Cordeiro's book is elaborately criticised in the learned work of Prospero Peragallo,Cristoforo Colombo in Portogallo: studi critici, Genoa, 1882.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 486:"Perciocchè essendo l' Ammiraglio di generosi ed alti pensieri, volle capitolare con suo grande onore e vantaggio, per lasciar la memoria sua, e la grandezza della sua casa, conforme alla grandezza delle sue opere e de' suoi meriti."Vita dell' Ammiraglio, cap. xi. The jealous Portuguese historian speaks in a somewhat different tone from the affectionate son:—"Veó requerer á el rey Dom João que le desse algums navios pera ir á descobrir a ilha de Gypango [sic] per esta mar occidental.... El rey, porque via ser este Christovão Colom homem falador e glorioso em mostrar suas habilidades, e mas fantastico et de imaginacão com sua ilha de Cypango, que certo no que dezia: davalhe pouco credito." Barros,Decada primeira da Asia, Lisbon, 1752, liv. iii. cap. xi. fol. 56.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 487:It has been urged in the king's defence that "such a proceeding was not an instance of bad faith or perfidy (!) but rather of the policy customary at that time, which consisted in distrusting everything that was foreign, and in promoting by whatever means the national glory." Yes, indeed, whether the means were fair or foul. Of course it was a common enough policy, but it was lying and cheating all the same. "Não foi sem duvida por mà fè ou perfidia que tacitamente se mandon armar hum navio à cujo capitão se confiou o plano que Colombo havia proposto, e cuja execuçao se lhe encarregou; mas sim por seguir a politica naquelle tempo usada, que toda consistia em olhar com desconfiança para tudo o que era estrangeiro, e en promover por todos os modos a gloria nacional. O capitão nomeado para a empreza, como não tivesse nem o espirito, nem a convicção de Colombo, depois de huma curta viagem nos mares do Oeste, fez-se na volta da terra: e arribou à Lisboa descontente e desanimado." Campe,Historia do descobrimento da America, Paris, 1836, tom. i. p. 13. The frightened sailors protested thatYOU MIGHT AS WELL EXPECT TO FIND LAND IN THE SKY AS IN THAT WASTE OF WATERS! See Las Casas,Hist. de las Indias, tom. i. p. 221. Las Casas calls the king's conduct by its right name,dobladura, "trickery."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 488:It has generally been supposed, on the authority ofVita dell' Ammiraglio, cap. xi., that his wife had lately died; but an autograph letter of Columbus, in the possession of his lineal descendant and representative the present Duke of Veraguas, proves that this is a mistake. In this letter Columbus says expressly that when he left Portugal he left wife and children, and never saw them again. (Navarrete,Coleccion, tom. ii. doc. cxxxvii. p. 255.) As Las Casas, who knew Diego so well, also supposed his mother to have died before his father left Portugal, it is most likely that she died soon afterwards. Ferdinand Columbus says that Diego was left in charge of some friars at the convent of La Rábida near Palos (loc. cit.); Las Casas is not quite so sure; he thinks Diego was left with some friend of his father at Palos, or perhaps (por ventura) at La Rábida. (Historia, tom. i. p. 227.) These mistakes were easy to make, for both La Rábida and Huelva were close by Palos, and we know that Diego's aunt Muliar was living at Huelva. (Las Casas,op. cit.tom. i. p. 241; Harrisse, tom. i. pp. 279, 356, 391; tom. ii. p. 229.) It is pretty clear that Columbus never visited La Rábida before the autumn of 1491 (see below, p.412). My own notion is that Columbus may have left his wife with an infant and perhaps one older child, relieving her of the care of Diego by taking him to his aunt, and intending as soon as practicable to reunite the family. He clearly did not know at the outset whether he should stay in Spain or not.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 489:It rests upon an improbable statement of Ramusio, who places the event as early as 1470. The first Genoese writer to allude to it is Casoni,Annali della Republica di Genova, Genoa, 1708, pp. 26-31. Such testimony is of small value.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 490:First mentioned in 1800 by Marin,Storia del commercio de Veneziani, Venice, 1798-1808, tom. vii. p. 236.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 491:The description usually given of this conference rests upon the authority of Remesal,Historia de la prouincia de Chyapa, Madrid, 1619, lib. ii. cap. vii. p. 52. Las Casas merely says that the question was referred to certain persons at the court,Hist. de las Indias, tom. i. p. 228. It is probably not true that the project of Columbus was officially condemned by the university of Salamanca as a corporate body. See Camara,Religion y Ciencia, Valladolid, 1880, p. 261.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 492:Some historians, unwilling to admit any blemishes in the character of Columbus, have supposed that this union was sanctioned by marriage, but this is not probable. He seems to have been tenderly attached to Beatriz, who survived him many years. See Harrisse, tom. ii. pp. 353-357.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 493:The authority for Bartholomew Columbus having sailed to the Cape of Good Hope with Dias is a manuscript note of his own in Christopher's copy of theImago Mundi: "Nota quod hoc anno de 88 [it should be 87] in mense decembri appulit in Ulixbona Bartholomeus Didacus capitaneus trium carabelarum quem miserat serenissimus rex Portugalie in Guineam ad tentandum terrain. Et renunciavit ipse serenissimo regi prout navigaverat ultra jam navigata leuchas 600, videlicet 450 ad austrum et 150 ad aquilonem usque montem per ipsum nominatumCabo de boa esperançaquem in Agesimba estimamus. Qui quidem in eo loco invenit se distare per astrolabium ultra lineam equinoctialem gradus 35. Quem viagium pictavit et scripsit de leucha in leucham in una carta navigationis ut oculi visum ostenderet ipso serenissimo regi. In quibus omnibus interfui." M. Varnhagen has examined this note and thinks it is in the handwriting of Christopher Columbus (Bulletin de Géographie, janvier, 1858, tom. xv. p. 71); and M. d'Avezac (Canevas chronologique, p. 58), accepting this opinion, thinks that the wordsin quibus omnibus interfui, "in all of which I took part," only mean that Christopher was present in Lisbon when the expedition returned, and heard the whole story! With all possible respect for such great scholars as MM. d'Avezac and Varnhagen, I submit that the opinion of Las Casas, who first called attention to this note, must be much better than theirs on such a point as the handwriting of the two brothers. When Las Casas found the note he wondered whether it was meant for Bartholomew or Christopher, i. e. wondered which of the two was meant to be described as having "taken part;" but at all events, says Las Casas, the handwriting is Bartholomew's:—"Estas son palabras escritas de la mano de Bartolomé Colon, no sé si las escribió de sí ó de su letra por su hermano Cristóbal Colon." Under these circumstances it seems idle to suppose that Las Casas could have been mistaken about the handwriting; he evidently put his mind on that point, and in the next breath he goes on to say, "la letra yo conozco ser de Bartolomé Colon, porque tuve muchas suyas," i. e. "I know it is Bartholomew's writing, for I have had many letters of his;" and again "estas palabras ... de la misma letra y mano de Bartolomé Colon, la cual muy bien conocí y agora tengo hartas cartas y letras suyas, tratando deste viaje," i. e. "these words ... from the very writing and hand of Bartholomew Columbus, which I knew very well, and I have to-day many charts and letters of his, treating of this voyage." (Hist. de las Indias, tom. i. pp. 213, 214.) This last sentence makes Las Casas an independent witness to Bartholomew's presence in the expedition, a matter about which he was not likely to be mistaken. What puzzled him was the question, not whether Bartholomew went, but whether Christopher could have gone also, "pudo ser tambien que se hallase Cristóbal Colon." Now Christopher certainly did not go on that voyage. The expedition started in August, 1486, and returned to Lisbon in December, 1487, after an absence of sixteen months and seventeen days, "anendo dezaseis meses et dezasete dias que erão partidos delle." (Barros,Decada primeira da Asia, Lisbon, 1752, tom. i. fol. 42, 44.) The account-book of the treasury of Castile shows that sums of money were paid to Christopher at Seville, May 5, July 3, August 27, and October 15, 1487; so that he could not have gone with Dias (see Harrisse, tom. ii. p. 191). Neither could Christopher have been in Lisbon in December, 1487, when the little fleet returned, for his safe-conduct from King John is dated March 20, 1488. It was not until the autumn of 1488 that Columbus made this visit to Portugal, and M. d'Avezac has got the return of the fleet a year too late. Bartholomew's note followed a custom which made 1488 begin at Christmas, 1487.
In reading a later chapter of Las Casas for another purpose (tom. i. p. 227), I come again upon this point. He rightly concludes that Christopher could not have gone with Dias, and again declares most positively that the handwriting of the note was Bartholomew's and not Christopher's.
This footnote affords a good illustration of the kind of difficulties that surround such a subject as the life of Columbus, and the ease with which an excess of ingenuity may discover mare's nests.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 494:It may be found in Navarrete,Coleccion de viages, tom. ii. pp. 5, 6.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 495:The account-book of the treasury shows that on June 16 he was still in Spain. See Harrisse, tom. i. p. 355.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 496:The entry, as given by Las Casas, is "Pro authore, seu pictore, ║ Gennua cui patria est, nomen cui Bartolomeus ║ Columbus de terra rubea, opus edidit istud ║ Londonije: anno domini millesimo quatercentessimo octiesque uno ║ Atque insuper anno octavo: decimaque die mensis Februarii. ║ Laudes Christo cantentur abunde."Historia, tom. i. p. 225. Now since Bartholomew Columbus was a fairly educated man, writing this note in England on a map made for the eyes of the king of England, I suppose he used the old English style which made the year begin at the vernal equinox instead of Christmas, so that his February, 1488, means the next month but one after December, 1488, i. e. what in our new style becomes February, 1489. Bartholomew returned to Lisbon from Africa in the last week of December, 1487, and it is not likely that his plans could have been matured and himself settled down in London in less than seven weeks. The logical relation of the events, too, shows plainly that Christopher's visit to Lisbon was for the purpose of consulting his brother and getting first-hand information about the greatest voyage the world had ever seen. In the early weeks of 1488 Christopher sends his request for a safe-conduct, gets it March 20, waits till his child is born, August 15, and then presently goes. Bartholomew may have sailed by the first of October for England, where (according to this reading of his date) we actually find him four months later. What happened to him in this interval? Here we come to the story of the pirates. M. Harrisse, who never loses an opportunity for throwing discredit upon theVita dell' Ammiraglio, has failed to make the correction of date which I have here suggested. He puts Bartholomew in London in February, 1488, and is thus unable to assign any reason for Christopher's visit to Lisbon. He also finds that in the forty-six days between Christmas, 1487, and February, 10, 1488, there is hardly room enough for any delay due to so grave a cause as capture by pirates. (Christophe Colomb, vol. ii. p. 192.) He therefore concludes that the statement in theVita dell' Ammiraglio, cap. xi., is unworthy of credit, and it is upon an accumulation of small difficulties like this that he bases his opinion that Ferdinand Columbus cannot have written that book. But Las Casas also gives the story of the pirates, and adds the information that they were "Easterlings," though he cannot say of what nation, i. e. whether Dutch, German, or perhaps Danes. He says that Bartholomew was stripped of his money and fell sick, and after his recovery was obliged to earn money by map-making before he could get to England. (Historia, tom. i. p. 225.) Could all this have happened within the four months which I have allowed between October, 1488, and February, 1489? Voyages before the invention of steamboats were of very uncertain duration. John Adams in 1784 was fifty-four days in getting from London to Amsterdam (see myCritical Period of American History, p. 156). But with favourable weather a Portuguese caravel in 1488 ought to have run from Lisbon to Bristol in fourteen days or less, so that in four months there would be time enough for quite a chapter of accidents. Las Casas, however, says it wasa long timebefore Bartholomew was able to reach England:—"Esto fué causa que enfermase y viniese á mucha pobreza, y estuviese mucho tempo sin poder llegar á Inglaterra, hasta tanto que quiso Dies sanarle; y reformado algo, por su industria y trabajos de sus manos, haciendo cartas de marear, llegó á Inglaterra, y, pasados un dia y otros, hobo de alcanzar que le oyese Enrique VII." It is impossible, I think, to read this passage without feeling that at least a year must have been consumed; and I do not think we are entitled to disregard the words of Las Casas in such a matter. But how shall we get the time?
Is it possible that Las Casas made a slight mistake in deciphering the date on Bartholomew's map? Either that mariner did not give the map to Henry VII., or the king gave it back, or more likely it was made in duplicate. At any rate Las Casas had it, along with his many other Columbus documents, and for aught we know it may still be tumbling about somewhere in the Spanish archives. It was so badly written (de muy mala é corrupta letra), apparently in abbreviations (sin ortografía), that Las Casas says he found extreme difficulty in making it out. Now let us observe that date, which is given in fantastic style, apparently because the inscription is in a rude doggerel, and the writer seems to have wished to keep his "verses" tolerably even. (They don't scan much better than Walt Whitman's.) As it stands, the date readsanno domini millesimo quatercentessimo octiesque uno atque insuper anno octavo, i. e. "in the year of our Lord the thousandth, four hundredth,AND EIGHT-TIMES-ONE, and thereafter the eighth year." What business has this cardinal numberoctiesque unoin a row of ordinals? If it were translatable, which it is not, it would give us 1,000 + 400 + 8 + 8 = 1416, an absurd date. The most obvious way to make the passage readable is to insert the ordinaloctogesimo primoinstead of the incongruousoctiesque uno; then it will read "in the year of our Lord the one-thousand-four-hundred-and-eighty-first, and thereafter the eighth year," that is to say 1489. Now translate old style into new style, and February, 1489, becomes February, 1490, which I believe to be the correct date. This allows sixteen months for Bartholomew's mishaps; it justifies the statement in which Las Casas confirms Ferdinand Columbus; and it harmonizes with the statement of Lord Bacon: "For Christopherus Columbus, refused by the king of Portugal (who would not embrace at once both east and west), employed his brother Bartholomew Columbus unto King Henry to negotiate for his discovery. And it so fortuned that he was taken by pirates at sea; by which accidental impediment he was long ere he came to the king; so long that before he had obtained a capitulation with the king for his brother the enterprise was achieved, and so the West Indies by Providence were then reserved for the crown of Castilia."Historie of the Raygne of K. Henry the Seventh, Bacon'sWorks, Boston, 1860, vol. xi. p. 296. Lord Bacon may have taken the statement from Ferdinand's biography; but it probably agreed with English traditions, and ought not to be slighted in this connection.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 497:One of the sisters of Charles VIII. See Harrisse, tom. ii. p. 194.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 498:Bernaldez,Reyes Católicos, cap. xci.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 499:Zuñiga,Anales de Sevilla, lib. xii. p. 404.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 500:See the letter of March 19, 1493, from the Duke of Medina-Celi to the Grand Cardinal of Spain (from the archives of Simancas) in NavarreteColeccion de viages, tom. ii. p. 20.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 501:This promise was never fulfilled. When Columbus returned in triumph, arriving March 6, 1493, at Lisbon, and March 15 at Palos, the Duke of Medina-Celi wrote the letter just cited, recalling the queen's promise and asking to be allowed to send to the Indies once each year an expedition on his own account; for, he says, if he had not kept Columbus with him in 1490 and 1491 he would have gone to France, and Castile would have lost the prize. There was some force in this, but Isabella does not appear to have heeded the request.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 502:This theory of the situation is fully sustained by Las Casas, tom. i. p. 241.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 503:My account of these proceedings at La Rábida differs in some particulars from any heretofore given, and I think gets the events into an order of sequence that is at once more logical and more in harmony with the sources of information than any other. The error of Ferdinand Columbus—a very easy one to commit, and not in the least damaging to his general character as biographer—lay in confusing his father's two real visits (in 1484 and 1491) to Huelva with two visits (one imaginary in 1484 and one real in 1491) to La Rábida, which was close by, between Huelva and Palos. The visits were all the more likely to get mixed up in recollection because in each case their object was little Diego and in each case he was left in charge of somebody in that neighbourhood. The confusion has been helped by another for which Ferdinand is not responsible, viz.: the friar Juan Perez has been confounded with another friar Antonio de Marchena, who Columbus says was the only person who from the time of his first arrival in Spain had always befriended him and never mocked at him. These worthy friars twain have been made into one (e. g. "the prior of the convent, Juan Perez de Marchena," Irving'sColumbus, vol. i. p. 128), and it has often been supposed that Marchena's acquaintance began with Columbus at La Rábida in 1484, and that Diego was left at the convent at that time. But some modern sources of information have served at first to bemuddle, and then when more carefully sifted, to clear up the story. In 1508 Diego Columbus brought suit against the Spanish crown to vindicate his claim to certain territories discovered by his father, and there was a long investigation in which many witnesses were summoned and past events were busily raked over the coals. Among these witnesses were Rodriguez Cabejudo and the physician Garcia Fernandez, who gave from personal recollection a very lucid account of the affairs at La Rábida. These proceedings are printed in Navarrete,Coleccion de viages, tom. iii. pp. 238-591. More recently the publication of the great book of Las Casas has furnished some very significant clues, and the elaborate researches of M. Harrisse have furnished others. (See Las Casas, lib. i. cap. xxix., xxxi.; Harrisse, tom. i. pp. 341-372; tom. ii. pp. 237-231; cf. Peragallo,L' autenticità, etc., pp. 117-134.)—It now seems clear that Marchena, whom Columbus knew from his first arrival in Spain, was not associated with La Rábida. At that time Columbus left Diego, a mere infant, with his wife's sister at Huelva. Seven years later, intending to leave Spain forever, he went to Huelva and took Diego, then a small boy. On his way from Huelva to the Seville road, and thence to Cordova (where he would have been joined by Beatriz and Ferdinand), he happened to pass by La Rábida, where up to that time he was evidently unknown, and to attract the attention of the prior Juan Perez, and the wheel of fortune suddenly and unexpectedly turned. As Columbus's next start was not for France, but for Granada, his boy was left in charge of two trustworthy persons. On May 8, 1492, the little Diego was appointed page to Don John, heir-apparent to the thrones of Castile and Aragon, with a stipend of 9,400 maravedis. On February 19, 1498, after the death of that young prince, Diego became page to Queen Isabella.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 504:In popular allusions to Columbus it is quite common to assume or imply that he encountered nothing but opposition from the clergy. For example the account in Draper'sConflict between Science and Religion, p. 161, can hardly be otherwise understood by the reader. But observe that Marchena who never mocked at Columbus, Juan Perez who gave the favourable turn to his affairs, the great prelates Deza and Mendoza, and the two treasurers Santangel and Quintanilla, were every one of them priests! Without cordial support from the clergy no such enterprise as that of Columbus could have been undertaken, in Spain at least. It is quite right that we should be free-thinkers; and it is also desirable that we should have some respect for facts.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 505:Our Scandinavian friends are fond of pointing to this demand of Columbus as an indication that he secretly expected to "discover America," and not merely to find the way to Asia. But how about Ferdinand and Isabella, who finally granted what was demanded, and their ministers who drew up the agreement, to say nothing of the clerks who engrossed it? What did they all understand by "discovering islands and continents in the ocean"? Were they all in this precious Vinland secret? If so, it was pretty well kept. But in truth there was nothing singular in these stipulations. Portugal paid for discovery in just this way by granting governorships over islands like the Azores, or long stretches of continent like Guinea, along with a share of the revenues yielded by such places. See for example the cases of Gonzalo Cabral, Fernando Gomez, and others in Major,Prince Henry the Navigator, pp. 238, 321, and elsewhere. In their search for the Indies the Portuguese were continually finding new lands, and it was likely to be the same with the western route, which was supposed (see Catalan, Toscanelli, and Behaim maps) to lead among spice islands innumerable, and to Asiatic kingdoms whose heathen people had no rights of sovereignty that Christian monarchs felt bound to respect.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 506:Las Casas,op. cit.tom i. p. 243.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 507:See his letter of February, 1502, to Pope Alexander VI. in Navarrete, tom. ii. p. 280; and cf. Helps,Spanish Conquest in America, vol. i. p. 96; Roselly de Lorgues,Christophe Colomb, p. 394.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 508:I cite this version from Irving'sColumbus, vol. i. p. 142, making a slight amendment in the rendering; the original text is in Navarrete, tom. ii. p. 7. A few days later the title of "Don" was granted to Columbus and made hereditary in his family along with the offices of viceroy and governor-general.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 509:A police organization formed in 1476 for suppressing highway robbery.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 510:It is not easy to give an accurate account of the cost of this most epoch-making voyage in all history. Conflicting statements by different authorities combine with the fluctuating values of different kinds of money to puzzle and mislead us. According to M. Harrisse 1,000,000 maravedis would be equivalent to 295,175 francs, or about 59,000 gold dollars of United States money at present values. Las Casas (tom. i. p. 256) says that the eighth part, raised by Columbus, was 500,000 maravedis (29,500 dollars). Account-books preserved in the archives of Simancas show that the sums paid from the treasury of Castile amounted to 1,140,000 maravedis (67,500 dollars). Assuming the statement of Las Casas to be correct, the amounts contributed would perhaps have been as follows:—
This total seems to me altogether too large for probability, and so does the last item, which is simply put at the figure necessary to make the total eight times 29,500. I am inclined to suspect that Las Casas (with whom arithmetic was not always a strong point) may have got his figures wrong. The amount of Santangel's loan also depends upon the statement of Las Casas, and we do not know whether he took it from a document or from hearsay. Nor do we know whether it should be added to, or included in, the first item. More likely, I think, the latter. The only item that we know with documentary certainty is the first, so that our statement becomes modified as follows:—
(Cf. Harrisse, tom. i. pp. 391-404.) Unsatisfactory, but certain as far as it goes. Alas, how often historical statements are thus reduced to meagreness, after the hypothetical or ill-supported part has been sifted out! The story that the Pinzon brothers advanced to Columbus his portion is told by Las Casas, but he very shrewdly doubts it. The famous story that Isabella pledged her crown jewels (Vita dell' Ammiraglio, cap. xiv.) has also been doubted, but perhaps on insufficient grounds, by M. Harrisse. It is confirmed by Las Casas (tom. i. p. 249). According to one account she pledged them to Santangel in security for his loan,—which seems not altogether improbable. See Pizarro y Orellana,Varones ilustres del Nuevo Mundo, Madrid, 1639, p. 16.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 511:Navarrete,Biblioteca maritima, tom. ii. pp. 208, 209.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 512:The accounts of the armament are well summed up and discussed in Harrisse, tom. i. pp. 405-408. Eighty-seven names, out of the ninety, have been recovered, and the list is given below, Appendix C.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 513:"Para de allí tomar mi derrota, y navegar tanto que yo llegase á las Indias," he says in his journal, Navarrete,Coleccion de viages, tom. i.p. 3.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 514:Martin Behaim was born at Nuremberg in 1436, and is said to have been a pupil of the celebrated astronomer, Regiomontanus, author of the first almanac published in Europe, and of Ephemerides, of priceless value to navigators. He visited Portugal about 1480, invented a new kind of astrolabe, and sailed with it in 1484 as cosmographer in Diego Cam's voyage to the Congo. On his return to Lisbon he was knighted, and presently went to live on the island of Fayal, of which his wife's father was governor. He was a friend of Columbus. Toward 1492 he visited Nuremberg, to look after some family affairs, and while there "he gratified some of his townspeople by embodying in a globe the geographical views which prevailed in the maritime countries; and the globe was finished before Columbus had yet accomplished his voyage. The next year (1493) Behaim returned to Portugal; and after having been sent to the Low Countries on a diplomatic mission, he was captured by English cruisers and carried to England. Escaping finally, and reaching the Continent, he passes from our view in 1494, and is scarcely heard of again." (Winsor,Narr. and Crit. Hist., ii. 104.) He died in May, 1506. A ridiculous story that he anticipated Columbus in the discovery of America originated in the misunderstanding of an interpolated passage in the Latin text of Schedel'sRegistrum, Nuremberg, 1498, p. 290 (the so-calledNuremberg Chronicle). See Winsor,op. cit.ii. 34; Major'sPrince Henry, p. 326; Humboldt,Examen critique, tom. i.p. 256; Murr,Diplomatische Geschichte des Ritters Behaim, Nuremberg, 1778; Cladera,Investigaciones históricas, Madrid, 1794; Harrisse,Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima, pp. 37-43.—The globe made by Behaim may now be seen in the city hall at Nuremberg. It "is made ofpapier-maché, covered with gypsum, and over this a parchment surface received the drawing; it is twenty inches in diameter." (Winsor,op. cit.ii. 105.) The portion west of the 330th meridian is evidently copied from Toscanelli's map. I give below (p.429) a sketch (from Winsor, after Ruge'sGeschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen, p. 230) of Behaim's ocean, with the outline of the American continent superimposed in the proper place.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 515:The situation of this Sargasso region in mid-ocean seems to be determined by its character as a quiet neutral ground between the great ocean-currents that flow past it on every side. Sargasso plants are found elsewhere upon the surface of the waves, but nowhere else do they congregate as here. There are reasons for supposing that in ancient times this region extended nearer to the African coast. Skylax (Periplus, cap. 109) says that beyond Kerne, at the mouth of Rio d' Ouro the sea cannot be navigated on account of the mud and seaweed. Sataspes, on his return to Persia,B. C.470, told King Xerxes that his voyage failed because his ship stopped or was stuck fast. (Herodotus, iv. 43.) Festus Avienus mentions vast quantities of seaweed in the ocean west of the Pillars of Hercules:—
Exsuperat autem gurgitem fucus frequensAtque impeditur æstus ex uligine....Sic nulla late flabra propellunt ratem,Sic segnis humor æquoris pigri stupet.Adjicit et illud, plurimum inter gurgitesExstare fucum, et sæpe virgulti viceRetinere puppim, etc.Avienus,Ora Maritima, 108, 117.
See also Aristotle,Meteorol., ii. 1, 14; Pseudo-Aristotle,De Mirab. Auscult., p. 106; Theophrastus,Historia plantarum, iv. 7 Jornandes,De rebus Geticis, apud Muratori, tom. i.p. 191; according to Strabo (iii. 2, § 7) tunny fish were caught in abundance in the ocean west of Spain, and were highly valued for the table on account of their fatness which was due to submarine vegetables on which they fed. Possibly the reports of these Sargasso meadows may have had some share in suggesting to Plato his notion of a huge submerged island Atlantis (Timæus, 25;Kritias, 108; cf. the notion of a viscous sea in Plutarch,De facie in Orbe Luna, 26), Plato's fancy has furnished a theme for much wild speculation. See, for example, Bailly,Lettres sur l'Atlantide de Platon, Paris, 1779. The belief that there can ever have been such an island in that part of the Atlantic is disposed of by the fact that the ocean there is nowhere less than two miles in depth. See the beautiful map of the Atlantic sea-bottom in Alexander Agassiz'sThree Cruises of the Blake, Boston, 1888, vol. i.p. 108, and compare chap. vi. of that noble work, on "The Permanence of Continents and of Oceanic Basins;" see also Wallace'sIsland Life, chap. vi. It was formerly supposed that the Sargasso plants grow on the sea-bottom, and becoming detached rise to the surface (Peter Martyr,De rebus oceanicis, dec. iii. lib. v. p. 53; Humboldt,Personal Narrative, book i. chap, i.); but it is now known that they are simply rooted in the surface water itself. "L'accumulation de ces plantes marines est l'exemple le plus frappant de plantes congénères réunies sur le même point. Ni les forêts colossales de l'Himalaya, ni les graminées qui s'étendent à perte de vue dans les savanes américaines ou les steppes sibériens ne rivalisent avec ces prairies océaniques. Jamais sur un espace aussi étendu, ne se rencontrent de telles masses de plantes semblables. Quand on a vu la mer des Sargasses, on n'oublie point un pareil spectacle." Paul Gaffarel, "La Mer des Sargasses,"Bulletin de Géographie, Paris, 1872, 6esérie, tom. iv. p. 622.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 516:The often-repeated story that a day or two before the end of the voyage Columbus capitulated with his crew, promising to turn back if land were not seen within three days, rests upon the single and relatively inferior authority of Oviedo. It is not mentioned by Las Casas or Bernaldez or Peter Martyr or Ferdinand Columbus, and it is discredited by the tone of the Admiral's journal, which shows as unconquerable determination on the last day of the voyage as on any previous day. Cf. Irving, vol. i. p. 187.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 517:Applying the Gregorian Calendar, or "new style," it becomes the 21st. The four hundredth anniversary will properly fall on October 21, 1892.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 518:This is a common notion among barbarians. "The Polynesians imagine that the sky descends at the horizon and encloses the earth. Hence they call foreignerspapalangi, or 'heaven-bursters,' as having broken in from another world outside." Max Müller,Chips from a German Workshop, vol. ii. p. 268.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 519:"An Attempt to solve the Problem of the First Landing Place of Columbus in the New World," inUnited States Coast and Geodetic Survey—Report for 1880—Appendix 18, Washington, 1882.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 520:The first recorded mention of tobacco is in Columbus's diary for November 20, 1492:—"Hallaron los dos cristianos por el camino mucha gente que atravesaba á sus pueblos, mugeres y hombres con un tizon en la mano, yerbas para tomar sus sahumerios que acostumbraban," i. e. "the two Christians met on the road a great many people going to their villages, men and women with brands in their hands, made of herbs for taking their customary smoke." Navarrete, tom. i. p. 51.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 521:Not "Little Spain," as the form of the word, so much like a diminutive, might seem to indicate. It is simply the feminine ofEspañol, "Spanish," sc.tierraorisla. Columbus believed that the island was larger than Spain. See his letter to Gabriel Sanchez, in Harrisse, tom. i. p. 428.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 522:Columbus to Santangel, February 15, 1493 (Navarrete, tom. i. p. 168).[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 523:Las Casas, tom. i. pp. 443, 449.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 524:This story rests upon the explicit statement of a contemporary Portuguese historian of high authority, Garcia de Resende,Chronica del Rey Dom João II., Lisbon, 1622, cap. clxiv. (written about 1516); see also Vasconcellos,Vida del Rey Don Juan II., Madrid, 1639, lib. vi.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 525:"When they learnt that she returned in triumph from the discovery of a world, the whole community broke forth into transports of joy." Irving'sColumbus, vol. i. p. 318. This is projecting our present knowledge into the past. We now know that Columbus had discovered a new world. He did not so much as suspect that he had done anything of the sort; neither did the people of Palos.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 526:Charlevoix,Histoire de l'isle Espagnole, ou de St. Domingue, Paris, 1730, liv. ii.; Muñoz,Historia de las Indias ó Nuevo Mundo, Madrid, 1793, lib. iv. § 14.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 527:He was also allowed to quarter the royal arms with his own, "which consisted of a group of golden islands amid azure billows. To these were afterwards added five anchors, with the celebrated motto, well known as being carved on his sepulchre." Prescott'sFerdinand and Isabella, pt. i. chap. vii. This statement about the motto is erroneous. See below, p.514. Considering the splendour of the reception given to Columbus, and the great interest felt in his achievement, Mr. Prescott is surprised at finding no mention of this occasion in the local annals of Barcelona, or in the royal archives of Aragon. He conjectures, with some probability, that the cause of the omission may have been what an American would call "sectional" jealousy. This Cathay and Cipango business was an affair of Castile's, and, as such, quite beneath the notice of patriotic Aragonese archivists! That is the way history has too often been treated. With most people it is only a kind of ancestor worship.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 528:The unique copy of this first edition of this Spanish letter is a small folio of two leaves, or four pages. It was announced for sale in Quaritch's Catalogue, April 16, 1891, No. 111, p. 47, for £1,750. Evidently most book-lovers will have to content themselves with the facsimile published in London, 1891, price two guineas. A unique copy of a Spanish reprint in small quarto, made in 1493, is preserved in the Ambrosian library at Milan. In 1889 Messrs. Ellis & Elvey, of London, published a facsimileallegedto have been made from an edition of about the same date as the Ambrosian quarto; but there are good reasons for believing that these highly respectable publishers have been imposed upon. It is a time just now when fictitious literary discoveries of this sort may command a high price, and the dealer in early Americana must keep his eyes open. See Quaritch's note,op. cit.p. 49; and Justin Winsor's letter inThe Nation, April 9, 1891, vol. lii. p. 298.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 529:"The lands, therefore, which Columbus had visited were called the West Indies; and as he seemed to have entered upon a vast region of unexplored countries, existing in a state of nature, the whole received the comprehensive appellation of the New World." Irving'sColumbus, vol. i. p. 333. These are very grave errors, again involving the projection of our modern knowledge into the past. The lands which Columbus had visited were called simply the Indies; it was not until long after his death, and after the crossing of the Pacific ocean, that they were distinguished from the East Indies. TheNew Worldwas not at first a "comprehensive appellation" for the countries discovered by Columbus; it was at first applied to one particular region never visited by him, viz. to that portion of the southeastern coast of South America first explored by Vespucius. See vol. ii. pp. 129, 130.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 530:Peter Martyr, however, seems to have entertained some vague doubts, inasmuch as this assumed nearness of the China coast on the west implied a greater eastward extension of the Asiatic continent than seemed to him probable:—"Insulas reperit plures; has esse, de quibus fit apud cosmographos mentio extra oceanum orientalem, adjacentes Indiæ arbitrantur. Nec inficior ego penitus,quamvis sphæræ magnitudo aliter sentire videatur; neque enim desunt qui parvo tractu a finibus Hispaniæ distare littus Indicum putent."Opus Epist., No. 135. The italicizing is mine.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 531:This abominable piece of wickedness, driving 200,000 of Spain's best citizens from their homes and their native land, was accomplished in pursuance of an edict signed March 30, 1492. There is a brief account of it in Prescott'sFerdinand and Isabella, pt. i. chap. vi.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 532:"Un duplicata de cette relation," Harrisse,Christophe Colomb, tom i. p. 419.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 533:Often called Raphael Sanchez.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 534:The following epigram was added to the first Latin edition of the latter by Corbaria, Bishop of Monte-Peloso:—
Ad Invictissimum Regem Hispaniarum:
Iam nulla Hispanis tellus addenda triumphis,Atque parum tantis viribus orbis erat.Nunc longe eois regio deprensa sub undis,Auctura est titulos Betice magne tuos.Unde repertori inerita referenda ColumboGratia, sed summo est maior habenda deo,Qui vincenda parat noua regna tibique sibiqueTeque simul fortem prestat et esse pium.
These lines are thus paraphrased by M. Harrisse:—
To the Invincible King of the Spains:
Less wide the world than the renown of Spain,To swell her triumphs no new lands remain.Rejoice, Iberia! see thy fame increased!Another world Columbus from the EastAnd the mid-ocean summons to thy sway!Give thanks to him—but loftier homage payTo God Supreme, who gives its realms to thee!Greatest of monarchs, first of servants be!Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima, p. 13.
The following is a literal version:—"Already there is no land to be added to the triumphs of Spain, and the earth was too small for such great deeds. Now a far country under the eastern waves has been discovered, and will be an addition to thy titles, O great Bætica! wherefore thanks are due to the illustrious discover Columbus; but greater thanks to the supreme God, who is making ready new realms to be conquered for thee and for Himself, and vouchsafes to thee to be at once strong and pious." It will be observed that nothing is said about "another world."
An elaborate account of these earliest and excessively rare editions is given by M. Harrisse,loc. cit.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 535:Or, as Mr. Major carelessly puts it, "the astounding news of the discovery of a new world." (Select Letters of Columbus, p. vi.) Mr. Major knows very well that no such "news" was possible for many a year after 1493; his remark is, of course, a mere slip of the pen, but if we are ever going to straighten out the tangle of misconceptions with which this subject is commonly surrounded, we must be careful in our choice of words.—As a fair specimen, of the chap-book style of Dati's stanzas, we may cite the fourteenth:—
Hor vo tornar almio primo tractatodellisole trovate incognite a tein q̃sto anno presente q̃sto e statonel millequatrocento novātatre,uno che xp̃ofan colōbo chiamato,che e stato in corte der prefecto Reha molte volte questa stimolato,el Re ch'cerchi acrescere il suo stato.
M. Harrisse gives the following version:—
Back to my theme, O Listener, turn with meAnd hear of islands all unknown to thee!Islands whereof the grand discoveryChanced in this year of fourteen ninety-three.One Christopher Colombo, whose resortWas ever in the King Fernando's court,Bent himself still to rouse and stimulateThe King to swell the borders of his State.Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima, p. 29.
The entire poem of sixty-eight stanzas is given in Major,op. cit.pp. lxxiii.-xc. It was published at Florence, Oct. 26, 1493, and was called "the story of the discovery [not of a new world, but] of the new Indian islands of Canary!" (Storia della inventione delle nuove isole dicanaria indiane.)[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 536:Raccolta di Navigazioni, etc., Venice, 1550, tom. i. fol. 414.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 537:See below, vol. ii. pp. 2-15.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 538:Harrisse,Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima, p. 35.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 539:Id. p. 50.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 540:
Auch hat man sydt in PortigallUnd in Hyspanyen uberallGolt-inseln funden, und nacket lůtVon den man vor wust sagen nůt.Harrisse,Bibl. Amer. Vet.;Additions, p. 4.
Or, in more modern German:—
Wie man auch jüngst von PortugalUnd Hispanien aus schier überallGoldinseln fand und nakte Leute,Von denen man erst weiss seit heute.Das Narrenschiff, ed. Simrock, Berlin, 1872, p. 161.
In the Latin version of 1497, now in the National Library at Paris, it goes somewhat differently:—
Antea que fuerat priscis incognita tellus:Exposita est oculis & manifesta patet.Hesperie occidue rex Ferdinandus: in altoAequore nunc gentes repperit innumeras.Harrisse,op. cit.;Additions, p. 7.
It will be observed that these foreign references are so ungallant, and so incorrect, as to give all the credit to Ferdinand, while poor Isabella is not mentioned![Back to Main Text]
Footnote 541:Harrisse,op. cit.;Additions, p. 45.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 542:Harrisse,Jean et Sebastien Cabot, Paris, 1882, p. 15.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 543:Vasconcellos,Vida del Rey Don Juan II., Madrid, 1639, lib. vi.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 544:"De nostra mera liberalitate, et ex certa scientia, ac de apostolicæ potestatis plenitudine." ... "auctoritate omnipotentis Dei nobis in beato Petro concessa, ac vicariatus Jesu Christi qua fungimur in terris." The same language is used in the second bull. Mr. Prescott (Ferdinand and Isabella, part i. chap, vii.) translatescerta scientia"infallible knowledge," but in order to avoid any complications with modern theories concerning papal infallibility, I prefer to use a less technical word.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 545:A year or two later the sovereigns were further rewarded with the decorative title of "Most Catholic." See Zurita,Historia del Rey Hernando, Saragossa, 1580, lib. ii. cap. xl.; Peter Martyr,Epist.clvii.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 546:The complete text of this bull, with Richard Eden's translation, is given at the end of this work; see below, Appendix B. The official text is inMagnum Bullarium Romanum, ed. Cherubini, Lyons, 1655, tom. i. p. 466. The original document received by Ferdinand and Isabella is preserved in the Archives of the Indies at Seville; it is printed entire in Navarrete,Coleccion de viages, tom. ii. No. 18. Another copy, less complete, may be found in Raynaldus,Annales ecclesiastici, Lucca, 1754, tom. xi. p. 214, No. 19-22; and another in Leibnitz,Codex Diplomaticus, tom. i. pt. i. p. 471. It is often called the Bull "Inter Cetera," from its opening words.
The origin of the pope's claim to apostolic authority for giving away kingdoms is closely connected with the fictitious "Donation of Constantine," an edict probably fabricated in Rome about the middle of the eighth century. The title of the old Latin text isEdictum domini Constantini Imp., apud Pseudo-Isidorus,Decretalia. Constantine's transfer of the seat of empire from the Tiber to the Bosphorus tended greatly to increase the dignity and power of the papacy, and I presume that the fabrication of this edict, four centuries afterward, was the expression of a sincere belief that the first Christian emperormeantto leave the temporal supremacy over Italy in the hands of the Roman see. The edict purported to be such a donation from Constantine to Pope Sylvester I., but the extent and character of the donation was stated with such vagueness as to allow a wide latitude of interpretation. Its genuineness was repeatedly called in question, but belief in it seems to have grown in strength until after the thirteenth century. Leo IX., who was a strong believer in its genuineness, granted in 1054 to the Normans their conquests in Sicily and Calabria, to be held as a fief of the Roman see. (Muratori,Annali d' Italia, tom. vi. pt. ii. p. 245.) It was next used to sustain the papal claim to suzerainty over the island of Corsica. A century later John of Salisbury maintained the right of the pope to dispose "of allislandson which Christ, the Sun of righteousness, hath shined," and in conformity with this opinion Pope Adrian IV. (Nicholas Breakspeare, an Englishman) authorized in 1164 King Henry II. of England to invade and conquer Ireland. (See Adrian IV.,Epist.76, apud Migne,Patrologia, tom. clxxxviii.) Dr. Lanigan, in treating of this matter, is more an Irishman than a papist, and derides "this nonsense of the pope's being the head-owner of all Christian islands." (Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, vol. iv. p. 159.)—Gregory VII., in working up to the doctrine that all Christian kingdoms should be held as fiefs under St. Peter (Baronius,Annales, tom. xvii. p. 430; cf. Villemain,Histoire de Grégoire VII., Paris, 1873, tom. ii. pp. 59-61), does not seem to have appealed to the Donation. Perhaps he was shrewd enough to foresee the kind of objection afterwards raised by the Albigensians, who pithily declared that if the suzerainty of the popes was derived from the Donation, then they were successors of Constantine and not of St. Peter. (Moneta Cremonensis,Adversus Catharos et Waldenses, ed. Ricchini, Rome, 1743, v. 2.) But Innocent IV. summarily disposed of this argument at the Council of Lyons in 1245, when he deposed the Emperor Frederick II. and King Sancho II. of Portugal,—saying that Christ himself had bestowed temporal as well as spiritual headship upon St. Peter and his successors, so that Constantine only gave up to the Church what belonged to it already. The opposite or Ghibelline theory was eloquently set forth by Dante, in his treatiseDe Monarchia; he held that inasmuch as the Empire existed before the Church, it could not be derived from it. Dante elsewhere expressed his abhorrence of the Donation:—
Ahi Constantin, di quanto mal fu matre,Non la tua conversion, ma quella doteChe da te prese il primo ricco patre!Inferno, xix. 115.
Similar sentiments were expressed by many of the most popular poets from the twelfth century to the sixteenth. Walther von der Vogelweide was sure that if the first Christian emperor could have foreseen the evils destined to flow from his Donation, he would have withheld it:—
Solte ich den pfaffen raten an den triuwen min,So spræche ir haut den armen zuo: se, daz ist din,Ir zunge sünge, unde lieze mengem man daz sin,Gedæhten daz ouch si dur Got wæren almuosenære.Do gab ir erste teil der Kuenik Konstantin,Het er gewest, daz da von uebel kuenftik wære,So het er wol underkomen des riches swære,Wan daz si do waren kiusche, und uebermuete lære.Hagen,Minnesinger-Sammlung, Leipsic, 1838, bd. i. p. 270.
Ariosto, in a passage rollicking with satire, makes his itinerant paladin find the "stinking" Donation in the course of his journey upon the moon:—
Di varii fiori ad un gran monte passa,Ch' ebber già buono odore, or puzzan forte,Questo era il dono, se però dir lece,Che Constantino al buon Silvestro fece.Orlando Furioso, xxxiv. 80.
The Donation was finally proved to be a forgery by Laurentius Valla in 1440, in hisDe falso credita et ementita Constantini donatione declamatio(afterward spread far and wide by Ulrich von Hutten), and independently by the noble Reginald Pecock, bishop of Chichester, in hisRepressor, written about 1447.—During the preceding century the theory of Gregory VII. and Innocent IV. had been carried to its uttermost extreme by the Franciscan monk Alvaro Pelayo, in hisDe Planctu Ecclesiæ, written at Avignon during the "Babylonish Captivity," about 1350 (printed at Venice in 1560), and by Agostino Trionfi, in hisSumma de potestate ecclesiastica, Augsburg, 1473, an excessively rare book, of which there is a copy in the British Museum. These writers maintained that the popes were suzerains of the whole earth and had absolute power to dispose not only of all Christian kingdoms, but also of all heathen lands and powers. It was upon this theory that Eugenius IV. seems to have acted with reference to Portugal and Alexander VI. with reference to Spain. Of course there was never a time when such claims for the papacy were not denied by a large party within the Church. The Spanish sovereigns in appealing to Alexander VI. took care to hint that some of their advisers regarded them as already entitled to enjoy the fruits of their discoveries, even before obtaining the papal permission, but they did not choose to act upon that opinion (Herrera, decad. i. lib. ii. cap. 4). The kings of Portugal were less reserved in their submission. InValasci Ferdinandi ad Innocentium octauum de obedientia oratio, a small quarto printed at Rome about 1488, John II. did homage to the pope for the countries just discovered by Bartholomew Dias. His successor Emanuel did the same after the voyages of Gama and Vespucius. In a small quarto,Obedientia potentissimi Emanuelis Lusitaniæ regis &c. per clarissimum juris consultum Dieghum Pacettū oratorem ad Iuliū Pont. Max., Rome, 1505, all the newly found lands are laid at the feet of Julius II. in a passage that ends with words worth noting: "Accipe tandem orbem ipsum terrarum, Deus enim noster es," i. e. "Accept in fine the earth itself, for thou art our God." Similar homage was rendered to Leo X. in 1513, on account of Albuquerque's conquests in Asia.—We may suspect that if the papacy had retained, at the end of the fifteenth century, anything like the overshadowing power which it possessed at the end of the twelfth, the kings of Portugal would not have been quite so unstinted in their homage. As it came to be less of a reality and more of a flourish of words, it cost less to offer it. Among some modern Catholics I have observed a disposition to imagine that in the famous bull of partition Alexander VI. acted not as supreme pontiff but merely as an arbiter, in the modern sense, between the crowns of Spain and Portugal; but such an interpretation is hardly compatible with Alexander's own words. An arbiter, as such, does not make awards by virtue of "the authority of Omnipotent God granted to us in St. Peter, and of the Vicarship of Jesus Christ which we administer upon the earth."
Since writing this note my attention has been called to Dr. Ignaz von Döllinger'sFables respecting the Popes of the Middle Ages, London, 1871; and I find in it a chapter on the Donation of Constantine, in which the subject is treated with a wealth of learning. Some of my brief references are there discussed at considerable length. To the references to Dante there is added a still more striking passage, where Constantine is admitted into Heavenin spite ofhis Donation (Paradiso, xx. 55).[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 547:The language of the bull is even more vague than my version in the text. His Holiness describes the lands to be given to the Spaniards as lying "to the west and south" (versus occidentem et meridiem) of his dividing meridian. Land to the south of a meridian would be in a queer position! Probably it was meant to say that the Spaniards, once west of the papal meridian, might go south as well as north. For the king of Portugal had suggested that they ought to confine themselves to northern waters.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 548:For the original Spanish text of the treaty of Tordesillas, see Navarrete, tom. ii. pp. 116-130.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 549:See below, vol. ii. pp. 98-154.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 550:History of the Spanish Conquest, vol. i. p. 487.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 551:Irving calls him a Benedictine, but he is addressed as "fratri ordinis Minorum" in the bull clothing him with apostolic authority in the Indies, June 25, 1493. See Raynaldus,Annales ecclesiastici, tom. xi. p. 216. I cannot imagine what M. Harrisse means by calling him "religieux de Saint-Vincent de Paule" (Christophe Colomb, tom. ii. p. 55). Vincent de Paul was not born till 1576.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 552:Not for "the New World," as Irving carelessly has it in hisColumbus, vol. i. p. 346. No such phrase had been thought of in 1493, or until long afterward.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 553:Herrera,Hist. de las Indias, decad. i. lib. ii. cap. 5.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 554:Vita dell' Ammiraglio, cap. xliv.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 555:He went as astronomer, from which we may perhaps suppose that scientific considerations had made him one of the earliest and most steadfast upholders of Columbus's views.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 556:See Harrisse,Christophe Colomb, tom. ii. pp. 55, 56; Las Casas,Hist. de las Indias, tom. i. p. 498; Fabié,Vida de Las Casas, Madrid, 1879, tom. i. p. 11; Oviedo,Hist. de las Indias, tom. i. p. 467; Navarrete,Coleccion de viages, tom. ii. pp. 143-149.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 557:"E con questo preparamento il mercoledé ai 25 del mese di settembre dell' anno 1493 un' ora avanti il levar del sole, essendovi io e mio fratel presenti, l' Ammiraglio levò le ancore," etc.Vita dell' Ammiraglio, cap. xliv.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 558:Eight sows were bought for 70 maravedis apiece, and "destas ocho puercas se han multiplicado todos los puercos que, hasta hoy, ha habido y hay en todas estas Indias," etc. Las Casas,Historia, tom. ii. p. 3.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 559:The relation of this second voyage by Dr. Chanca may be found in Navarrete, tom. i. pp. 198-241; an interesting relation in Italian by Simone Verde, a Florentine merchant then living in Valladolid, is published in Harrisse,Christophe Colomb, tom. ii. pp. 68-78. The narrative of the curate of Los Palacios is of especial value for this voyage.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 560:Martyr,Epist.cxlvii.ad Pomponium Lætum; cf.Odyssey, x. 119; Thucyd. vi. 2.—Irving (vol. i. p. 385) finds it hard to believe these stories, but the prevalence of cannibalism, not only in these islands, but throughout a very large part of aboriginal America, has been superabundantly proved.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 561:For an instance of 400 hostile Indians fleeing before a single armed horseman, seeVita dell' Ammiraglio, cap. lii.; Las Casas,Hist.tom. ii. p. 46.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 562:Compare the Fisherman's story of Drogio, above, pp.246,252.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 563:Bernaldez,Reyes Católicos, cap. cxxv. Domesticated dogs were found generally in aboriginal America, but they were very paltry curs compared to these fierce hounds, one of which could handle an unarmed man as easily as a terrier handles a rat.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 564:As a Greek would have said, ἤπειρος, a continent.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 565:Bernaldez,Reyes Católicos, cap. cxxvii, Mr. Irving, in citing these same incidents from Bernaldez, could not quite rid himself of the feeling that there was something strange or peculiar in the Admiral's method of interpreting such information: "Animated by one of the pleasing illusions of his ardent imagination, Columbus pursued his voyage, with a prosperous breeze, along the supposed continent of Asia." (Life of Columbus, vol. i. p. 493.) This lends a false colour to the picture, which the general reader is pretty sure to make still falser. To suppose the southern coast of Cuba to be the southern coast of Toscanelli's Mangi required no illusion of an "ardent imagination." It was simply a plain common-sense conclusion reached by sober reasoning from such data as were then accessible (i. e. the Toscanelli map, amended by information such as was understood to be given by the natives); it was more probable than any other theory of the situation likely to be devised from those data; and it seems fanciful to us to-day only because knowledge acquired since the time of Columbus has shown us how far from correct it was. Modern historians abound in unconscious turns of expression—as in this quotation from Irving—which project modern knowledge back into the past, and thus destroy the historical perspective. I shall mention several other instances from Irving, and the reader must not suppose that this is any indication of captiousness on my part toward a writer for whom my only feeling is that of sincerest love and veneration.[Back to Main Text]