Christopher Columbus and How He Received and Imparted the Spirit of Discovery Part 45

He should not have been unmindful, if almost every one else was, that this new world was a delusion now, but might dissolve into a beatific vision. But all this was rather more than human nature was capable of in an age like that. It is to be said of Bobadilla that when he summoned Columbus to Santo Domingo and prejudged him guilty, he had shown no more disregard of a rival power, which he was sent to regulate, than Columbus had manifested for a deluded colony, when he selfishly infected it with the poison of the prisons. It must not, indeed, be forgotten that the strongest support of the new envoy came from the very elements of vice which Columbus had implanted in the island. He grew to understand this, and later he was forced to give a condemnation of his own act when he urged the sending of such as are honorably known, "that the country may be peopled with honest men."

[Sidenote: Bobadilla's character.]

[Sidenote: Did he exceed his powers?]

Las Casas tells us of Bobadilla that his probity and disinterestedness were such that no one could attack them. If it be left for posterity to decide between the word of Las Casas and Columbus, in estimates of virtue and honesty, there is no question of the result. When Bobadilla was selected to be sent to Espanola, there was every reason to choose the most upright of persons. There was every reason, also, to instruct him with a care that should consider every probable attendant circ.u.mstance. After this was done, the discretion of the man was to determine all. We can read in the records the formal instructions; but there were beside, as is expressly stated, verbal directions which can only be surmised. Bobadilla was accused of exceeding the wishes of the Queen. Are we sure that he did? It is no sign of it that the monarchs subsequently found it politic to disclaim the act of their agent. Such a desertion of a subordinate was not unusual in those times, nor indeed would it be now.

If Isabella, "for the love of Christ and the Virgin Mary," could depopulate towns, as she said she did, by the ravages of the inquisition, and fill her coffers by the attendant sequestrations, it is not difficult to conceive that, with a similar and convenient conviction of duty, she would give no narrow range to her vindictiveness and religious zeal when she came to deal with an Admiral whom she had created, and who was not very deferential to her wishes.

[Sidenote: Bobadilla's powers.]

A synopsis of the powers confided to Bobadilla in writing needs to be presented. They begin with a letter of March 21, 1499, referring to reports of the Roldan insurrection, and directing him, if on inquiry he finds any persons culpable, to arrest them and sequestrate their effects, and to call upon the Admiral for a.s.sistance in carrying out these orders. Two months later, May 21, a circular letter was framed and addressed to the magistrates of the islands, which seems to have been intended to accredit Bobadilla to them, if the Admiral should be no longer in command. This order gave notice to these magistrates of the full powers which had been given to Bobadilla in civil and criminal jurisdiction. Another order of the same date, addressed to the "Admiral of the ocean sea," orders him to surrender all royal property, whether forts, arms, or otherwise, into Bobadilla's hands,--evidently intended to have an accompanying effect with the other. Of a date five days later another letter addressed to the Admiral reads to this effect:--

"We have directed Francisco de Bobadilla, the bearer of this, to tell you for us of certain things to be mentioned by him. We ask you to give faith and credence to what he says, and to obey him. May 26, 1499."

[Sidenote: His verbal orders.]

[Sidenote: 1500. July. Bobadilla leaves Spain.]

This is an explicit avowal on the sovereigns' part of having given verbal orders. In addition to these instructions, a royal order required the commissioner to ascertain what was due from the Crown for unpaid salaries, and to compel the Admiral to join in liquidating such obligations so far as he was bound for them, "that there may be no more complaints." If one may believe Columbus's own statements as made in his subsequent letter to the nurse of Prince Juan, it had been neglect, and not inability, on his part which had allowed these arrears to accrue.

Bobadilla was also furnished with blanks signed by the sovereigns, to be used to further their purposes in any way and at his discretion. With these extraordinary doc.u.ments, and possessed of such verbal and confidential directions as we may imagine rather than prove, Bobadilla had sailed in July, 1500, more than a year after the letters were dated.

His two caravels brought back to Espanola a number of natives, who were in charge of some Franciscan friars.

[Sidenote: Bobadilla lands at Santo Domingo.]

We left Bobadilla on board his s.h.i.+p, receiving court from all who desired thus early to get his ear. It was not till the next day that he landed, attended by a guard of twenty-five men, when he proceeded to the church to ma.s.s.

[Sidenote: His demands.]

This over, the crowd gathered before the church. Bobadilla ordered a herald to read his original commission of March 21, 1499, and then he demanded of the acting governor, Diego, who was present, that Guevara, Riquelme, and the other prisoners should be delivered to him, together with all the evidence in their cases, and that the accusers and magistrates should appear before him. Diego referred him to the Admiral as alone having power in such matters, and asked for a copy of the doc.u.ment just read to send to Columbus. This Bobadilla declined to give, and retired, intimating, however, that there were reserved powers which he had, before which even the Admiral must bow.

The peremptoriness of this movement was, it would seem, uncalled for, and there could have been little misfortune in waiting the coming of the Admiral, compared with the natural results of such sudden overturning of established authority in the absence of the holder of it. Urgency may not, nevertheless, have been without its claims. It was desirable to stay the intended executions; and we know not what exaggerations had already filled the ears of Bobadilla. At this time there would seem to have been the occasion to deliver the letter to Columbus which had commanded his obedience to the verbal instructions of the sovereigns; and such a delivery might have turned the current of these hurrying events, for Columbus had shown, in the case of Agueda, that he was graciously inclined to authority. Instead of this, however, Bobadilla, the next day, again appeared at ma.s.s, and caused his other commissions to be read, which in effect made him supersede the Admiral. This superiority Diego and his councilors still unadvisedly declined to recognize. The other mandates were read in succession; and the gradual rise to power, which the doc.u.ments seemed to imply, as the progress of the investigations demanded support, was thus reached at a bound. This is the view of the case which has been taken by Columbus's biographers, as naturally drawn from the succession of the powers which were given to Bobadilla. It is merely an inference, and we know not the directions for their proclamations, which had been verbally imparted to Bobadilla.

It is this uncertainty which surrounds the case with doubt. It is apparent that the reading of these papers had begun to impress the rabble, if not those in authority. That order which commanded the payment of arrears of salaries had a very gratifying effect on those who had suffered from delays. Nothing, however, moved the representatives of the Viceroy, who would not believe that anything could surpa.s.s his long-conceded authority.

[Sidenote: Bobadilla a.s.saults the fort.]

There is nothing strange in the excitement of an officer who finds his undoubted supremacy thus obstinately spurned, and we must trace to such excitement the somewhat overstrained conduct which made a show of carrying by a.s.sault the fortress in which Guevara and the other prisoners were confined. Miguel Diaz, who commanded the fort,--the same who had disclosed the Hayna mines,--when summoned to surrender had referred Bobadilla to the Admiral from whom his orders came, and asked for copies of the letters patent and orders, for more considerate attention. It was hardly to be expected that Bobadilla was to be beguiled by any such device, when he had a force of armed men at his back, aided by his crew and the aroused rabble, and when there was nothing before him but a weak citadel with few defenders. There was nothing to withstand the somewhat ridiculous shock of the a.s.sault but a few frail bars, and no need of the scaling ladders which were ostentatiously set up. Diaz and one companion, with sword in hand, stood pa.s.sively representing the outraged dignity of command. Bobadilla was victorious, and the manacled Guevara and the rest pa.s.sed over to new and less stringent keepers.

[Sidenote: Bobadilla in full possession.]

Bobadilla was now in possession of every channel of authority. He domiciled himself in the house of Columbus, took possession of all his effects, including his papers, making no distinction between public and private ones, and used what money he could find to pay the debts of the Admiral as they were presented to him. This proceeding was well calculated to increase his popularity, and it was still more enhanced when he proclaimed liberty to all to gather gold for twenty years, with only the payment of one seventh instead of a third to the Crown.

[Sidenote: Columbus hears of Bobadilla.]

[Sidenote: Columbus and the Franciscans.]

Let us turn to Columbus himself. The reports which reached him at Fort Conception did not at first convey to him an adequate notion of what he was to encounter. He a.s.sociated the proceedings with such unwarranted acts as Ojeda's and Pinzon's in coming with their s.h.i.+ps within his prescribed dominion. The greater audacity, however, alarmed him, and the threats which Bobadilla had made of sending him to Spain in irons, and the known success of his usurpation within the town, were little calculated to make Columbus confident in the temporary character of the outburst. He moved his quarters to Bonao to be nearer the confusion, and here he met an officer bearing to him a copy of the letters under which the government had been a.s.sumed by Bobadilla. Still the one addressed to Columbus, commanding him to acquiesce, was held back. It showed palpably that Bobadilla conceived he had pa.s.sed beyond the judicial aim of his commission. Columbus, on his part, was loath to reach that conclusion, and tried to gain time. He wrote to Bobadilla an exculpating and temporizing letter, saying that he was about to leave for Spain, when everything would pa.s.s regularly into Bobadilla's control. He sent other letters, calculated to create delays, to the Franciscans who had come with him. He had himself affiliated with that order, and perhaps thought his influence might not be unheeded. He got no replies, and perhaps never knew what the spirit of these friars was. They evidently reflected the kind of testimony which Bobadilla had been acc.u.mulating. We find somewhat later, in a report of one of them, Nicholas Gla.s.sberger,--who speaks of the 1,500 natives whom they had made haste to baptize in Santo Domingo,--some of the cruel insinuations which were rife, when he speaks of "a certain admiral, captain, and chief, who had ill treated these natives, taking their goods and wives, and capturing their virgin daughters, and had been sent to Spain in chains."

[Sidenote: Bobadilla sends the sovereigns' letter to Columbus.]

Columbus as yet could hardly have looked forward to any such indignity as manacles on his limbs. Nor did he probably suspect that Bobadilla was using the signed blanks, entrusted to him by the sovereigns, to engage the interests of Roldan and other deputies of the Viceroy scattered through the island. Columbus, in these uncertainties, caused it to be known that he considered his perpetual powers still unrevoked, if indeed they were revocable at all. This state of his mind was rudely jarred by receiving a little later, at the hands of Francisco Velasquez, the deputy treasurer, and of Juan de Trasierra, one of the Franciscans, the letter addressed to him by the sovereigns, commanding him to respect what Bobadilla should tell him. Here was tangible authority; and when it was accompanied by a summons from Bobadilla to appear before him, he hesitated no longer, and, with the little state befitting his disgrace, proceeded at once to Santo Domingo.

[Sidenote: Columbus approaches Santo Domingo.]

[Sidenote: 1500. August 23. Columbus is imprisoned in chains.]

The Admiral's brother Diego had already been confined in irons on one of the caravels; and Bobadilla, affecting to believe, as Irving holds, that Columbus would not come in any compliant mood, made a bustle of armed preparation. There was, however, no such intention on Columbus's part, nor had been, since the royal mandate of implicit obedience had been received. He came as quietly as the circ.u.mstances would permit, and when the new governor heard he was within his grasp, his orders to seize him and throw him into prison were promptly executed (August 23, 1500). In the southeastern part of the town, the tower still stands, with little signs of decay, which then received the dejected Admiral, and from its summit all approaching vessels are signaled to-day. Las Casas tells us of the shameless and graceless cook, one of Columbus's own household, who riveted the fetters. "I knew the fellow," says that historian, "and I think his name was Espinosa."

While the Adelantado was at large with an armed force, Bobadilla was not altogether secure in his triumph. He demanded of Columbus to write to his brother and counsel him to come in and surrender. This Columbus did, a.s.suring the Adelantado of their safety in trusting to the later justice of the Crown. Bartholomew obeyed, as the best authorities say, though Peter Martyr mentions a rumor that he came in no accommodating spirit, and was captured while in advance of his force. It is certain he also was placed in irons, and confined on one of the caravels. It was Bobadilla's purpose to keep the leaders apart, so there could be no concert of action, and even to prevent their seeing any one who could inform them of the progress of the inquest, which was at once begun.

[Sidenote: Charges against Columbus.]

It seems evident that Bobadilla, either of his own impulse or in accordance with secret instructions, was acting with a secrecy and precipitancy which would have been justifiable in the presence of armed sedition, but was uncalled for with no organized opposition to embarra.s.s him. Columbus at a later day tells us that he was denied ample clothing, even, and was otherwise ill treated. He says, too, he had no statement of charges given to him. It is a later story, started by Charlevoix, that such accusations were presented to him in writing, and met by him in the same method.

The trial was certainly a remarkable procedure, except we consider it simply an _ex parte_ process for indictment only, as indeed it really was. Irving lays stress on the reversal by Bobadilla of the natural order of his acts, amounting, in fact, to prejudging a person he was sent to examine. He also thinks that the governor was hurried to his conclusions in order to make up a show of necessity for his precipitate action. It has something of that look. "The rebels he had been sent to judge became, by this singular perversion of rule," says Irving, "necessary and cherished evidences to criminate those against whom they had rebelled." This is the mistake of the apologists for Columbus.

Bobadilla seems to have been sent to judge between two parties, and not to a.s.sume that only one was culpable. Even Irving suspects the true conditions. He allows that Bobadilla would not have dared to go to this length, had he not felt a.s.sured that "certain things," as the mandate to Columbus expressed it, would not be displeasing to the king.

The charges against the Admiral had been stock ones for years, and we have encountered them more than once in the progress of this narrative.

They are rehea.r.s.ed at length in the doc.u.ments given by Navarrete, and are repeated and summarized by Peter Martyr. It is perhaps true that there was some novelty in the a.s.severation that Columbus's recent refusal to have some Indians baptized was simply because it deprived him of selling them as slaves. This accusation, considering Columbus's relations to the slave trade which he had created, is as little to be wondered at as any.

[Sidenote: Columbus and slavery.]

Las Casas tells us how indignant Isabella had been with his presumptuous way of dealing with what she called her subjects; and by a royal order of June 20, 1500, she had ordered, as we have seen, the return in Bobadilla's fleet of nineteen of the slaves who had been sold. There was no better way of commending Bobadilla's action to the Queen, apparently, than by making the most of Columbus's unfortunate relations to the slave trade.

As the accusations were piled up, Bobadilla saw the inquest leading, in his mind, to but one conclusion, the unnatural character of the Viceroy and his unfitness for command,--a phrase not far from the truth, but hardly requiring the extraordinary proceedings which had brought the governor to a recognition of it. There is little question that the public sentiment of the colony, so far at least as it dare manifest itself, commended the governor. Columbus in his dungeon might not see this with his own eyes, but if the reports are true, his ears carried it to his spirit, for howls and taunts against him came from beyond the walls, as the expression of the hordes which felt relieved by his fate.

Columbus himself confessed that Bobadilla had "succeeded to the full" in making him hated of the people. All this was matter to brood upon in his loneliness. He magnified slight hints. He more than suspected he was doomed to a violent fate. When Alonso de Villejo, who was to conduct him to Spain, in charge of the returning s.h.i.+ps, came to the dungeon, Columbus saw for the first time some recognition of his unfortunate condition. Las Casas, in recounting the interview, says that Villejo was "an hidalgo of honorable character and my particular friend," and he doubtless got his account of what took place from that important partic.i.p.ant.

"Villejo," said the prisoner, "whither do you take me?"

"To embark on the s.h.i.+p, your excellency."

"To embark, Villejo? Is that the truth?"

"It is true," said the captain.

For the first time the poor Admiral felt that he yet might see Spain and her sovereigns.

[Sidenote: 1500. October. Columbus sent to Spain.]

[Sidenote: His chains.]

The caravels set sail in October, 1500, and soon pa.s.sed out of earshot of the hootings that were sent after the miserable prisoners. The new keepers of Columbus were not of the same sort as those who cast such farewell taunts. If the _Historie_ is to be believed, Bobadilla had ordered the chains to be kept on throughout the voyage, since, as the writer of that book grimly suggests, Columbus might at any time swim back, if not secured. Villejo was kind. So was the master of the caravel, Andreas Martin. They suggested that they could remove the manacles during the voyage; but the Admiral, with that cherished constancy which persons feel, not always wisely, in such predicaments, thinking to magnify martyrdom, refused. "No," he said; "my sovereigns ordered me to submit, and Bobadilla has chained me. I will wear these irons until by royal order they are removed, and I shall keep them as relics and memorials of my services."

[Sidenote: Degradation of Columbus.]

[Sidenote: His letter to the nurse of Prince Juan a.n.a.lyzed.]