The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Volume II Part 9

3, cap. 4.

[14] Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS., dial. de Talavera.

[15] Salazar de Mendoza, Cron. del Gran Cardenal, p. 214.--Herrera, Indias Occidentales, tom. i. dec. 1, lib. 1, cap. 8.--Fernando Colon, Hist. del Almirante, cap. 11.

[16] Herrera, Indias Occidentales, dec. 1, lib. 1, cap. 8.--Zuniga, Annales de Sevilla, p. 104.--Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. i. sec.

60, 61, tom. ii., Col. Dipl., nos. 2, 4.

[17] This prelate, Diego de Deza, was born of poor but respectable parents, at Toro. He early entered the Dominican order, where his learning and exemplary life recommended him to the notice of the sovereigns, who called him to court to take charge of Prince John's education. He was afterwards raised, through the usual course of episcopal preferment, to the metropolitan see of Seville. His situation, as confessor of Ferdinand, gave him great influence over that monarch, with whom he appears to have maintained an intimate correspondence, to the day of his death. Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS., dial. de Deza.

[18] Fernando Colon, Hist. del Almirante, cap. 11.--Salazar de Mendoza, Cron. del Gran Cardenal, p. 215.--Munoz, Hist. del Nuevo-Mundo, lib. 2, sec. 25, 29.--Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. i., Introd., sec. 60.

[19] Herrera, Indias Occidentales, dec. 1, lib. 1, cap. 8.--Munoz, Hist.

del Nuevo-Mundo, lib. 2, sec. 27.--Spotorno, Memorials of Columbus, pp.

31-33.--The last dates the application to Genoa prior to that to Portugal.

A letter from the duke of Medina Celi to the cardinal of Spain, dated 19th March, 1493, refers to his entertaining Columbus as his guest for two years. It is very difficult to determine the date of these two years. If Herrera is correct in the statement, that, after a five years' residence at court, whose commencement he had previously referred to 1484, he carried his proposals to the duke of Medina Celi, (see cap. 7, 8.) the two years may have intervened between 1489-1491. Navarrete places them between the departure from Portugal and the first application to the court of Castile, in 1486. Some other writers, and among them Munoz and Irving, referring his application to Genoa to 1485, and his first appearance in Spain to a subsequent period, make no provision for the residence with the duke of Medina Celi. Mr. Irving indeed is betrayed into a chronological inaccuracy, in speaking of a seven years' residence at the court in 1491, which he had previously noticed as having before begun in 1486. (Life of Columbus, (London, 1828,) comp. vol. i. pp. 109, 141.) In fact, the discrepancies among the earliest authorities are such as to render hopeless any attempt to settle with precision the chronology of Columbus's movements previous to his first voyage.

[20] Ferreras, Hist. d'Espagne, tom. viii. pp. 129, 130.--Munoz, Hist. del Nuevo-Mundo, lib. 2, sec. 31.--Herrera, Indias Occidentales, dec. 1, lib.

1, cap. 8.--Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. i., Introd., sec. 60.

[21] Herrera, Indias Occidentales, dec. 1, lib. 1, cap. 8.--Primer Viage de Colon, apud Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. i. pp. 2, 117.-- Fernando Colon, Hist. del Almirante, cap. 13.

[22] Munoz, Hist. del Nuevo-Mundo, lib. 2, sec. 28, 29.--Fernando Colon, Hist. del Almirante, ubi supra.

[23] Herrera, Indias Occidentales, dec. 1, lib. 1, cap. 8.--Munoz, Hist.

del Nuevo-Mundo, lib. 2, sec. 32, 33.--Fernando Colon, Hist. del Almirante, cap. 14.--Gomara, Hist. de las Indias, cap. 15.

[24] Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. ii., Col. Diplomat., nos. 5, 6.

--Zuniga, Annales de Sevilla, p. 412.--Mariana, Hist. de Espana, tom. ii.

p. 605.

[25] Peter Martyr, De Rebus Oceanicis et Novo Orbe, (Coloniae, 1574,) dec.

1, lib. 1.--Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. ii., Col. Diplomat., nos.

7, 8, 9, 10, 12.--Herrera, Indias Occidentales, dec. 1, lib. 1, cap. 9.-- Fernando Colon, Hist. del Almirante, cap. 14.--Munoz, Hist. del Nuevo- Mundo, lib. 2, sec. 33.--Benzoni, Novi Orbis Hist., lib. 1, cap. 6.-- Gomara, Hist. de las Indias, cap. 15.

The expression in the text will not seem too strong, even admitting the previous discoveries of the Northmen, which were made in so much higher lat.i.tudes. Humboldt has well shown the probability, _a priori_, of such discoveries, made in a narrow part of the Atlantic, where the Orcades, the Feroe Islands, Iceland, and Greenland afforded the voyager so many intermediate stations, at moderate distances from each other.

(Geographie du Nouveau Continent, tom. ii. pp. 183 et seq.) The publication of the original Scandinavian MSS., (of which imperfect notices and selections, only, have hitherto found their way into the world,) by the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries, at Copenhagen, is a matter of the deepest interest; and it is fortunate that it is to be conducted under auspices, which must insure its execution in the most faithful and able manner. It may be doubted, however, whether the declaration of the Prospectus, that "it was the knowledge of the Scandinavian voyages, in all probability, which prompted the expedition of Columbus," can ever be established. His personal history furnishes strong internal evidence to the contrary.

[26] How strikingly are the forlorn condition and indomitable energy of Columbus depicted in the following n.o.ble verses of Chiabrera;

"Certo da cor, ch' alto destin non scelse, Son l' imprese magnanime neglette; Ma le bell' alme alle bell' opre elette Sanno gioir nelle fatiche eccelse; Ne biasnio popolar, frale catena, Spirto d'onore, il suo cammin reffrena.

Cos lunga stagion per modi indegni Europa disprezz l'inc.l.i.ta speme, Schernendo il vulgo, e seco i Regi insieme, _Nudo nocchier, promett.i.tor di Regni._"

Rime, parte 1, canzone 12.

[27] Columbus, in a letter written on his third voyage, pays an honest, heartfelt tribute to the effectual patronage which he experienced from the queen. "In the midst of the general incredulity," says he, "the Almighty infused into the queen, my lady, the spirit of intelligence and energy; and, whilst every one else, in his ignorance, was expatiating only on the inconvenience and cost, her Highness approved it, on the contrary, and gave it all the support in her power." See Carta al Ama del Principe D.

Juan, apud Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. i. p. 266.

CHAPTER XVII.

EXPULSION OF THE JEWS FROM SPAIN.

1492.

Excitement against the Jews.--Edict of Expulsion.--Dreadful Sufferings of the Emigrants.--Whole Number of Exiles.--Disastrous Results.--True Motives of the Edict.--Contemporary Judgments.

While the Spanish sovereigns were detained before Granada, they published their memorable and most disastrous edict against the Jews; inscribing it, as it were, with the same pen which drew up the glorious capitulation of Granada and the treaty with Columbus. The reader has been made acquainted in a preceding chapter with the prosperous condition of the Jews in the Peninsula, and the pre-eminent consideration, which they attained there beyond any other part of Christendom. The envy raised by their prosperity, combined with the high religious excitement kindled in the long war with the infidel, directed the terrible arm of the Inquisition, as has been already stated, against this unfortunate people; but the result showed the failure of the experiment, since comparatively few conversions, and those frequently of a suspicious character, were effected, while the great ma.s.s still maintained a pertinacious attachment to ancient errors. [1]

Under these circ.u.mstances, the popular odium, inflamed by the discontent of the clergy at the resistance which they encountered in the work of proselytism, gradually grew stronger and stronger against the unhappy Israelites. Old traditions, as old indeed as the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, were revived, and charged on the present generation, with all the details of place and action. Christian children were said to be kidnapped, in order to be crucified in derision of the Saviour; the host, it was rumored, was exposed to the grossest indignities; and physicians and apothecaries, whose science was particularly cultivated by the Jews in the Middle Ages, were accused of poisoning their Christian patients. No rumor was too absurd for the easy credulity of the people. The Israelites were charged with the more probable offence of attempting to convert to their own faith the _ancient Christians_, as well as to reclaim such of their own race as had recently embraced Christianity. A great scandal was occasioned also by the inter-marriages, which still occasionally took place between Jews and Christians; the latter condescending to repair their dilapidated fortunes by these wealthy alliances, though at the expense of their vaunted purity of blood. [2]

These various offences were urged against the Jews with great pertinacity by their enemies, and the sovereigns were importuned to adopt a more rigorous policy. The inquisitors, in particular, to whom the work of conversion had been specially intrusted, represented the incompetence of all lenient measures to the end proposed. They a.s.serted, that the only mode left for the extirpation of the Jewish heresy, was to eradicate the seed; and they boldly demanded the immediate and total banishment of every unbaptized Israelite from the land. [3]

The Jews, who had obtained an intimation of these proceedings, resorted to their usual crafty policy for propitiating the sovereigns. They commissioned one of their body to tender a donative of thirty thousand ducats towards defraying the expenses of the Moorish war. The negotiation, however, was suddenly interrupted by the inquisitor-general, Torquemada, who burst into the apartment of the palace, where the sovereigns were giving audience to the Jewish deputy, and, drawing forth a crucifix from beneath his mantle, held it up, exclaiming, "Judas Iscariot sold his master for thirty pieces of silver. Your Highnesses would sell him anew for thirty thousand; here he is, take him, and barter him away." So saying, the frantic priest threw the crucifix on the table, and left the apartment. The sovereigns, instead of chastising this presumption, or despising it as a mere freak of insanity, were overawed by it. Neither Ferdinand nor Isabella, had they been left to the unbia.s.sed dictates of their own reason, could have sanctioned for a moment so impolitic a measure, which involved the loss of the most industrious and skilful portion of their subjects. Its extreme injustice and cruelty rendered it especially repugnant to the naturally humane disposition of the queen. [4]

But she had been early schooled to distrust her own reason, and indeed the natural suggestions of humanity, in cases of conscience. Among the reverend counsellors, on whom she most relied in these matters, was the Dominican Torquemada. The situation which this man enjoyed as the queen's confessor, during the tender years of her youth, gave him an ascendency over her mind, which must have been denied to a person of his savage, fanatical temper, even with the advantages of this spiritual connection, had it been formed at a riper period of her life. Without opposing further resistance to the representations, so emphatically expressed, of the holy persons in whom she most confided, Isabella, at length, silenced her own scruples, and consented to the fatal measure of proscription.

The edict for the expulsion of the Jews was signed by the Spanish sovereigns at Granada, March 30th, 1492. The preamble alleges, in vindication of the measure, the danger of allowing further intercourse between the Jews and their Christian subjects, in consequence of the incorrigible obstinacy, with which the former persisted in their attempts to make converts of the latter to their own faith, and to instruct them in their heretical rites, in open defiance of every legal prohibition and penalty. When a college or corporation of any kind,--the instrument goes on to state,--is convicted of any great or detestable crime, it is right that it should be disfranchised, the less suffering with the greater, the innocent with the guilty. If this be the case in temporal concerns, it is much more so in those which affect the eternal welfare of the soul. It finally decrees, that all unbaptized Jews, of whatever s.e.x, age, or condition, should depart from the realm by the end of July next ensuing; prohibiting them from revisiting it, on any pretext whatever, under penalty of death and confiscation of property. It was, moreover, interdicted to every subject, to harbor, succor, or minister to the necessities of any Jew, after the expiration of the term limited for his departure. The persons and property of the Jews, in the mean time, were taken under the royal protection. They were allowed to dispose of their effects of every kind on their own account, and to carry the proceeds along with them, in bills of exchange, or merchandise not prohibited, but neither in gold nor silver. [5]

The doom of exile fell like a thunderbolt on the heads of the Israelites.

A large proportion of them had hitherto succeeded in s.h.i.+elding themselves from the searching eye of the Inquisition, by an affectation of reverence for the forms of Catholic wors.h.i.+p, and a discreet forbearance of whatever might offend the prejudices of their Christian brethren. They had even hoped, that their steady loyalty, and a quiet and orderly discharge of their social duties, would in time secure them higher immunities. Many had risen to a degree of opulence, by means of the thrift and dexterity peculiar to the race, which gave them a still deeper interest in the land of their residence. [6] Their families were reared in all the elegant refinements of life; and their wealth and education often disposed them to turn their attention to liberal pursuits, which enn.o.bled the character, indeed, but rendered them personally more sensible to physical annoyance, and less fitted to encounter the perils and privations of their dreary pilgrimage. Even the ma.s.s of the common people possessed a dexterity in various handicrafts, which afforded a comfortable livelihood, raising them far above similar cla.s.ses in most other nations, who might readily be detached from the soil on which they happened to be cast, with comparatively little sacrifice of local interests. [7] These ties were now severed at a blow. They were to go forth as exiles from the land of their birth; the land where all whom they ever loved had lived or died; the land, not so much of their adoption, as of inheritance; which had been the home of their ancestors for centuries, and with whose prosperity and glory they were of course as intimately a.s.sociated, as was any ancient Spaniard.

They were to be cast out helpless and defenceless, with a brand of infamy set on them, among nations who had always held them in derision and hatred.

Those provisions of the edict, which affected a show of kindness to the Jews, were contrived so artfully, as to be nearly nugatory. As they were excluded from the use of gold and silver, the only medium for representing their property was bills of exchange. But commerce was too limited and imperfect to allow of these being promptly obtained to any very considerable, much less to the enormous amount required in the present instance. It was impossible, moreover, to negotiate a sale of their effects under existing circ.u.mstances, since the market was soon glutted with commodities; and few would be found willing to give anything like an equivalent for what, if not disposed of within the prescribed term, the proprietors must relinquish at any rate. So deplorable, indeed, was the sacrifice of property, that a chronicler of the day mentions, that he had seen a house exchanged for an a.s.s, and a vineyard for a suit of clothes!

In Aragon, matters were still worse. The government there discovered, that the Jews were largely indebted to individuals and to certain corporations.

It accordingly caused their property to be sequestrated for the benefit of their creditors, until their debts should be liquidated. Strange, indeed, that the balance should be found against the people, who have been everywhere conspicuous for their commercial sagacity and resources, and who, as factors of the great n.o.bility and farmers of the revenue, enjoyed at least equal advantages in Spain with those possessed in other countries, for the acc.u.mulation of wealth. [8]

While the gloomy aspect of their fortunes pressed heavily on the hearts of the Israelites, the Spanish clergy were indefatigable in the work of conversion. They lectured in the synagogues and public squares, expounding the doctrines of Christianity, and thundering forth both argument and invective against the Hebrew heresy. But their laudable endeavors were in a great measure counteracted by the more authoritative rhetoric of the Jewish Rabbins, who compared the persecutions of their brethren to those which their ancestors had suffered under Pharaoh. They encouraged them to persevere, representing that the present afflictions were intended as a trial of their faith by the Almighty, who designed in this way to guide them to the promised land, by opening a path through the waters, as he had done to their fathers of old. The more wealthy Israelites enforced their exhortations by liberal contributions for the relief of their indigent brethren. Thus strengthened, there were found but very few, when the day of departure arrived, who were not prepared to abandon their country rather than their religion. The extraordinary act of self-devotion by a whole people for conscience' sake may be thought, in the nineteenth century, to merit other epithets than those of "perfidy, incredulity, and stiff-necked obstinacy," with which the worthy Curate of Los Palacios, in the charitable feeling of that day, has seen fit to stigmatize it. [9]

When the period of departure arrived, all the princ.i.p.al routes through the country might be seen swarming with emigrants, old and young, the sick and the helpless, men, women, and children, mingled promiscuously together, some mounted on horses or mules, but far the greater part undertaking their painful pilgrimage on foot. The sight of so much misery touched even the Spaniards with pity, though none might succor them; for the grand inquisitor, Torquemada, enforced the ordinance to that effect, by denouncing heavy ecclesiastical censures on all who should presume to violate it. The fugitives were distributed along various routes, being determined in their destination by accidental circ.u.mstances, much more than any knowledge of the respective countries to which they were bound.

Much the largest division, amounting according to some estimates to eighty thousand souls, pa.s.sed into Portugal; whose monarch, John the Second, dispensed with his scruples of conscience so far as to give them a free pa.s.sage through his dominions on their way to Africa, in consideration of a tax of a _cruzado_ a head. He is even said to have silenced his scruples so far as to allow certain ingenious artisans to establish themselves permanently in the kingdom. [10]

A considerable number found their way to the ports of Santa Maria and Cadiz, where, after lingering some time in the vain hope of seeing the waters open for their egress, according to the promises of the Rabbins, they embarked on board a Spanish fleet for the Barbary coast. Having crossed over to Ercilla, a Christian settlement in Africa, whence they proceeded by land towards Fez, where a considerable body of their countrymen resided, they were a.s.saulted on their route by the roving tribes of the desert, in quest of plunder. Notwithstanding the interdict, the Jews had contrived to secrete small sums of money, sewed up in their garments or the linings of their saddles. These did not escape the avaricious eyes of their spoilers, who are even said to have ripped open the bodies of their victims, in search of gold, which they were supposed to have swallowed. The lawless barbarians, mingling l.u.s.t with avarice, abandoned themselves to still more frightful excesses, violating the wives and daughters of the unresisting Jews, or ma.s.sacring in cold blood such as offered resistance. But without pursuing these loathsome details further, it need only be added, that the miserable exiles endured such extremity of famine, that they were glad to force a nourishment from the gra.s.s which grew scantily among the sands of the desert; until at length great numbers of them, wasted by disease, and broken in spirit, retraced their steps to Ercilla, and consented to be baptized, in the hope of being permitted to revisit their native land. The number, indeed, was so considerable, that the priest who officiated was obliged to make use of the mop, or hyssop, with which the Roman Catholic missionaries were wont to scatter the holy drops, whose mystic virtue could cleanse the soul in a moment from the foulest stains of infidelity. "Thus," says a Castilian historian, "the calamities of these poor blind creatures proved in the end an excellent remedy, that G.o.d made use of to unseal their eyes, which they now opened to the vain promises of the Rabbins; so that, renouncing their ancient heresies, they became faithful followers of the Cross!" [11]

Many of the emigrants took the direction of Italy. Those who landed at Naples brought with them an infectious disorder, contracted by long confinement in small, crowded, and ill-provided vessels. The disorder was so malignant, and spread with such frightful celerity, as to sweep off more than twenty thousand inhabitants of the city, in the course of the year, whence it extended its devastation over the whole Italian peninsula.

A graphic picture of these horrors is thus given by a Genoese historian, an eye-witness of the scenes he describes. "No one," he says, "could behold the sufferings of the Jewish exiles unmoved. A great many perished of hunger, especially those of tender years. Mothers, with scarcely strength to support themselves, carried their famished infants in their arms, and died with them. Many fell victims to the cold, others to intense thirst, while the unaccustomed distresses incident to a sea-voyage aggravated their maladies. I will not enlarge on the cruelty and the avarice which they frequently experienced from the masters of the s.h.i.+ps which transported them from Spain. Some were murdered to gratify their cupidity, others forced to sell their children for the expenses of the pa.s.sage. They arrived in Genoa in crowds, but were not suffered to tarry there long, by reason of the ancient law which interdicted the Jewish traveller from a longer residence than three days. They were allowed, however, to refit their vessels, and to recruit themselves for some days from the fatigues of their voyage. One might have taken them for spectres, so emaciated were they, so cadaverous in their aspect, and with eyes so sunken; they differed in nothing from the dead, except in the power of motion, which indeed they scarcely retained. Many fainted and expired on the mole, which, being completely surrounded by the sea, was the only quarter vouchsafed to the wretched emigrants. The infection bred by such a swarm of dead and dying persons was not at once perceived; but, when the winter broke up, ulcers began to make their appearance, and the malady, which lurked for a long time in the city, broke out into the plague in the following year." [12]

Many of the exiles pa.s.sed into Turkey, and to different parts of the Levant, where their descendants continued to speak the Castilian language far into the following century. Others found their way to France, and even England. Part of their religious services is recited to this day in Spanish, in one or more of the London synagogues; and the modern Jew still reverts with fond partiality to Spain, as the cherished land of his fathers, ill.u.s.trated by the most glorious recollections in their eventful history. [13]

The whole number of Jews expelled from Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella is variously computed from one hundred and sixty thousand to eight hundred thousand souls; a discrepancy sufficiently indicating the paucity of authentic data. Most modern writers, with the usual predilection for startling results, have a.s.sumed the latter estimate; and Llorente has made it the basis of some important calculations, in his History of the Inquisition. A view of all the circ.u.mstances will lead us without much hesitation to adopt the more moderate computation. [14] This, moreover, is placed beyond reasonable doubt by the direct testimony of the Curate of Los Palacios. He reports, that a Jewish Rabbin, one of the exiles, subsequently returned to Spain, where he was baptized by him. This person, whom Bernaldez commends for his intelligence, estimated the whole number of his unbaptized countrymen in the dominions of Ferdinand and Isabella, at the publication of the edict, at thirty-six thousand families. Another Jewish authority, quoted by the Curate, reckoned them at thirty-five thousand. This, a.s.suming an average of four and a half to a family, gives the sum total of about one hundred and sixty thousand individuals, agreeably to the computation of Bernaldez. There is little reason for supposing, that the actual amount would suffer diminution in the hands of either the Jewish or Castilian authority; since the one might naturally be led to exaggerate, in order to heighten sympathy with the calamities of his nation, and the other, to magnify as far as possible the glorious triumphs of the Cross. [15]

The detriment incurred by the state, however, is not founded so much on any numerical estimate, as on the subtraction of the mechanical skill, intelligence, and general resources of an orderly, industrious population.

In this view, the mischief was incalculably greater than that inferred by the mere number of the exiled; and, although even this might have been gradually repaired in a country allowed the free and healthful development of its energies, yet in Spain this was so effectually counteracted by the Inquisition, and other causes in the following century, that the loss may be deemed irretrievable.

The expulsion of so numerous a cla.s.s of subjects by an independent act of the sovereign, might well be regarded as an enormous stretch of prerogative, altogether incompatible with anything like a free government.