoyed few educational advantages, although, fortunately for him, what little teaching he received seems to have tended to foster his peculiar genius. According to his own account, preserved in the Historia del Amirante, he began his maritime career at fourteen, after a brief sojourn at the University of Pavia, enduring great hardships as a sailor employed in the half-commercial, half-nautical cruises of the roving ships which, in the latter part of the 15th century, haunted the Mediterranean and the coasts beyond the Straits of Gibraltar.

In 1459 we hear of a certain “handy sea-captain” named Colombo taking part as a private adventurer in an expedition sent out by John of Genoa against Naples; and in 1470 we find the same sea-captain—now in the prime of life—settling in Lisbon, and by his marriage with the daughter of Palestrello, the discoverer of Porto Santo, coming into possession of many valuable charts and journals, the study of which is said to have first suggested to him the existence of land to the westward, which land, however, he from first to last erroneously supposed to be, not a new continent, but a continuation of the eastern shores of Asia.

Whether our hero drew his inspiration from one author or another, or, as appears more likely, was led up to the conception of his great design by the spirit of the age in which he lived, affects but little the historical fact that it was about 1474, when the enlightened efforts of Prince Henry of Portugal had ushered in a new era of geographical research, that Columbus first enunciated his belief that there was land in the western part of the ocean; that it could be reached; that it was fertile; and, lastly, that it was inhabited—a belief which was shortly afterward converted into a design for seeking a western route to India, although eighteen long years elapsed before the first step was taken in the realization of a scheme so totally opposed to all the preconceived notions of cosmographers.

In voyage after voyage made by Columbus in the succeeding years to the Azores, the Canaries, and the coasts of Guinea, then the limits of navigation to the westward, the future discoverer became more and more fully convinced that, with the necessary time and means at his disposal, he might convert his dream into a waking reality; but, alas! all his attempts to obtain a hearing for his scheme from those who were in a position to forward it were met by scorn and ridicule.

The first ray of hope to break upon the despair of Columbus at this ill-success was the invention—or, to be more strictly accurate, the application to navigation—of the astrolabe, the precursor of the modern quadrant, by Martin Behaim, and by Roderigo and Joseph, physicians in the employ of John II. of Portugal. Armed with it and the mariner’s compass, as defensive weapons, the nautical explorer needed no longer to fear trusting himself on the trackless paths of the ocean; and, Columbus, full of new hope, asked for and obtained an interview with John II. in 1482 or 1483. We can imagine with what eagerness our hero pleaded his cause, and with what patience he explained every detail of his scheme, winning at last a consent, though but a reluctant one, that his proposition should be referred to a “learned junto, charged with all matters relating to maritime discovery,” to which title we may add the saving clause, “of which they were cognizant;” for the minds of king and council alike were set, not on the pushing of discovery westwards, but on further efforts to find a new route to India on the East, and to ascertain the locality of the empire of the fabulous monarch, Prester John.

The council to whose judgment the scheme of Columbus was submitted consisted of the Roderigo and Joseph already mentioned, and of the king’s confessor, Diego Ortiz de Cazadilla, Bishop of Ceuta, who condemned it without hesitation. The king, however, feeling perhaps not altogether convinced by the arguments adduced against it, privately sent out a vessel to test the route mapped out by Columbus, obtaining no result except that of driving the greatest man of the age away from his court, disgusted with the duplicity which, while openly discrediting their author, could thus seek to use his plans.