The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic — Volume 2

by William Hickling Prescott

This view of the matter, indeed, is perfectly conformable to that of Ferdinand Columbus, whose solicitude, so apparent in every page, for his father's reputation, must have effectually counterbalanced any repugnance he may have felt at impugning the conduct of his sovereigns. "The only ground of complaint," he remarks, in summing up his narrative of the transaction, "which I can bring against their Catholic Highnesses is, the unfitness of the agent whom they employed, equally malicious and ignorant. Had they sent out a suitable person, the admiral would have been highly gratified; since he had more than once requested the appointment of some one with full powers of jurisdiction in an affair, where he felt some natural delicacy in moving, in consequence of his own brother having been originally involved in it." And, as to the vast magnitude of the powers intrusted to Bobadilla, he adds," It can scarcely be wondered at, considering the manifold complaints against the admiral made to their Highnesses." [31]

Although the king and queen determined without hesitation on the complete restoration of the admiral's honors, they thought it better to defer his reappointment to the government of the colony, until the present disturbances should be settled, and he might return there with personal safety and advantage. In the mean time, they resolved to send out a competent individual, and to support him with such a force as should overawe faction, and enable him to place the tranquillity of the island on a permanent basis.

The person selected was Don Nicolas de Ovando, comendador of Lares, of the military order of Alcantara. He was a man of acknowledged prudence and sagacity, temperate in his habits, and plausible and politic in his address. It is sufficient evidence of his standing at court, that he had been one of the ten youths selected to be educated in the palace as companions for the prince of the Asturias. He was furnished with a fleet of two and thirty sail, carrying twenty-five hundred persons, many of them of the best families in the kingdom, with every variety of article for the nourishment and permanent prosperity of the colony; and the general equipment was in a style of expense and magnificence, such as had never before been lavished on any armada destined for the western waters. [32]

The new governor was instructed immediately on his arrival to send Bobadilla home for trial. Under his lax administration, abuses of every kind had multiplied to an alarming extent, and the poor natives, in particular, were rapidly wasting away under the new and most inhuman arrangement of the repartimientos, which he established. Isabella now declared the Indians free; and emphatically enjoined on the authorities of Hispaniola to respect them as true and faithful vassals of the crown. Ovando was especially to ascertain the amount of losses sustained by Columbus and his brothers, to provide for their full indemnification, and to secure the unmolested enjoyment in future of all their lawful rights and pecuniary perquisites. [33]

Fortified with the most ample instructions in regard to these and other details of his administration, the governor embarked on board his magnificent flotilla, and crossed the bar of St. Lucar, February 15th, 1502. A furious tempest dispersed the fleet, before it had been out a week, and a report reached Spain that it had entirely perished. The sovereigns, overwhelmed with sorrow at this fresh disaster, which consigned so many of their best and bravest to a watery grave, shut themselves up in their palace for several days. Fortunately, the report proved ill-founded. The fleet rode out the storm in safety, one vessel only having perished, and the remainder reached in due time its place of destination. [34]

The Spanish government has been roundly taxed with injustice and ingratitude for its delay in restoring Columbus to the full possession of his colonial authority; and that too by writers generally distinguished for candor and impartiality. No such animadversion, however, as far as I am aware, is countenanced by contemporary historians; and it appears to be wholly undeserved. Independent of the obvious inexpediency of returning him immediately to the theatre of disaffection, before the embers of ancient animosity had had time to cool, there were several features in his character, which make it doubtful whether he were the most competent person, in any event, for an emergency demanding at once the greatest coolness, consummate address, and acknowledged personal authority. His sublime enthusiasm, which carried him victorious over every obstacle, involved him also in numerous embarrassments, which men of more phlegmatic temperament would have escaped. It led him to count too readily on a similar spirit in others,—and to be disappointed. It gave an exaggerated coloring to his views and descriptions, that inevitably led to a reaction in the minds of such as embarked their all on the splendid dreams of a fairy land, which they were never to realize. [35] Hence a fruitful source of discontent and disaffection in his followers. It led him, in his eagerness for the achievement of his great enterprises, to be less scrupulous and politic as to the means, than a less ardent spirit would have been. His pertinacious adherence to the scheme of Indian slavery, and hhis impolitic regulation compelling the labor of the hidalgos, are pertinent examples of this. [36] He was, moreover, a foreigner, without rank, fortune, or powerful friends; and his high and sudden elevation naturally raised him up a thousand enemies among a proud, punctilious, and intensely national people. Under these multiplied embarrassments, resulting from peculiarities of character and situation, the sovereigns might well be excused for not intrusting Columbus, at this delicate crisis, with disentangling the meshes of intrigue and faction, in which the affairs of the colony were so unhappily involved.

I trust these remarks will not be construed into an insensibility to the merits and exalted services of Columbus. "A world," to borrow the words, though not the application, of the Greek historian, "is his monument." His virtues shine With too bright a lustre to be dimmed by a few natural blemishes; but it becomes necessary to notice these, to vindicate the Spanish government from the imputation of perfidy and ingratitude, where it has been most freely urged, and apparently with the least foundation.

It is more difficult to excuse the paltry equipment with which the admiral was suffered to undertake his fourth and last voyage. The object proposed by this expedition was the discovery of a passage to the great Indian Ocean, which, he inferred sagaciously enough from his premises, though, as it turned out, to the great inconvenience of the commercial world, most erroneously, must open somewhere between Cuba and the coast of Paria. Four caravels, only, were furnished for the expedition, the largest of which did not exceed seventy tons' burden; a force forming a striking contrast to the magnificent armada lately intrusted to Ovando, and altogether too insignificant to be vindicated on the ground of the different objects proposed by the two expeditions. [37]

Columbus, oppressed with growing infirmities, and a consciousness, perhaps, of the decline of popular favor, manifested unusual despondency previously to his embarkation. He talked even of resigning the task of further discovery to his brother Bartholomew. "I have established," said he, "all that I proposed,—the existence of land in the west. I have opened the gate, and others may enter at their pleasure; as indeed they do, arrogating to themselves the title of discoverers, to which they can have little claim, following as they do in my track." He little thought the ingratitude of mankind would sanction the claims of these adventurers so far as to confer the name of one of them on that world, which his genius had revealed. [38]

The great inclination, however, which the admiral had to serve the Catholic sovereigns, and especially the most serene queen, says Ferdinand Columbus, induced him to lay aside his scruples, and encounter the perils and fatigues of another voyage. A few weeks before his departure, he received a gracious letter from Ferdinand and Isabella, the last ever addressed to him by his royal mistress, assuring him of their purpose to maintain inviolate all their engagements with him, and to perpetuate the inheritance of his honors in his family. [39] Comforted and cheered by assurances, the veteran navigator, quitting the port of Cadiz, on the 9th of March, 1502, once more spread his sails for those golden regions, which he had approached so near, but was destined never to reach.