Christopher Columbus and How He Received and Imparted the Spirit of Discovery Part 44

Columbus, writing to the Spanish sovereigns from Espanola, said, in reference to the lifelong opposition which he had encountered:--

[Sidenote: Opponents of Columbus.]

"May it please the Lord to forgive those who have calumniated and still calumniate this excellent enterprise of mine, and oppose and have opposed its advancement, without considering how much glory and greatness will accrue from it to your Highnesses throughout all the world. They cannot state anything in disparagement of it except its expense, and that I have not immediately sent back the s.h.i.+ps loaded with gold."

[Sidenote: Charges against Columbus.]

Was this an honest statement? Columbus knew perfectly well that there had been much else than disappointment at the scant pecuniary returns.

He knew that there was a widespread dissatisfaction at his personal mismanagement of the colony; at his alleged arrogance and cupidity as a foreigner; at his nepotism; at his inordinate exaltation of promise, and at his errant faith that brooked no dispute. He knew also that his enthusiasm had captivated the Queen, and that as long as she could be held captive he could appeal to her not in vain. If there had been any honesty in the Queen's professions in respect to the selling of slaves, he knew that he had outraged them. Even when he was writing this letter, it came over him that there was a fearful hazard for him both in the persistency of this denunciation of others against him and in the heedless arrogance of such perverseness on his own part.

"I know," he says, "that water dropping on a stone will at length make a hole." We shall see before long that foreboding cavity.

[Sidenote: Columbus and Roldan.]

[Sidenote: Guevara.]

[Sidenote: Anacaona's daughter.]

[Sidenote: Adrian do Moxica.]

The defection of Roldan turned so completely into servility is but one of the strange contrasts of the wonderful course of vicissitudes in the life of Columbus. There presently came a new trial for him and for Roldan. A young well-born Spaniard, Fernando de Guevara, had appeared in Espanola recently, and by his dissolute life he had created such scandals in Santo Domingo that Columbus had ordered him to leave the island. He had been sent to Xaragua to embark in one of Ojeda's s.h.i.+ps; but that adventurer had left the coast when the outlaw reached the port.

While waiting another opportunity to embark, Guevara was kept in that part of the island under Roldan's eye. This implied no such restraint as to deny him access to the society of Anacaona, with whose daughter, Higuamota, who seems to have inherited something of her mother's commanding beauty and mental qualities, he fell in love, and found his pa.s.sion requited. He sought companions.h.i.+p also with one of the lieutenants of Roldan, who had been a leader in his late revolt, Adrian de Moxica, then living not far away, who had for him the additional attachment of kins.h.i.+p, for the two were cousins. Las Casas tells us that Roldan had himself a pa.s.sion for the young Indian beauty, and it may have been for this as well as for his desire to obey the Admiral that he commanded the young cavalier to go to a more distant province. The ardent lover had sought to prepare his way for a speedy marriage by trying to procure a priest to baptize the maiden. This caused more urgent commands from Roldan, which were ostentatiously obeyed, only to be eluded by a clandestine return, when he was screened with some a.s.sociates in the house of Anacaona. This queenly woman seems to have favored his suit with her daughter. He was once more ordered away, when he began to bear himself defiantly, but soon changed his method to suppliancy. Roldan was appeased by this. Guevara, however, only made it the cloak for revenge, and with some of his friends formed a plot to kill Roldan. This leaked out, and the youth and his accomplices were arrested and sent to Santo Domingo. This action aroused Roldan's old confederate, Moxica, and, indignant at the way in which the renegade rebel had dared to turn upon his former a.s.sociates, Moxica resolved upon revenge.

[Sidenote: Moxica's plot.]

[Sidenote: Moxica taken.]

To carry it out he started on a tour through the country where the late mutineers were settled, and readily engaged their sympathies. Among those who joined in his plot was Pedro Riquelme, whom Roldan had made a.s.sistant alcalde. The old spirit of revolt was rampant. The confederates were ready for any excess, either upon Roldan or upon the Admiral. Columbus was at Conception in the midst of the aroused district, when a deserter from the plotters informed him of their plan.

With a small party the Admiral at once sped in the night to the unguarded quarters of the leaders, and Moxica and several of his chief advisers were suddenly captured and carried to the fort. The execution of the ringleader was at once ordered. Impatient at the way in which the condemned man dallied in his confessions to a priest, Columbus ordered him pushed headlong from the battlements. The French canonists screen Columbus for this act by making Roldan the perpetrator of it. The other confederates were ironed in confinement at Conception, except Riquelme, who was taken later and conveyed to Santo Domingo.

The revolt was thus summarily crushed. Those who had escaped fled to Xaragua, whither the Adelantado and Roldan pursued them without mercy.

[Sidenote: Columbus and his colony.]

Columbus had perhaps never got his colony under better control than existed after this vigorous exhibition of his authority. Such a show of prompt and audacious energy was needed to restore the moral supremacy which his recusancy under the threats of Roldan had lost. The fair weather was not to last long.

[Sidenote: 1500. August 23. Bobadilla arrives.]

Early in the morning of August 23, 1500, two caravels were descried off the harbor of Santo Domingo. The Admiral's brother Diego was in authority, Columbus being still at Conception, and Bartholomew absent with Roldan. Diego sent out a canoe to learn the purpose of the visitors. It returned, and brought word that a commissioner was come to inquire into the late rebellion of Roldan. Diego's messengers had at the same time informed the newcomer of the most recent defection of Moxica, and that there were still other executions to take place, particularly those of Riquelme and Guevara, who were confined in the town. As the s.h.i.+ps entered the river, the gibbets on either bank, with their dangling Spaniards, showed the commissioner that there were other troublous times to inquire into than those named in his warrant. While the commissioner remained on board his s.h.i.+p, receiving the court of those who early sought to propitiate him, and while he was getting his first information of the condition of the island, mainly from those who had something to gain by the excess of their denunciations, it is necessary to go back a little in time, and ascertain who this important personage was, and what was the mission on which he had been sent.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VILLE DE S^T. DOMINGUE.

SANTO DOMINGO. 1754.]

[Sidenote: Growth of the royal dissatisfaction with Columbus.]

The arrangements for sending him had been made slowly. They were even outlined when Ojeda had started on his voyage, for he had, in his interviews with Roldan, blindly indicated that some astonishment of this sort was in store. Evidently Fonseca had not allowed Ojeda to depart without some intimations.

[Sidenote: Charges against Columbus.]

Notwithstanding Columbus professed to believe that nothing but the lack of pecuniary return for the great outlays of his expeditions could be alleged against them, he was well aware, and he had constantly acted as if well aware, of the great array of accusations which had been made against him in Spain, with a princ.i.p.al purpose of undermining the indulgent regard of the Queen for him. He had known it with sorrow during his last visit to Spain, and had found, as we have seen, that he could not secure men to accompany him and put themselves under his control unless he unshackled criminals in the jails. He little thought that such utter disregard of the morals and self-respect of those whom he had settled in the New World would, by a sort of retributive justice, open the way, however unjustly, to put the displaced gyves on himself, amid the exultant feelings of these same criminals. Such reiterated criminations were like the water-drops that wear the stone, and he had, as we have noted, felt the certainty of direful results.

[Sidenote: His exaggerations of the wealth of the Indies.]

[Sidenote: Columbus deceives the Crown.]

[Sidenote: Columbus's sons hooted at in the Alhambra.]

How much the disappointment at the lack of gold had to do with increasing the force of these charges, it is not difficult to imagine.

Columbus was certainly not responsible for that; but he was responsible for the inordinate growth of the belief in the profuse wealth of the new-found Indies. His constantly repeated stories of the wonderful richness of the region had done their work. His professions of a purpose to enrich the world with n.o.ble benefactions, and to spend his treasure on the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre, were the vain boastings of a man who thought thereby to enroll his name among the benefactors of the Church. He did not perceive that the populace would wonder whence these resources were to come, unless it was by defrauding the Crown of its share, and by ama.s.sing gold while they could not get any. There is something ludicrous in the excuse which he later gave for concealing from the sovereigns his acc.u.mulation of pearls. He felt it sufficient to say that he thought he would wait till he could make as good a show of gold! There were some things that even fifteenth-century Christians held to be more sacred than wresting Jerusalem from the Moslem, and these were money in hand when they had earned it, and food to eat when their misfortunes had beggared their lives. It was not an uncalled-for strain on their loyalty to the Crown, when the notion prevailed that the sovereigns and their favorite were gathering riches out of their despair. There was little to be wondered at, in the crowd of these hungry and debilitated victims, wandering about the courts of the Alhambra, under the royal windows, and clamoring for their pay. There was nothing to be surprised at in the hootings that followed the Admiral's sons, pages of the Queen, if they pa.s.sed within sight of these embittered throngs.

[Sidenote: Ferdinand's confessed blunder.]

It was quite evident that Ferdinand, who had never warmed to the Admiral's enthusiasm, had long been conscious that in the exclusive and extended powers which had been given to Columbus a serious administrative blunder had been made. He said as much at a later day to Ponce de Leon.

The Queen had been faithful, but the recurrent charges had given of late a wrench to her constancy. Was it not certain that something must be wrong, or these accusations would not go on increasing? Had not the great discoverer fulfilled his mission when he unveiled a new world? Was it quite sure that the ability to govern it went along with the genius to find it? These were the questions which Isabella began to put to herself.

[Sidenote: Isabella begins to doubt.]

[Sidenote: Columbus to be superseded.]

[Sidenote: Witnesses against Columbus.]

She was not a person to hesitate at anything, when conviction came. She had shown this in the treatment of the Jews, of the Moors, and of other heretics. The conviction that Columbus was not equal to his trust was now coming to her. The news of the serious outbreak of Roldan's conspiracy brought the matter to a test, and in the spring of 1499 the purpose to send out some one with almost unlimited powers for any emergency was decided upon. Still the details were not worked out, and there were occurrences in the internal and external affairs of Spain that required the prior attention of the sovereigns. Very likely the news of Columbus's success in finding a new source of wealth in the pearls of Paria may have had something to do with the delay. When the s.h.i.+ps which carried to Spain a crowd of Roldan's followers arrived, the question took a fresh interest. Columbus's friends, Ballester and Barrantes, now found their testimony could make little headway against the crowd of embittered witnesses on the other side. Isabella, besides, was forced to see in the slaves that Columbus had sent by the same s.h.i.+ps something of an obstinate opposition to her own wishes. Las Casas tells us that so great was the Queen's displeasure that it was only the remembrance of Columbus's services that saved him from prompt disgrace.

To be sure, the slaves had been sent in part by virtue of the capitulation which Columbus had made with the rebels, but should the Viceroy of the Indies be forced to such capitulations? Had he kept the colony in a condition worthy of her queenly patronage, when it could be reported to her that the daughters of caciques were found among these natives bearing their hybrid babes? "What authority had my viceroy to give my va.s.sals to such ends?" she asked.

[Sidenote: Columbus and the slave trade.]

[Sidenote: Bobadilla appointed commissioner.]

There were two things in recent letters of Columbus which damaged his cause just at this juncture. One was his pet.i.tion for a new lease of the slave trade. This Isabella answered by ordering all slaves which he had sent home to be sought out and returned. Her agents found a few. The other was the request of Columbus for a judge to examine the dispute between himself and Roldan. This Ferdinand answered by appointing the commissioner whose arrival at Santo Domingo we have chronicled. He was Francisco de Bobadilla, an officer of the royal household.

Before disclosing what Bobadilla did in Santo Domingo, it is best to try to find out what he was expected to do.

[Sidenote: His character.]

There is no person connected with the career of Columbus--hardly excepting Fonseca--more generally defamed than this man, who was, nevertheless, if we may believe Oviedo, a very honest and a very religious man. The historians of Columbus need to mete out to Bobadilla what very few have done, the same measure of palliation which they are more willing to bestow on Columbus. With this parallel justice, it may be that he will not bear with discredit a comparison with Columbus himself, in all that makes a man's actions excusable under provocation and responsibility. An indecency of haste may come from an excess of zeal quite as well as from an unbridled virulence.

It may be in some ways a question if the conditions this man was sent to correct were the result of the weakness or inadaptability of Columbus, or merely the outcome of circ.u.mstances, enough beyond his control to allow of excuses. There is, however, no question that the Spanish government had duties to perform towards itself and its subjects which made it properly disinclined to jeopardize the interests which accompany such duties.

[Sidenote: Bobadilla's powers.]

Bobadilla was, to be sure, invested with dangerous powers, but not with more dangerous ones than Columbus himself had possessed. When two such personations of unbridled authority come in antagonism, the possessor of the greater authority is sure to confirm himself by commensurate exactions upon the other. Bobadilla's commission was an implied warrant to that end. He might have been more prudent of his own state, and should have remembered that a trust of the nature of that with which he was invested was sure to be made accountable to those who imparted to him the power, and perhaps at a time when they chose to abandon their own instructions. He ought to have known that such an abandonment comes very easy to all governments in emergencies. He might have been more considerate of the man whom Spain had so recently flattered. He should not have forgotten, if almost everybody else had, that the Admiral had given a new world to Spain.

[Sidenote: Columbus and the criminals.]