Toward the Setting Sun

by David Boyle

  The full text described the people who lived in Hispaniola and the other islands as “living peaceably and going naked” and that they “seem apt to be brought to embracing the Catholic faith and to be imbued with good manners.” It was a vital moment in diplomatic history, and it also implied something else: The justification for the whole enterprise, both for the pope and the Spanish sovereigns, had shifted. It was no longer just about business, it was about converting souls.

  The Portuguese had held back from military action to wait for the pope’s decision, and they were horrified at this new division of the world. Previous treaties had divided the Atlantic along the line of latitude; now there was an entirely new division along the longitude line, which would not be measurable for centuries, and certainly was not verifiable then. What could they do? Defying the pope was a dangerous path, but something had to happen. In July, John sent an ultimatum to Ferdinand and Isabella, ordering them to suspend preparations for the second expedition, or Almeida’s fleet would be dispatched immediately across the Atlantic. The Castilians made no response, but Isabella sent a secret message to Columbus urging him to leave as soon as possible. She also told him—as a matter of absolute priority—to find out precisely the position of the new islands.

  It was not until September 25 that the fleet finally got under way from Cadiz. One of the last things Columbus did before walking aboard his new flagship, Maria Galante, was to give power of attorney to his trusted friend Berardi. In practice, this meant that both Berardi and Vespucci could act on his behalf while he was away.

  Compared to the first voyage, the second was an enormous undertaking, with at least thirteen hundred men, including the former captain of the Santa Maria, Juan de la Cosa, rapidly emerging as the preeminent cartographer of his generation; Columbus’s slightly ineffectual brother Diego; and his boyhood friend Michele de Cuneo, the son of the man who had sold old Domenico Columbus a house in Savona. The captains of each ship carried sealed instructions about what to do if they became separated from the fleet. As well as the future colonists bound for Hispaniola, leaning over the rails of the ships as the coast of Spain drew out of sight, there was a contingent of hidalgos, gentlemen cavaliers—forbidden by law and by their position from pursuing “base and vile offices” like tailoring, carpentry, or shopkeeping—swaying with their horses below, present on the voyage because the court believed a contingent of the gentry would help the new settlement. There was also a physician from Seville, Dr. Diego Álvarez Chanca.

  And since the other purpose of this expedition as set out by the sovereigns, with the encouragement of Columbus himself, was to convert the people who lived in the newly discovered islands, there were specific instructions from the queen to treat the natives kindly. This meant there was a party of friars included on the voyage, led by a reformed Francisan, a Minim friar named Bernardo Boyle, and enough equipment to set up the first church.*

  As the first swell hit the seventeen ships, the thousand or so passengers sharing the space with their animals realized what an ordeal the month ahead was likely to be. These tiny spaces would be their homes. They would eat salt-cured meat and rancid lard and drink a quart of stale water a day, crowded on deck in all weather to throw up over the side. Spread out ahead of them, a powerful naval squadron scanned the horizon for any signs of the Portuguese.

  Some days later, the fleet drew into the harbor in Gomera, and soon afterward those on board watched the distant volcano on Tenerife—the last sight for westward voyages—dip below the horizon, and they were alone, seventeen small dots on the Atlantic Ocean.

  The day after the fleet sailed from Cadiz, the pope issued another bull. Papal bulls are known by their first two words in Latin. This one, Dudum siquidem, favored Alexander’s native Spain to an outrageous degree: “Since it may happen that your envoys and captains or subjects, while voyaging to the West or South, might land in eastern regions and there discover islands and mainland that belong to India…we amplify and extend our aforesaid gift . . . to all islands and mainlands, whatsoever to be found… sailing or traveling towards the West or South.”

  When the news arrived in Lisbon, there was serious consternation. What was the point of them having the exclusive right to explore for trade routes to the east—if, indeed, that was where Columbus had gone—if the Castilians were simply being given the right to encircle the world and take possession of everything they found there as well? John made the decision to abandon diplomacy at the Vatican: there was obviously no point in trying to persuade a pope who was quite immune to any cause other than that of the Spanish. They would have to take matters into their own hands and open negotiations directly with Ferdinand and Isabella, while holding open the possibility of their own expeditions.

  It was at this point that Columbus’s rival Martin Behaim arrived back in Lisbon. He had spent the previous year at home in Nuremberg, irritating his family—”Martin does nothing in particular, but goes daily into the garden,” complained his brother Wolf. But now, sensing some opportunity, he roused himself to send a letter to Lisbon in July proposing exactly the voyage that Columbus had suggested—and enclosing a globe that demonstrated the route—clearly not knowing that Columbus had already achieved this.* But John bided his time, as Castile and Portugal seesawed between peace and war.

  There were still overwhelming reasons for peace. Both sides knew that sending Almeida and his fleet across the unknown ocean, without definitive charts or positions, would be enormously risky. And if, as Cabot said, Columbus had really made a mistake, then it would be a serious waste of time to seize a handful of irrelevant islands. Yet the Castilians also knew that if they wanted to, the Portuguese navy could play havoc with their supply lines to the Indies. Backing a rival voyage under Behaim was just too risky in this delicate situation. It would also flout the decision of the pope. Lisbon decided that the best option was to negotiate instead, and that another voyage around Africa in the path of Bartholomew Dias might be a better use of resources. So Almeida’s fleet was stood down.

  The news of the discoveries took longer to reach northern Europe and London—where Henry VII was still considering Bartholomew Columbus’s proposal for a voyage of his own to the Indies—and the French royal court, where, as the finishing touches were being put on Columbus’s new fleet, the young Charles VIII finally asked to see the patient Bartholomew Columbus, who was now employed, rather miserably, making maps for Anne of Beaujeu at Fontainebleu.

  The king gave him the news that his brother had come back safely, having found a route to the Indies, and sent Bartholomew to see him in Spain. Before he left, the French king handed him a small purse for traveling expenses containing one hundred crowns, then Bartholomew set out on the long journey south across the Pyrenees and along the dusty road to Seville. There he found the second fleet had already sailed, but his brother had left behind a letter asking him to conduct his son Diego and the baby Ferdinand to the Spanish court. Isabella took to Bartholomew immediately and asked him to take charge of the convoy of provisions that was about to leave Seville for the Indies. To do so he would have to negotiate with Fonseca, Berardi, and Vespucci and persuade Berardi, in particular, to advance him more money.

  It seemed that the moment Columbus set foot again on the other side of the Atlantic, his dreams began to unravel. The fleet sighted the island of Dominica at dawn on November 3, 1493, and he summoned all hands on deck for prayer.* From there, they made their way toward Hispaniola again via Guadaloupe, and made horrifying—though still controversial—discoveries there about the habits of the Caribs, rescuing a number of Taino captives and boys who were being fattened up for eating and “had the genital organ cut to the belly.” It was clear that these were not quite the peaceable, docile people he had portrayed to the sovereigns.

  On the nearby island of St. Croix, there was the first recorded fight with the natives, and the landing parties returned to the ship with rescued Tainos and captive Caribs. The admiral’s friend Michele de Cuneo personally capt
ured a beautiful Carib girl, and Columbus let him keep her as a slave in his quarters. “Having taken her into my cabin,” he related later, “she being naked according to their custom, I conceived a desire to take pleasure. I wanted to put my desire into execution but she did not want it and treated me with her finger nails in such a manner that I wished I had never begun.” De Cuneo then beat her with rope and reached some kind of economic agreement. It is hard to see what other choice she had. There are precious few descriptions by the early discoverers of the sexual side of their achievements, but—reading between the lines—it was considerably more time-consuming an activity than their memoirs would have us believe. Rape was not just a metaphor for imperialism; sometimes it was half the point of the journey.

  The fleet arrived off the southeast coast of Hispaniola on November 22 and worked its way around to La Navidad. But when, a week later, the nearby Tainos came out on canoes to welcome them, there was disturbing news. There had been war on the island. Guancangarí had been wounded by a rival chief and the new colony attacked. At dawn on November 28 they fired a salute toward La Navidad to herald their arrival. There was no answer, but another canoe came out carrying a man who turned out to be Guancanagarí’s cousin, shouting “Almirante, almirante!” After three hours of difficult conversation through a translator, he confirmed that the fort had been destroyed. Columbus refused to believe it. But when they arrived at the site the next morning, it was all too true. The fort had been burned almost to the ground, and there was no sign of the thirty-nine-member crew of the Santa Maria they had left behind. The local Tainos were hiding in case they were blamed for the disaster, and when Columbus paid a visit to the wounded Guancanagarí, together with Dr. Chanca, it was clear that there was actually no wound underneath the bandages of leaves on his leg.

  A powerful faction, led by Bernardo Boyle, within the leadership of the expedition urged Columbus to have the chief punished immediately. But the admiral remembered the invaluable support he had received from Guancanagarí in those crucial hours as the Santa Maria sank, and he was afraid to spark a native alliance against him. In any case, the truth soon became clear: A faction inside La Navidad had left the fort and roamed across the island, stealing gold and women from villages, and eventually another chief, Caonabo, had taken a terrible revenge on the whole enclave. He captured the gang and put them to death and then descended on the fort. Only ten colonists were left under Diego de Harana, plus five native women in each hut. Three were killed in the attack and the rest of the new colony were driven into the sea, where they drowned.*

  Since the lightning in Florence that marked the death of Lorenzo de’ Medici, the omens in Italy had all been bad. Three suns were reported to have been seen in the sky over Puglia. People in Arezzo claimed to have seen hundreds of ghostly horsemen in the skies. And in January 1494, the news emerged that the third of Savonarola’s doomed tyrants, king Ferrante of Naples, had died. He was worn out by his frenetic efforts to prevent war, threatened by an alliance between the Sforza in Milan and the young Charles VIII of France.

  Since Cabot had left Milan, Ludovico Sforza’s nephew Gian Galeazzo had come of age and his new wife was pressing for Ludovico to hand over the reins of power. Ludovico responded by seizing power in his own right. She appealed to her family in Naples for help. King Ferrante—linked to the Aragonese royal family—threatened to march north, and once again Ludovico made the fatal error of asking the French for help. In the months that followed, it was clear that this—and the sudden vacancy on the throne of Naples—was all the excuse Charles needed for his dream of an invasion.

  Since coming of age and abandoning the guiding hand of his sister, Charles had developed the habit of obsessive womanizing and of muttering to himself when in company. Rumors were going around the court that he had six toes, and looking at his great bulbous lips and long protruding nose, people believed it. Throughout the spring and summer of 1494, an enormous army of thirty thousand gathered in the south of France, the biggest to cross the Alps since the days of Hannibal.

  Vespucci had been right to leave Florence when he did. Lorenzo the Magnificent’s son Piero was finding himself increasingly at odds with the other side of the Medici family, and the dispute reached a head over a row with his cousin Giovanni di Pierfrancesco, brother of Vespucci’s old Popolano employer Lorenzo, when Piero publicly slapped him in the face. After agonizing about it for a while, Piero went further. He had all his Popolano cousins arrested on trumped-up charges of sending sympathetic messages to the king of France, and imprisoned them in the Medici villa at Cafaggiolo.

  II

  “The fish here are so different from ours that it is a wonder. There are some that look like John Dory, of the finest colors in the world—blue, yellow, red and every sort of color—and some are streaked with a thousand tints, and the colors are so fine that there can be no man who would not marvel at it and feel refreshed by the sight.”

  Christopher Columbus’s diary, October 1492

  On Hispaniola, there was no choice but to abandon La Navidad and head out again. The passengers and animals were still cooped up in the fetid air belowdecks and were now desperate to disembark, and Columbus made the hasty and imprudent choice of a site fifty miles eastward, which he called Isabella. The first three months of 1494 were feverishly active, laying the foundations for the new town. The first crops were planted and expeditions mounted into the interior of the island, but it was soon clear that Isabella was a bad site to have chosen: There was little freshwater and the fishing was poor. But Columbus had to offset the dreadful news about La Navidad with good news about something. So Dr. Chanca was sent home with a letter to the sovereigns, together with thirty thousand ducats of desperately collected gold, sixty parrots, twenty-six Indians, three cannibals, and large quantities of cinnamon.*

  Columbus’s objective was increasingly becoming the elusive gold. Quite apart from the need for a financial return to investors in the voyages, like Santangel and Berardi, the discovery of gold would prove that Columbus had indeed discovered the outlying islands of Cipangu and the East. Time after time, though, the Tainos or Caribs, hoping to please the new arrivals, indicated the source of gold to be elsewhere, pointing at their own rings and then far over the mountains or to another island. But very little gold was actually being found, so Columbus decided to leave his brother Diego in charge of Isabella, and sent Pedro Margarit, a Catalan noble, to set up a new fortress inland to recruit Tainos to help find gold in the riverbed. His third lieutenant, Alonso de Ojeda, was dispatched to roam the island looking for gold—and for Chief Caonabo, held responsible for the massacre at La Navidad.

  Ojeda was from an obscure family in Cuenca and had been a page in the service of Columbus’s friend the Duke of Medina Celi. He had been noticed by Isabella on a visit to Seville when he danced on a beam 250 feet above the street, and so when Medina Celi had been allowed to send a ship as part of the fleet, Ojeda had been appointed to take command. He was a small man with breathtaking good looks and a quarrelsome streak that could become extremely violent.

  On Ojeda’s second expedition inland, three Spaniards had their clothes taken by locals while they were swimming. Ojeda exploded, cutting off the ears of one of the chief’s men and sending his brother and nephew to Columbus for execution. They were reprieved, but the damage had been done. “This was the first incident,” wrote Bartholomé de Las Casas, the tireless campaigner for the dignity of the Indians in the next generation. “The first injustice, with vain and erroneous pretension of doing justice, that was committed in these Indies against the Indians, and the beginning of the shedding of the blood, which has since flowed so copiously in this island.”

  Columbus meanwhile was pushing on to find the mainland, once more sailing with three caravels, himself aboard the Niña. Approaching Cuba some weeks later, he made an impromptu speech to the crew: “Gentlemen, I wish to bring us to a place whence departed one of the three Magi who came to adore Christ, which place is called Saba.” The c
rew exchanged glances. Asking about one gold object from the local natives, Columbus believed he heard the words El Gran Can. On this flimsy evidence, he ordered his interpreter to prepare an embassy for the emperor of China, and sent him deep into the interior. Six days later, he was back. There was no gold, but a local chieftain had entertained him royally and he had been offered “certain herbs the smoke of which they inhale.” Within a century, tobacco smoking would spread across Europe.

  Navigating the reefs was exhausting work, and the truth was that Columbus was showing the strain of both leadership and his failure to live up to his hopes or his hype. He became convinced that he had seen griffins, and when one crewman thought he saw a man dressed in white on the shore, Columbus decided that this must have been Prester John himself. Once more, he exhorted his crew, urging them to go all the way around the world, and back via the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

  The admiral’s intense mental balance was approaching a crisis as the expedition followed the seemingly endless southern coast of Cuba. The reefs were particularly dangerous and at some point they would have to return to Isabella. There was no alternative: with no end in sight, this simply had to be a promontory of the mainland of China that he had been searching for. Desperate to bolster this opinion, he gathered the ship’s scribes and drew up a fearsome oath—with punishments of fines and loss of tongue—and insisted that every member of all three crews with him should swear to it. This was China, there could be no doubt.

  Only his old friend de Cuneo was allowed to dodge the oath. Crossing their fingers as they did so, the crews made the required confession of faith and Columbus set course for Hispaniola, barely acknowledged doubt gnawing away at his mind.