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

by William Hickling Prescott

APPLICATION OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS AT THE SPANISH COURT.

1492.

Early Discoveries of the Portuguese.—Of the Spaniards.—Columbus.—His Application at the Castilian Court.—Rejected.—Negotiations Resumed.— Favorable Disposition of the Queen.—Arrangement with Columbus.—He Sails on his First Voyage.—Indifference to the Enterprise.—Acknowledgments due to Isabella.

While Ferdinand and Isabella were at Santa Fe, the capitulation was signed, that opened the way to an extent of empire, compared with which their recent conquests, and indeed all their present dominions, were insignificant. The extraordinary intellectual activity of the Europeans in the fifteenth century, after the torpor of ages, carried them forward to high advancement in almost every department of science, but especially nautical, whose surprising results have acquired for the age, the glory of being designated as peculiarly that of maritime discovery. This was eminently favored by the political condition of modern Europe. Under the Roman empire, the traffic with the east naturally centred in Rome, the commercial capital of the west. After the dismemberment of the empire, it continued to be conducted principally through the channel of the Italian ports, whence it was diffused over the remoter regions of Christendom. But these countries, which had now risen from the rank of subordinate provinces to that of separate independent states, viewed with jealousy this monopoly of the Italian cities, by means of which these latter were rapidly advancing beyond them in power and opulence. This was especially the case with Portugal and Castile, [1] which, placed on the remote frontiers of the European continent, were far removed from the great routes of Asiatic intercourse; while this disadvantage was not compensated by such an extent of territory, as secured consideration to some other of the European states, equally unfavorably situated for commercial purposes with themselves. Thus circumstanced, the two nations of Castile and Portugal were naturally led to turn their eyes on the great ocean which washed their western borders, and to seek in its hitherto unexplored recesses for new domains, and if possible strike out some undiscovered track towards the opulent regions of the east.

The spirit of maritime enterprise was fomented, and greatly facilitated in its operation, by the invention of the astrolabe, and the important discovery of the polarity of the magnet, whose first application to the purposes of navigation on an extended scale may be referred to the fifteenth century. [2] The Portuguese were the first to enter on the brilliant path of nautical discovery, which they pursued under the infant Don Henry with such activity, that, before the middle of the fifteenth century, they had penetrated as far as Cape de Verd, doubling many a fearful headland, which had shut in the timid navigator of former days; until at length, in 1486, they descried the lofty promontory which terminates Africa on the south, and which, hailed by King John the Second, under whom it was discovered, as the harbinger of the long-sought passage to the east, received the cheering appellation of the Cape of Good Hope.

The Spaniards, in the mean while, did not languish in the career of maritime enterprise. Certain adventurers from the northern provinces of Biscay and Guipuscoa, in 1393, had made themselves masters of one of the smallest of the group of islands, supposed to be the Fortunate Isles of the ancients, since known as the Canaries. Other private adventurers from Seville extended their conquests over these islands in the beginning of the following century. These were completed in behalf of the crown under Ferdinand and Isabella, who equipped several fleets for their reduction, which at length terminated in 1495 with that of Teneriffe. [3] From the commencement of their reign, Ferdinand and Isabella had shown an earnest solicitude for the encouragement of commerce and nautical science, as is evinced by a variety of regulations which, however imperfect, from the misconception of the true principles of trade in that day, are sufficiently indicative of the dispositions of the government. [4] Under them, and indeed under their predecessors as far back as Henry the Third, a considerable traffic had been carried on with the western coast of Africa, from which gold dust and slaves were imported into the city of Seville. The annalist of that city notices the repeated interference of Isabella in behalf of these unfortunate beings, by ordinances tending to secure them a more equal protection of the laws, or opening such social indulgences as might mitigate the hardships of their condition. A misunderstanding gradually arose between the subjects of Castile and Portugal, in relation to their respective rights of discovery and commerce on the African coast, which promised a fruitful source of collision between the two crowns; but which was happily adjusted by an article in the treaty of 1479, that terminated the war of the succession. By this it was settled, that the right of traffic and of discovery on the western coast of Africa should be exclusively reserved to the Portuguese, who in their turn should resign all claims on the Canaries to the crown of Castile. The Spaniards, thus excluded from further progress to the south, seemed to have no other opening left for naval adventure than the hitherto untravelled regions of the great western ocean. Fortunately, at this juncture, an individual appeared among them, in the person of Christopher Columbus, endowed with capacity for stimulating them to this heroic enterprise, and conducting it to a glorious issue. [5]

This extraordinary man was a native of Genoa, of humble parentage, though perhaps honorable descent. [6] He was instructed in his early youth at Pavia, where he acquired a strong relish for the mathematical sciences, in which he subsequently excelled. At the age of fourteen, he engaged in a seafaring life, which he followed with little intermission till 1470; when, probably little more than thirty years of age, [7] he landed in Portugal, the country to which adventurous spirits from all parts of the world then resorted, as the great theatre of maritime enterprise. After his arrival, he continued to make voyages to the then known parts of the world, and, when on shore, occupied himself with the construction and sale of charts and maps; while his geographical researches were considerably aided by the possession of papers belonging to an eminent Portuguese navigator, a deceased relative of his wife. Thus stored with all that nautical science in that day could supply, and fortified by large practical experience, the reflecting mind of Columbus was naturally led to speculate on the existence of some other land beyond the western waters; and he conceived the possibility of reaching the eastern shores of Asia, whose provinces of Zipango and Cathay were emblazoned in such gorgeous colors in the narratives of Mandeville and the Poli, by a more direct and commodious route than that which traversed the eastern continent. [8]

The existence of land beyond the Atlantic, which was not discredited by some of the most enlightened ancients, [9] had become matter of common speculation at the close of the fifteenth century; when maritime adventure was daily disclosing the mysteries of the deep, and bringing to light new regions, that had hitherto existed only in fancy. A proof of this popular belief occurs in a curious passage of the "Morgante Maggiore" of the Florentine poet Palci, a man of letters, but not distinguished for scientific attainments beyond his day. [10] The passage is remarkable, independently of the cosmographical knowledge it implies, for its allusion to phenomena in physical science, not established till more than a century later. The Devil, alluding to the vulgar superstition respecting the pillars of Hercules, thus addresses his companion Rinaldo:

"Know that this theory is false; his bark
The daring mariner shall urge far o'er
The western wave, a smooth and level plain,
Albeit the earth is fashioned like a wheel.
Man was in ancient days of grosser mould,
And Hercules might blush to learn how far
Beyond the limits he had vainly set,
The dullest sea-boat soon shall wing her way.
Men shall descry another hemisphere,
Since to one common centre all things tend;
So earth, by curious mystery divine
Well balanced, hangs amid the starry spheres.
At our antipodes are cities, states,
And thronged empires, ne'er divined of yore.
But see, the Sun speeds on his western path
To glad the nations with expected light." [11]

Columbus's hypothesis rested on much higher ground than mere popular belief. What indeed was credulity with the vulgar, and speculation with the learned, amounted in his mind to a settled practical conviction, that made him ready to peril life and fortune on the result of the experiment. He was fortified still further in his conclusions by a correspondence with the learned Italian Toscanelli, who furnished him with a map of his own projection, in which the eastern coast of Asia was delineated opposite to the western frontier of Europe. [12]