Rivers of Gold

by Hugh Thomas

  Fernando Colón was stronger in his criticism. He reported that Fonseca had always hated his father and his enterprises, and he was “always the leader of those who spoke badly of him at court.”5 He felt at ease only with people of good family, so adventurers, even if clever, suffered, and aristocrats, even if foolish, prospered in consequence of his appointments. Antonio de Guevara, a Franciscan who in 1495 was a page to the Infante Juan, but was later a senior preacher and historian to the court (as well as the secret author of The Golden Book of Marcus Aurelius, one of the most successful books of the sixteenth century), would write candidly to Fonseca:

  You ask me, señor, what they are saying about you here, and all say at court that you may be a very solid Christian but that you are a very peevish (desabrido) bishop. Also, they say that you are fat, prolix, careless, and indecisive in the contracts which you have in your hands, as with the petitioners who appear before you and, what is worse, many of them return home exhausted and unconsidered. They also say that you are a bully, as well as proud, impatient, and high-spirited.… Others admit that you are a man who deals in truth, that you tell the truth and are, indeed, the friend of truth, while a liar never has you as a friend. They admit that you are direct in what you do, just in how your decisions are executed, and that, to be honest, you have no prejudice in favoring, and no affection for, anyone. They also comment that you are compassionate, pious, and charitable. Don’t marvel at what I say, since I am shocked by what you do. There is no virtue more necessary in a man who runs a republic than patience. Whether you are a prelate or a president, you have to live modestly and be long-suffering.6

  That said, Fonseca, like others of his illustrious family, was an enthusiast for the arts, especially Flemish painting, as can be seen from the depiction of himself in the cathedrals of Badajoz and of Palencia, especially the latter, where the Fleming Juan Joest de Calcar painted him on the reredos.7

  The need for a clear policy toward the empire was forced on the Spanish Crown by Columbus’s policies in La Española, especially in respect of the enslavement of Indians. For by 1495, Columbus, despairing of finding gold in any quantity, was seriously trying to compensate by securing slaves to send home. He himself, his brother Bartolomeo, and the handsome Alonso de Hojeda carried out cruel armed drives to almost every part of La Española in order to kidnap Indians. But the indigenous people were not prepared to accept such seizures meekly. Nor did the Spaniards distinguish between peace-loving Indians, who might have a future as Christians, and Caribs, who were presumed godless, cannibalistic, and brutal.

  The campaign of Columbus to obtain Indian slaves gave rise to one of the most soul-searing of paragraphs in the works of Las Casas, who added that in this way was destroyed two-thirds of the population. That was a typical exaggeration of that author, though his enemy, the historian Oviedo, also spoke of innumerable victims.8 This led to a spontaneous decision by many Indians in La Española to flee to the mountains. This “rebellion,” as it was misleadingly called, led Columbus to seize about 1,660 “souls both men and women,” as Miguel Cuneo put it, and to send 550 of them home to Castile in the second home-going fleet of Antonio de Torres, which left Isabela on February 24, 1495. The Atlantic slave trade thus began in an east-west direction, not from Africa but from the Caribbean to Europe.

  On this second return voyage, Torres was accompanied by Columbus’s younger brother, Diego Colón, and his childhood friend Miguel Cuneo. It was a far from triumphal journey. But it was swift: Cuneo reported that the journey from Puerto Rico (Boriquen) to Madeira took only twenty-three days. Yet about two hundred of the Indians who accompanied Torres died from the cold when they entered Spanish waters.9 The rest landed at Cadiz, though another half of them were ill. Cuneo reported: “They are not accustomed to hard work, they suffer from cold, and they do not have a long life.”10

  Nine prize Indians were given to the Florentine Juanotto Berardi, whose instruction was to hand them over to someone appropriate so that they might be able one day to act as interpreters. The remaining prisoners were left to be sold in Seville, even if a number seem to have escaped. But even before they arrived, the Catalans Margarit and Fray Boil, who had abandoned Columbus without leave, had been developing a theory that the Indians were potentially Christian subjects of their Highnesses and, therefore, should not be enslaved.11 This arose from their observation that Taino religious manifestations, from the offering of food to the gods, their adornment, the processions, the dancing, the singing, and the distribution of bread to heads of families, had something in common with Christian practices.12

  Bernal Díaz de Pisa, the accountant whom Columbus had imprisoned, was summoned to court to contribute to the collective knowledge of what was going on in La Española. Several knights who had returned complained, too, that the brothers of the Admiral had seized their horses.13 Others said that Columbus had told some of the gentlemen volunteers that those who did not work could not eat—a statement that no Spanish gentleman could receive tranquilly, especially not from a Genoese of unknown birth.14

  Columbus knew nothing of such intrigues at court, though having spent so much time there, he could have imagined them. By the time of Torres’s arrival in Spain, he was already back in La Española, his plan being now to occupy the whole island in the name of the Spanish Crown. His original idea that there would simply be trading posts for the delivery of merchandise, precious metals, and slaves, in the style of Portuguese expansion in Africa, had been pushed aside in favor of a more Castilian interpretation of the desirability of expansion: to occupy land and to seize populations.15 One has the strong sense that both the Admiral and his royal masters were being forced to reconsider their assumptions in consequence of the actuality of settlement and its difficulties.

  Columbus left Isabela on March 25 with two hundred men, twenty horses, and a number of dogs to “occupy” the center of La Española—not trade with it. He was accompanied by his brother Bartolomeo and by his indigenous ally, the cacique Guacanagarí, and some of his Indians. He divided his forces in two and attacked a large Indian army. They defeated them easily; Fernando Colón wrote that these were dispersed “as if they had been birds.”

  Columbus then set about founding fortresses at four places: Concepción de la Vega (Santo Cerro), Esperanza, Santiago, and Santa Catalina. These were built of wood, of course, owing more to the art of carpenters than of masons. All the same, Concepción became a center of pilgrimage—and of miracles. In his will, Columbus remembered it and hoped that Masses would be said there in a chapel every day. By the time he died, however, it had reverted to jungle.16 Much of the remaining small Spanish population of Isabela moved inland to garrison those fortresses. Excellent fish were easy to catch, as has always been the case in the Caribbean. Cotton, linen, and various other domestic products began to do well under Spanish direction, and a few Castilian transplants were also successful: wheat, vegetables, some cereals, vines, and even sugarcane had all been planted; some survived. Pigs and chickens were also flourishing.

  In the course of that spring and in the summer, Columbus arranged with friendly caciques that all adult Indians between the ages of fourteen and seventy would undertake to provide regular tribute to the Spanish Crown in the form of the appropriate produce of their locality. Thus the Indians of Cibao and Vega Real agreed to give Columbus over 60,000 pesos of gold in three separate payments. Those who lived in cotton-growing regions would each contribute a bale. All tributaries would wear a disk when they had paid their due. In return, Columbus undertook to restrain his followers from roaming fecklessly.17 In the meantime, some of his followers had begun to settle down inland with Indian women.

  The caciques gave what they could but then begged for mercy if they did not produce what they were asked for. Guarionex offered to plant a huge agricultural plot (conuco) all the way from the north to the south of the island if his people were released from the tribute of gold. Columbus considered the matter. Of course, he preferred gold.

  Wh
ether Columbus would have survived in the long run as the commander in chief, governor, or viceroy of this little world is something that cannot be known, for by the end of the year 1495, he learned that the Crown’s policy toward him was changing. As early as April of that year, the monarchs were beginning to look on La Española and other islands in the Caribbean as if they were extensions of Andalusia.18

  This was in part the consequence of the dispatch to Spain of the Indians—slaves, as Columbus believed that they should be considered. It should have been an easy task to have arranged for their sale in Spain.19 Andalusia was accustomed, after all, to the auctioning and purchase of slaves of many origins. Valencian merchants, such as Juan Abelló and Antonio Viana, could have dealt easily with these cargoes, as could those in Genoa—for example, Domenico de Castellón and Francisco Gato.

  The Crown did not seem hostile in principle; thus the monarchs wrote to Fonseca in Seville on April 12 that “in respect of what you write to us about the Indians who came in the caravels, it appears to us that you can sell these better in Andalusia than anywhere else and you ought to sell them as best you can.”20 But the Crown went back on that decision. Probably that was because of the influence of Boil and Margarit. The Queen’s confessor, Cisneros, may have played a part. His attitude toward the Indians, whom he did not know, was always more humane than it was toward Jews and Muslims, with whom he had associated. At all events, just four days later, on April 16, 1495, the monarchs sent another letter to Fonseca delaying the sales:

  We want to inform ourselves from letrados, theologians, and canon lawyers if, with good conscience, we can sell those [slaves] or not, and we cannot do this until we have seen the letters that the Admiral has written to us … and those letters are in the hands of Torres but as yet he has not sent them to us; therefore, the sales of those Indians should be suspended for a brief spell.21

  It was, however, a long time before that learned opinion was forthcoming. Nor is it clear how, of whom exactly, and even whether the opinion was formally sought. What does seem to have happened is that fifty Indian slaves were quickly made available to Admiral Juan Lezcano Arriarán for use in the royal galleys, and a few more were allowed by Fonseca to be sold by Berardi, while the rest died in Seville while waiting for a decision about their future.22 The monarchs, for their part, continued to think that a distinction could be drawn between good and bad Indians. Cuneo, in a letter written to a friend in Seville in the autumn of 1495, mentions this distinction, speaking of cannibals being found as soon as he arrived at Santa María Galante on the second journey of Columbus.23

  This was the beginning of a debate about the identity of Caribs and the possibility of enslaving them. But what is remarkable about these royal doubts is that both monarchs knew that they, too, were governed by law and that they could not invent it. Autocrats they might be, but they were law-abiding.

  It was becoming increasingly clear to both of them, too, that they would have to reduce Columbus’s franchise. Fernando and Isabel had not presided over the unification of the peninsula in order to allow a Genoese adventurer to establish a private suzerainty under their authority. All the same, on April 10, 1495, the monarchs issued a decree in Madrid that authorized anyone—any Castilian, that is—to equip expeditions to discover islands, even continents, in the Indies or the Ocean Sea. The rules for those who wanted to go to the Indies were these:

  Since we hear that various persons, our subjects, want to go to discover other islands and parts of the mainland other than those which, by our mandate, have already been discovered in the said part of the Ocean Sea, and to barter gold and other metals and other merchandise; and inasmuch as others would like to go to settle in La Española, which has already been discovered … and recalling that no one is to go to the Indies without our license … we establish, first, that every ship which sets off for the Indies must leave from Cádiz and not from anywhere else, and that those who set out must register themselves there with the appropriate officials; second, that anyone who wants to go and live in the Indies without a salary can do so freely and can receive maintenance for a year, keeping for himself a third of the gold that he discovers, the other two parts being for us, while of all other merchandise they must give us a tenth; third, that anyone who wants can go and discover new islands or tierra firme other than La Española, but they must register at, and leave from, Cádiz;24 and fourth, that anyone can take whatever they like in the way of supplies to La Española, but on all ships a tenth part of the burden must be of our goods, etc.

  Columbus would always be able to carry an eighth part on all ships. But this was a document of capital importance. It broke Columbus’s monopoly.25 The beneficiary was, however, first, his Florentine friend Berardi, who by another decree was enabled to hire twelve ships to carry nine hundred tons of goods to sell at a cost of 2,000 maravedís per ton. He would have the decisive advantage of dedicating half his fleet to the person dreaming of finding unknown places, with a previous benefit assured. This was the only way of working out an efficient method for costing the attempts at discovery, the return journey, and so on.26 Naturally Columbus complained of this decree when he heard of it. But he only heard late, and his complaint was ineffective. The decree ensured six years of liberty for traders and emigrants, a liberty that, in fact, would not be seen again for 250 years.27

  These decisions followed much royal correspondence about the Indies earlier in the year. Thus, in February, the monarchs had ordered Fonseca to send four ships to the Indies full of supplies.28 On February 14, Sebastián Olano, a courtier who had sailed with Columbus in 1493, wrote to the monarchs saying that, far from the Admiral having prohibited the distribution of goods in the absence of the accountants, as Columbus had apparently alleged, he had ordered the contrary.29 In March, a flotilla of three ships for Santo Domingo had been planned by Juan Aguado, a chamberlain of the court, who had also been with Columbus in 1493 and had returned with Torres. Columbus had looked on him as a friend, but he seems to have been firmly on the side of Fonseca in all doubtful questions. Pedro de Mata, constable of the Inquisition in Seville, gave to Juan Lucero of Moguer 40,000 maravedís from the Inquisition’s funds to finance this caravel to the Indies.30 Then in April, the Crown charged Juanotto Berardi to resupply the colony in La Española, and a contract was exchanged by which the Florentine agreed to send twelve ships with merchandise in three journeys. But they were delayed. The Crown still at this time thought they could seek to maintain commerce with the New World as a monopoly between Columbus and themselves.31

  Berardi wrote to the Crown saying the problem of the colony was that all or nearly all the expeditionaries of La Española wished to come home, while their debts amounted to 10 or 12 million maravedís. He proposed an arbitrary settlement to deal with both problems. By amortizing 2 of the 12 million, the Crown could buy about ten or twelve caravels so that the colonists of La Española could discover and even settle in other islands. With another five caravels the Crown could buy all the food needed. With the remaining 5 million maravedís, the monarchs could invest in merchandise to be sold to the residents of La Española. Everyone on that island could be provided for adequately for two years, although those who found precious metals or pearls would pay their fifth (quinto) to the Crown. On every ship henceforth there ought to be a notary. All ships of exploration would return to La Española and all, as the monarchs would prefer, would be built in Spain, not in the Indies. The plan would go ahead slowly; the first four caravels would be sent with food and merchandise, and afterwards they would go two by two. At the end of six months, the products of the quintos would pay for everything.32

  We see in these proposed rules the beginning of the bureaucratization of the discoveries that would subsequently dominate the Indies.

  Soon after this, the monarchs sent their first serious admonition to Columbus: on June 1, 1495, they wrote to him from Arévalo, “We have learned that, in recent days, especially when you were away from La Española, the available supplies
were not shared out to the settlers. So we order you to divide these up as agreed, and please do not change this rule except where a grave crime has been committed by someone, such as would be worthy of a death penalty and which would be equivalent to an abbreviation of such supplies.”33 It turned out that those responsible for the past “abbreviation” were not Columbus and his brother but his deputies in control of supplies, Alonso Sánchez de Carvajal and his successor, Juan de Oñate, a Sevillano. All the same, this letter was the first indication the Admiral had that the Crown had its own ideas about the government of his Indies.34

  The remainder of 1495 passed in Spain with the monarchs seeking to devise a policy toward Naples as well as the New World. They did issue a series of decrees affecting the latter, which did not suggest consistency except that overall responsibility was vested in the Crown. Columbus would be seen henceforth as just one more public servant and a difficult one at that. We also find the Inquisition giving Fonseca substantial sums that were seized from departing or condemned Jews for the benefit of the exploitation of new discoveries.35 Other regulations followed. Anyone who wanted to go to the New World was now supposed to subordinate himself to an authorized commander, who would obtain a license to “conquer and settle” some island or coast. That individual would have to raise money to finance everything. Royal officials, however, would be attached to him. Often, though, he would have his title (say, “governor”) for his own life and perhaps that of his son. He was expected to provide missionaries and priests, and, of course, he had to obey royal decrees. He also had to explore as well as develop his proposed colony, to establish towns, to discover gold mines, and to turn the natives into good Christians. The Crown, which could offer no protection, would still expect a fifth of the gross value of all products, with no expenses taken into account. If the booty derived from a tomb, the royal share would be one-half. Really, anyone who obtained one of these licenses had to be a gambler or a visionary, one who might pawn everything to set off at the head of a gang of interested men, some of them being ruffians. Most of his followers would receive no income and have no specific loyalties.