The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Volume II Part 36

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 const.i.tution 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 lat.i.tude 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]

The moral grandeur of the maritime discoveries under this reign must not so far dazzle us, as to lead to a very high estimate of their immediate results in an economical view. Most of those articles which have since formed the great staples of South American commerce, as cocoa, indigo, cochineal, tobacco, etc., were either not known in Isabella's time, or not cultivated for exportation. Small quant.i.ties of cotton had been brought to Spain, but it was doubted whether the profit would compensate the expense of raising it. The sugar-cane had been transplanted into Hispaniola, and thrived luxuriantly in its genial soil. But it required time to grow it to any considerable amount as an article of commerce; and this was still further delayed by the distractions as well as avarice of the colony, which grasped at nothing less substantial than gold itself. The only vegetable product extensively used in trade was the brazil-wood, whose beautiful dye and application to various ornamental purposes made it, from the first, one of the most important monopolies of the crown.

The accounts are too vague to afford any probable estimate of the precious metals obtained from the new territories previous to Ovando's mission.

Before the discovery of the mines of Hayna it was certainly very inconsiderable. The size of some of the specimens of ore found there would suggest magnificent ideas of their opulence. One piece of gold is reported by the contemporary historians to have weighed three thousand two hundred castellanos, and to have been so large, that the Spaniards served up a roasted pig on it, boasting that no potentate in Europe could dine off so costly a dish. [22] The admiral's own statement, that the miners obtained from six gold castellanos to one hundred or even two hundred and fifty in a day, allows a lat.i.tude too great to lead to any definite conclusion.

[23] More tangible evidence of the riches of the island is afforded by the fact that two hundred thousand castellanos of gold went down in the s.h.i.+ps with Bobadilla. But this, it must be remembered, was the fruit of gigantic efforts, continued, under a system of unexampled oppression, for more than two years. To this testimony might be added that of the well-informed historian of Seville, who infers from several royal ordinances that the influx of the precious metals had been such, before the close of the fifteenth century, as to affect the value of the currency, and the regular prices of commodities. [24] These large estimates, however, are scarcely reconcilable with the popular discontent at the meagreness of the returns obtained from the New World, or with the a.s.sertion of Bernaldez, of the same date with Zuniga's reference, that, "so little gold had been brought home as to raise a general belief that there was scarcely any in the island." [25] This is still further confirmed by the frequent representations of contemporary writers, that the expenses of the colonies considerably exceeded the profits; and may account for the very limited scale on which the Spanish government, at no time blind to its own interests, pursued its schemes of discovery, as compared with its Portuguese neighbors, who followed up theirs with a magnificent apparatus of fleets and armies, that could have been supported only by the teeming treasures of the Indies. [26]

While the colonial, commerce failed to produce immediately the splendid returns which were expected, it was generally believed to have introduced a physical evil into Europe, which, in the language of an eminent writer, "more than counterbalanced all the benefits that resulted from the discovery of the New World." I allude to the loathsome disease, which Heaven has sent as the severest scourge of licentious intercourse between the s.e.xes; and which broke out with all the virulence of an epidemic in almost every quarter of Europe, in a very short time after the discovery of America. The coincidence of these two events led to the popular belief of their connection with each other, though it derived little support from any other circ.u.mstance. The expedition of Charles the Eighth, against Naples, which brought the Spaniards, soon after, in immediate contact with the various nations of Christendom, suggested a plausible medium for the rapid communication of the disorder; and this theory of its origin and transmission, gaining credit with time, which made it more difficult to be refuted, has pa.s.sed with little examination from the mouth of one historian to another to the present day.

The extremely brief interval which elapsed, between the return of Columbus and the simultaneous appearance of the disorder at the most distant points of Europe, long since suggested a reasonable distrust of the correctness of the hypothesis; and an American, naturally desirous of relieving his own country from so melancholy a reproach, may feel satisfaction that the more searching and judicious criticism of our own day has at length established beyond a doubt that the disease, far from originating in the New World, was never known there till introduced by Europeans. [27]

Whatever be the amount of physical good or evil, immediately resulting to Spain from her new discoveries, their moral consequences were inestimable.

The ancient limits of human thought and action were overleaped; the veil which had covered the secrets of the deep for so many centuries was removed; another hemisphere was thrown open; and a boundless expansion promised to science, from the infinite varieties in which nature was exhibited in these unexplored regions. The success of the Spaniards kindled a generous emulation in their Portuguese rivals, who soon after accomplished their long-sought pa.s.sage into the Indian seas, and thus completed the great circle of maritime discovery. [28] It would seem as if Providence had postponed this grand event, until the possession of America, with its stores of precious metals, might supply such materials for a commerce with the east, as should bind together the most distant quarters of the globe. The impression made on the enlightened minds of that day is evinced by the tone of grat.i.tude and exultation, in which they indulge, at being permitted to witness the consummation of these glorious events, which their fathers had so long, but in vain, desired to see. [29]

The discoveries of Columbus occurred most opportunely for the Spanish nation, at the moment when it was released from the tumultuous struggle in which it had been engaged for so many years with the Moslems. The severe schooling of these wars had prepared it for entering on a bolder theatre of action, whose stirring and romantic perils raised still higher the chivalrous spirit of the people. The operation of this spirit was shown in the alacrity with which private adventurers embarked in expeditions to the New World, under cover of the general license, during the last two years of this century. Their efforts, combined with those of Columbus, extended the range of discovery from its original limits, twenty-four degrees of north lat.i.tude, to probably more than fifteen south, comprehending some of the most important territories in the western hemisphere. Before the end of 1500, the princ.i.p.al groups of the West Indian islands had been visited, and the whole extent of the southern continent coasted, from the Bay of Honduras to Cape St. Augustine. One adventurous mariner, indeed, named Lepe, penetrated several degrees south of this, to a point not reached by any other voyager for ten or twelve years after. A great part of the kingdom of Brazil was embraced in this extent, and two successive Castilian navigators landed and took formal possession of it for the crown of Castile, previous to its reputed discovery by the Portuguese Cabral; [30] although the claims to it were subsequently relinquished by the Spanish Government, conformably to the famous line of demarkation established by the treaty of Tordesillas. [31]

While the colonial empire of Spain was thus every day enlarging, the man to whom it was all due was never permitted to know the extent or the value of it. He died in the conviction in which he lived, that the land he had reached was the long-sought Indies. But it was a country far richer than the Indies; and, had he on quitting Cuba struck into a westerly, instead of southerly direction, it would have carried him into the very depths of the golden regions, whose existence he had so long and vainly predicted.

As it was, he "only opened the gates," to use his own language, for others more fortunate than himself; and before he quitted Hispaniola for the last time, the young adventurer arrived there, who was destined, by the conquest of Mexico, to realize all the magnificent visions, which had been derided as only visions, in the lifetime of Columbus.

The discovery of the New World was fortunately reserved for a period when the human race was sufficiently enlightened to form some conception of its importance. Public attention was promptly and eagerly directed to this momentous event, so that few facts worthy of note, during the whole progress of discovery from its earliest epoch, escaped contemporary record. Many of these notices have, indeed, perished through neglect, in the various repositories in which they were scattered. The researches of Navarrete have rescued many, and will, it is to be hoped, many more, from their progress to oblivion. The first two volumes of his compilation, containing the journals and letters of Columbus, the correspondence of the sovereigns with him, and a vast quant.i.ty of public and private doc.u.ments, form, as I have elsewhere remarked, the most authentic basis for a history of that great man. Next to these in importance is the "History of the Admiral," by his son Ferdinand, whose own experience and opportunities, combined with uncommon literary attainments, eminently qualified him for recording his father's extraordinary life. It must be allowed, that he has done this with a candor and good faith seldom warped by any overweening, though natural, partiality for his subject. His work met with a whimsical fate. The original was early lost, but happily not before it had been translated into the Italian, from which a Spanish version was afterwards made; and from this latter, thus reproduced in the same tongue in which it originally appeared, are derived the various translations of it into the other languages of Europe. The Spanish version, which is incorporated into Barcia's collection, is executed in a slovenly manner, and is replete with chronological inaccuracies; a circ.u.mstance not very wonderful, considering the curious transmigration it has undergone.

Another contemporary author of great value is Peter Martyr, who took so deep an interest in the nautical enterprise of his day, as to make it, independently of the abundant notices scattered through his correspondence, the subject of a separate work. His history, "De Rebus Oceanicis et Novo Orbe," has all the value which extensive learning, a reflecting, philosophical mind, and intimate familiarity with the princ.i.p.al actors in the scenes he describes, can give. Indeed, that no source of information might be wanting to him, the sovereigns authorized him to be present at the Council of the Indies, whenever any communication was made to that body, respecting the progress of discovery. The princ.i.p.al defects of his work arise from the precipitate manner in which the greater part of it was put together, and the consequently imperfect and occasionally contradictory statements which appear in it. But the honest intentions of the author, who seems to have been fully sensible of his own imperfections, and his liberal spirit, are so apparent, as to disarm criticism in respect to comparatively venial errors.

But the writer who has furnished the greatest supply of materials for the modern historian is Antonio de Herrera. He did not flourish, indeed, until near a century after the discovery of America; but the post which he occupied of historiographer of the Indies gave him free access to the most authentic and reserved sources of information. He has availed himself of these with great freedom; transferring whole chapters from the unpublished narratives of his predecessors, especially of the good bishop Las Casas, whose great work, "Cronica de las Indias Occidentales," contained too much that was offensive to national feeling to be allowed the honors of the press. The Apostle of the Indians, however, lives in the pages of Herrera, who, while he has omitted the tumid and overheated declamation of the original, is allowed by the Castilian critics to have retained whatever is of most value, and exhibited it in a dress far superior to that of his predecessor. It must not be omitted, however, that he is also accused of occasional inadvertence in stating as fact, what Las Casas only adduced as tradition or conjecture. His "Historia General de las Indias Occidentales," bringing down the narrative to 1554, was published in four volumes, at Madrid, in 1601. Herrera left several other histories of the different states of Europe, and closed his learned labors in 1625, at the age of sixty.

No Spanish historian had since arisen to contest the palm with Herrera on his own ground, until, at the close of the last century, Don Juan Bautista Munoz was commissioned by the government to prepare a history of the New World. The talents and liberal acquisitions of this scholar, the free admission opened to him in every place of public and private deposit, and the immense ma.s.s of materials collected by his indefatigable researches, authorized the most favorable auguries of his success. These were justified by the character of the first volume, which brought the narrative of early discovery to the period of Bobadilla's mission, written in a perspicuous and agreeable style, with such a discriminating selection of incident and skilful arrangement, as convey the most distinct impression to the mind of the reader. Unfortunately, the untimely death of the author crushed his labors in the bud. Their fruits were not wholly lost, however. Senor Navarrete, availing himself of them, in connection with those derived from his own extensive investigations, is pursuing in part the plan of Munoz, by the publication of original doc.u.ments; and Mr.

Irving has completed this design in regard to the early history of Spanish discovery, by the use which he has made of these materials in constructing out of them the n.o.blest monument to the memory of Columbus.

FOOTNOTES

[1] See, in particular, a letter to Columbus, dated August, 1494; (apud Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. ii., Doc. Dipl., no. 79;) also an elaborate memorial presented by the admiral in the same year, setting forth the various necessities of the colony, every item of which is particularly answered by the sovereigns, in a manner showing how attentively they considered his suggestions.--Ibid., tom. i. pp. 226-241.

[2] Abundant evidence of this is furnished by the long enumeration of articles subjected to t.i.thes, contained in an ordinance dated October 5th, 1501, showing with what indiscriminate severity this heavy burden was imposed from the first on the most important products of human industry.

Recopilacion de Leyes de los Reynos de las Indias, (Madrid, 1774,) tom. i.

lib. 1, t.i.t. 16, ley 2.

[3] Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. ii., Doc. Dipl., no. 86, April 10th, 1495.--Nos. 103, 105-108, April 23d, 1497.--No. 110, May 6th, 1497.

--No. 121, July 22d, 1497.--Herrera, Indias Occidentales, dec. 1, lib. 4, cap. 12.

[4] Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. ii., Doc. Dipl., nos. 86, 121.-- Herrera, Indias Occidentales, lib. 3, cap. 2.--Munoz, Hist. del Nuevo- Mundo, lib. 5, sec. 34.

The exclusion of foreigners, at least all but "Catholic Christians," is particularly recommended by Columbus in his first communication to the crown. Primer Viage de Colon.

[5] Among the foreign adventurers were the two Cabots, who sailed in the service of the English monarch, Henry VII., in 1497, and ran down the whole coast of North America, from Newfoundland to within a few degrees of Florida, thus encroaching, as it were, on the very field of discovery preoccupied by the Spaniards.

[6] Munoz, Hist. del Nuevo-Mundo, lib. 5, sect. 32.--Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, Doc. Dipl., no. 86.

[7] Columbus seems to have taken exceptions at the license for private voyages, as an infringement of his own prerogatives. It is difficult, however, to understand in what way. There is nothing in his original capitulations with the government having reference to the matter, (see Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, Doc. Dipl., no. 5,) while, in the letters patent made out previously to his second voyage, the right of granting licenses is expressly reserved to the crown, and to the superintendent, Fonseca, equally with the admiral. (Doc. Dipl., no. 35.) The only legal claim which he could make in all such expeditions as were not conducted under him, was to one-eighth of the tonnage, and this was regularly provided for in the general license. (Doc. Dipl., no. 86.) The sovereigns, indeed, in consequence of his remonstrances, published an ordinance, June 2d, 1497, in which, after expressing their unabated respect for all the rights and privileges of the admiral, they declared, that whatever shall be found in their previous license repugnant to these shall be null and void. (Doc. Dipl., 113.) The hypothetical form in which this is stated shows that the sovereigns, with an honest desire of keeping their engagements with Columbus, had not a very clear perception in what manner they had been violated.

Peter Martyr, De Rebus Oceanicis, Dec. 1, lib. 9.--Herrera, Indias Occidentales, lib. 4, cap. 11.--Benzoni, Novi Orbis Hist., cap. 13.

[8] Part I. Chap. 18, of this History.

[9] Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. ii., Doc. Dipl., no. 148.-- Solorzano y Pereyra, Politica Indiana, (Madrid, 1776,) lib. 6, cap. 17.-- Linage de Veitia, Norte de la Contratacion de las Indias Occidentales, (Sevilla, 1672,) lib. 1, cap. 1.--Zuniga, Annales de Sevilla, ano 1503.-- Herrera, Indias Occidentales, lib. 5, cap. 12.--Navagiero, Viaggio, fol.

15.

[10] See the original bull, apud Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. ii.

apend. 14, and a Spanish version of it, in Solorzano, Politica Indiana, lib. 4, cap. 1, sec. 7.

[11] Solorzano, Politica Indiana, tom. ii. lib. 4, cap. 2, sec. 9--Riol, Informe, apud Semanario Erudite, tom. iii. pp. 160, 161.

[12] Among others see Raynal, History of the East and West Indies, translated by Justamond, (London, 1788,) vol. iv. p. 277.--Robertson, History of America, (London, 1796,) vol. iii. p. 283.

[13] Munoz, Hist. del Nuevo-Mundo, lib. 5, sec. 32, 33.--Herrera, Indias Occidentales, lib. 4, cap. 11, 12.--Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom.

ii., Doc. Dipl., no. 86.

[14] The historian of Seville mentions that it was the resort especially of the merchants of Flanders, with whom a more intimate intercourse had been opened by the intermarriages of the royal family with the house of Burgundy. See Zuniga, Annales de Sevilla, p. 415.

[15] Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. ii., Doc. Dipl., no. 45, et loc.

al.--Las Casas, amidst his unsparing condemnation of the guilty, does ample justice to the pure and generous, though, alas! unavailing efforts of the queen. See Oeuvres, ed. de Llorente, tom. i. pp. 21, 307, 395, et alibi.

[16] Herrera, Indias Occidentales, lib. 4, cap. 12.--A good account of the introduction of negro slavery into the New World, comprehending the material facts, and some little known, may be found in the fifth chapter of Bancroft's "History of the United States;" a work in which the author has shown singular address in creating a unity of interest out of a subject which, in its early stages, would seem to want every other unity.

It is the deficiency of this, probably, which has prevented Mr. Grahame's valuable History from attaining the popularity, to which its solid merits justly ent.i.tle it. Should the remaining volumes of Mr. Bancroft's work be conducted with the same spirit, scholars.h.i.+p, and impartiality as the volume before us, it cannot fail to take a permanent rank in American literature.

[17] Herrera, Indias Occidentales, lib. 4, cap. 11.

[18] Dec. 20th, 1503.--Ibid., lib. 5, cap. 11.--See the instructions to Ovando in Navarrete, (Coleccion de Viages, tom. ii., Doc. Dipl., no. 153.) "Pay them regular wages," says the ordinance, "for their labor," "como personas libres como lo son, y no como siervos." Las Casas, who a.n.a.lyzes these instructions, which Llorente, by the by, has misdated, exposes the atrocious manner in which they were violated, in every particular, by Ovando and his successors. Oeuvres, ed. de Llorente, tom. i. p. 309, et seq.

[19] Ibid., ubi supra.--Las Casas, Hist. Ind., lib. 2, cap. 36, MS., apud Irving, vol. iii. p. 412.--The venerable bishop confirms this frightful picture of desolation, in its full extent, in his various memorials prepared for the Council of the Indies. Oeuvres, ed. de Llorente, tom. i.

pa.s.sim.

[20] Las Casas made his first voyage to the Indies, it is true, in 1498, or at latest 1502; but there is no trace of his taking an active part in denouncing the oppressions of the Spaniards earlier than 1510, when he combined his efforts with those of the Dominican missionaries lately arrived in St. Domingo, in the same good work. It was not until some years later, 1515, that he returned to Spain and pleaded the cause of the injured natives before the throne. Llorente, Oeuvres de Las Casas, tom. i.

pp. 1-23.--Nic. Antonio, Bibliotheca Nova, tom. i. pp. 191, 192.

[21] See the will, apud Dormer, Discursos Varios, p. 381.

[22] Herrera, Indias Occidentales, lib. 5, cap. 1.--Fernando Colon, Hist.

del Almirante, cap. 84.--Oviedo, Relacion Sumaria de la Historia Natural de las Indias, cap. 84, apud Barcia, Historiadores Primitivos, tom. i.

[23] Tercer Viage de Colon, apud Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. i.

p. 274.