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

by William Hickling Prescott

With this encouragement the more wealthy merchants of Seville, Cadiz, and Palos, the old theatre of nautical enterprise, freighted and sent out little squadrons of three or four vessels each, which they intrusted to the experienced mariners, who had accompanied Columbus in his first voyage, or since followed in his footsteps. They held in general the same course pursued by the admiral on his last expedition, exploring the coasts of the great southern continent. Some of the adventurers returned with such rich freights of gold, pearls, and other precious commodities, as well compensated the fatigues and perils of the voyage. But the greater number were obliged to content themselves with the more enduring but barren honors of discovery. [7]

The active spirit of enterprise now awakened, and the more enlarged commercial relations with the new colonies, required a more perfect organization of the department for Indian affairs, the earliest vestiges of which have been already noticed in a preceding chapter. [8] By an ordinance dated at Alcalá, January 20th, 1503, it was provided that a board should be established, consisting of three functionaries, with the titles of treasurer, factor, and comptroller. Their permanent residence was assigned in the old alcazar of Seville, where they were to meet every day for the despatch of business. The board was expected to make itself thoroughly acquainted with whatever concerned the colonies, and to afford the government all information, that could be obtained, affecting their interests and commercial prosperity. It was empowered to grant licenses under the regular conditions, to provide for the equipment of fleets, to determine their destination, and furnish them instructions on sailing. All merchandise for exportation was to be deposited in the alcazar, where the return cargoes were to be received, and contracts made for their sale. Similar authority was given to it over the trade with the Barbary coast and the Canary Islands. Its supervision was to extend in like manner over all vessels which might take their departure from the port of Cadiz, as well as from Seville. With these powers were combined others of a purely judicial character, authorizing them to take cognizance of questions arising out of particular voyages, and of the colonial trade in general. In this latter capacity they were to be assisted by the advice of two jurists, maintained by a regular salary from the government. [9]

Such were the extensive powers intrusted to the famous Casa de Contratacion, or House of Trade, on this its first definite organization; and, although its authority was subsequently somewhat circumscribed by the appellate jurisdiction of the Council of the Indies, it has always continued the great organ by which the commercial transactions with the colonies have been conducted and controlled.

The Spanish government, while thus securing to itself the more easy and exclusive management of the colonial trade, by confining it within one narrow channel, discovered the most admirable foresight in providing for its absolute supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs, where alone it could be contested. By a bull of Alexander the Sixth, dated November 16th, 1501, the sovereigns were empowered to receive all the tithes in the colonial dominions. [10] Another bull, of Pope Julius the Second, July 28th, 1508, granted them the right of collating to all benefices, of whatever description, in the colonies, subject only to the approbation of the Holy See. By these two concessions, the Spanish crown was placed at once at the head of the church in its transatlantic dominions, with the absolute disposal of all its dignities and emoluments. [11]

It has excited the admiration of more than one historian, that Ferdinand and Isabella, with their reverence for the Catholic church, should have had the courage to assume an attitude of such entire independence of its spiritual chief. [12] But whoever has studied their reign, will regard this measure as perfectly conformable to their habitual policy, which never suffered a zeal for religion, or a blind deference to the church, to compromise in any degree the independence of the crown. It is much more astonishing, that pontiffs could be found content to divest themselves of such important prerogatives. It was deviating widely from the subtle and tenacious spirit of their predecessors; and, as the consequences came to be more fully disclosed, furnished ample subject of regret to those who succeeded them.

Such is a brief summary of the principal regulations adopted by Ferdinand and Isabella for the administration of the colonies. Many of their peculiarities, including most of their defects, are to be referred to the peculiar circumstances under which the discovery of the New World was effected. Unlike the settlements on the comparatively sterile shores of North America, which were permitted to devise laws accommodated to their necessities, and to gather strength in the habitual exercise of political functions, the Spanish colonies were from the very first checked and controlled by the over-legislation of the parent country. The original project of discovery had been entered into with indefinite expectations of gain. The verification of Columbus's theory of the existence of land in the west gave popular credit to his conjecture, that that land was the far-famed Indies. The specimens of gold and other precious commodities found there, served to maintain the delusion. The Spanish government regarded the expedition as its own private adventure, to whose benefits it had exclusive pretensions. Hence those jealous regulations for securing to itself a monopoly of the most obvious sources of profit, the dyewoods and precious metals.

These impolitic provisions were relieved by others better suited to the permanent interests of the colony. Such was the bounty offered in various ways on the occupation and culture of land; the erection of municipalities; the right of inter-colonial traffic, and of exporting and importing merchandise of every description free of duty. [13] These and similar laws show that the government, far from regarding the colonies merely as a foreign acquisition to be sacrificed to the interests of the mother country, as at a later period, was disposed to legislate for them on more generous principles, as an integral portion of the monarchy.

Some of the measures, even, of a less liberal tenor, may be excused, as sufficiently accommodated to existing circumstances. No regulation, for example, was found eventually more mischievous in its operation than that which confined the colonial trade to the single port of Seville, instead of permitting it to find a free vent in the thousand avenues naturally opened in every part of the kingdom; to say nothing of the grievous monopolies and exactions, for which this concentration of a mighty traffic on so small a point was found, in later times, to afford unbounded facility. But the colonial trade was too limited in its extent, under Ferdinand and Isabella, to involve such consequences. It was chiefly confined to a few wealthy seaports of Andalusia, from the vicinity of which the first adventurers had sallied forth on their career of discovery. It was no inconvenience to them to have a common port of entry, so central and accessible as Seville, which, moreover, by this arrangement became a great mart for European trade, thus affording a convenient market to the country for effecting its commercial exchanges with every quarter of Christendom. [14] It was only when laws, adapted to the incipient stages of commerce, were perpetuated to a period when that commerce had swelled to such gigantic dimensions as to embrace every quarter of the empire, that their gross impolicy became manifest.

It would not be giving a fair view of the great objects proposed by the Spanish sovereigns in their schemes of discovery, to omit one which was paramount to all the rest, with the queen at least,—the propagation of Christianity among the heathen. The conversion and civilization of this simple people form, as has been already said, the burden of most of her official communications from the earliest period. [15] She neglected no means for the furtherance of this good work, through the agency of missionaries exclusively devoted to it, who were to establish their residence among the natives, and win them to the true faith by their instructions, and the edifying example of their own lives. It was with the design of ameliorating the condition of the natives, that she sanctioned the introduction into the colonies of negro slaves born in Spain. This she did on the representation that the physical constitution of the African was much better fitted than that of the Indian to endure severe toil under a tropical climate. To this false principle of economizing human suffering, we are indebted for that foul stain on the New World, which has grown deeper and darker with the lapse of years. [16]

Isabella, however, was destined to have her benevolent designs, in regard to the natives, defeated by her own subjects. The popular doctrine of the absolute rights of the Christian over the heathen seemed to warrant the exaction of labor from these unhappy beings to any degree, which avarice on the one hand could demand, or human endurance concede on the other. The device of the repartimientos systematized and completed the whole scheme of oppression. The queen, it is true, abolished them under Ovando's administration, and declared the Indians "as free as her own subjects." [17] But his representation, that the Indians, when no longer compelled to work, withdrew from all intercourse with the Christians, thus annihilating at once all hopes of their conversion, subsequently induced her to consent that they should be required to labor moderately and for a reasonable compensation. [18] This was construed with their usual latitude by the Spaniards. They soon revived the old system of distribution on so terrific a scale, that a letter of Columbus, written shortly after Isabella's death, represents more than six-sevenths of the whole population of Hispaniola to have melted away under it! [19] The queen was too far removed to enforce the execution of her own beneficent measures; nor is it probable, that she ever imagined the extent of their violation, for there was no intrepid philanthropist, in that day, like Las Casas, to proclaim to the world the wrongs and sorrows of the Indian. [20] A conviction, however, of the unworthy treatment of the natives seems to have pressed heavily on her heart; for in a codicil to her testament, dated a few days only before her death, she invokes the kind offices of her successor in their behalf in such strong and affectionate language, as plainly indicates how intently her thoughts were occupied with their condition down to the last hour of her existence. [21]