Dogs of God

by James Reston Jr

  And so this foreigner with his royal documents, his important airs, and sanctimonious friends was coming as the agent of a royal rebuke to Palos. The punishment for the town’s transgressions (which were left unspecified in the decree, though all in the audience knew what they were) was to provide two caravels (the third somehow to be commissioned by the Admiral himself), a year’s provisions, and a crew of ninety. The royal language was harsh: “We warn you that if you do not render performance as specified, we shall order the execution of the penalties against you and your property. None of you shall contravene these provisions in any way under pain of forfeiting Our favor and 10,000 maravedis to our exchequer for each infraction.”

  The mission of the voyage had been left deliberately vague in the royal decree: “a voyage with three ships to certain parts of the Ocean in order to fulfill duties at Our Service.” But in the coming days the true nature of the commission became known, and when it did, the mockery began. Palos and the larger village of Moguer upriver was full of oceanic sailors and sea captains. These veterans scoffed at this royal endeavor as vain and pointless. One claimed to have been on a Portuguese mission of the same sort—was it Dulmo’s misadventure?—that attempted to sail due west from the Azores and had found nothing.

  At the outset, the scolding tone of the royal decree alienated the townspeople of Palos, but the royal scold had a sound basis. The mariners of Palos had always been an unruly lot, and they were persistent in the practice of illicit slave trade. Their ships had encroached upon the Portuguese province of Guinea in Africa, had sacked the village of an important African king, taking slaves to be put to work in the copper and silver mines of Andalusia, thus jeopardizing relations with Portugal. In their endeavors, the outlaws avoided royal taxes and sanction. This was the basis for their punishment of providing two caravels for royal use, and the fact that the royal decree punished the whole town suggested that more than just a few men were involved. So the shores of the Río Tinto teemed not only with veteran sailors but unsavory pirates and cutthroat slavers as well, and Columbus was well advised to be cautious both in his recruiting and in his business dealings. Still, skepticism and guilt were also tinged with fear at this dangerous adventure. El mar tenebroso—the Gloomy Sea—held more than a few terrors. No one stepped forward, certainly not the owners of caravels in the area.

  In desperation, Columbus sent word of this non-cooperation to the monarchs in Guadalupe. They responded by dispatching an officer of the royal council named Juan de la Peñalosa to twist some arms. But at first he too had no success with the sour and resistant locals.

  Not everyone in Palos thought that Columbus’s venture was futile, however. As it happened, an old salt named Pedro Vasquez de la Frontera lived in the village. Forty years earlier, in 1452, he had been the pilot of a voyage west of the Azores whose mission was to search for the mythical islands of St. Brendan, the “Promised Land of the Saints,” that were supposed to exist somewhere in the vast, watery expanse. Ancient as he was, the old mariner still possessed a vivid imagination and a visceral excitement at all voyages of discovery. He told Columbus about sailing into a weedy expanse of ocean west of the Azores, and reassured the Admiral that, notwithstanding the sea monsters that usually populated the unexplored area on medieval maps, he should not fear it. This later became known as the Sargasso Sea, a huge oval of the central Atlantic clogged with floating seaweed or gulfweed that was carried by the circular currents of the ocean, beginning with the Gulf Stream. His ships would be able to sail safely through, Vasquez told Columbus.

  The break for Columbus came with his introduction to the Pinzón family. The three Pinzón brothers were the gentry of Palos. They had considerable oceanic experience and owned several ships. Indeed, they were probably implicated in the illicit slave trading for which the whole town was being punished. The eldest and most esteemed of the three was Martín Alonso Pinzón. In 1492, in his mid-forties, he cut a fine, athletic figure. He was thin and wiry, with dark, doe’s eyes and a somewhat faraway look to his visage. Along the banks of the Río Tinto, he was regarded as the most capable sea captain in the region, and he was a veteran of sea battles of the War of Succession with Portugal fifteen years earlier.

  He was also ambitious and curious. Indeed, as Columbus arrived in Palos, Martín Pinzón was returning from a voyage to Rome. The ostensible purpose for his journey to Italy was to trade sardines; but while there, through a friend who served as a cosmographer in the archives of the Roman Curia, he had perused certain maps of the world, and it is not out of the question that he may have come across the Toscanelli map that had been so important in firing Columbus’s imagination initially. But another map transfixed Pinzón: it came from a mythical voyage across the Gloomy Sea to Japan by a mariner of the biblical kingdom of Sheba. From these researches, Pinzón developed his own ambitions to be an explorer. As he came into contact with Columbus, he saw himself not so much as an equal but as a superior. His credentials as a sea captain were far better. Soon enough he would prove himself to be a treacherous rival.

  Still, Columbus had the money and the royal licence. And so, for whatever personal reasons, greed and ambition primarily, Martín Pinzón signed on to the voyage enthusiastically. As a bonus, he brought with him his two younger brothers, Vicente Yañez Pinzón and Francisco Martinez Pinzón, both fine and experienced commanders. This moral support was pivotal, for the family carried with it considerable cachet along the riverbank. With these local eminences on board, the magistrates could now enforce the royal prerogatives. First, they commandeered the Pinta. This sturdy, square-rigged caravel was impressed into duty over the strenuous objections of her owner, Cristóbal Quintero, and this reluctance was soon to emerge as a real problem. Next they found a sleek little beauty called the Niña, which had been built in Ribera de Moguer in the Río Tinto estuary. With triangular rather than square sails, she was configured along the lines of the Portuguese caravels that cruised the coast of Africa and could tack handsomely against prevailing headwinds. Vicente Pinzón became her captain, and Juan Niño, the ship’s owner, agreed to be his first mate.

  Meanwhile, the Pinzóns fanned out into the taverns and homes of Palos, Moguer, and Huelva to tap the most experienced seamen. “Friends, come away with us,” Martín Alonso Pinzón exclaimed in one town plaza. “You are living here in misery. Come with us on this voyage, and to my certain knowledge, we shall find houses roofed with gold and all of you will return prosperous and happy.” The twinkly-eyed old salt Pedro Vasquez came along as a booster, encouraging the able-bodied to sign on, for they were certain to find “a very rich land.” (Unfortunately, this spry mariner would not live to greet Columbus upon his return. In the rough-and-tumble seacoast life, he was murdered a few months later.)

  Beyond the able-bodied, there was a need for specialists: pilots, boatswains, scriveners, stewards, a barber-surgeon, a physician and an apothecary, comptrollers, constables, as well as carpenters, caulkers, coopers, blacksmiths, a silversmith to assay the gold they expected to find, and the translator, Luis de Torres, a Jew who had only recently converted to Christianity. Torres would never get to use his Hebrew and Arabic in conversation with the Great Khan of China or Arabian mariners in the Indian Ocean, but he would gain the distinction of becoming the first European to smoke tobacco.

  In Granada, the monarchs, together with Columbus, had anticipated difficulties in the raising of a crew. As a result, just in case, a royal decree had been issued to pardon any criminals who were willing to join the expedition. Their sentences would be suspended, and they would be guaranteed safe conduct throughout the duration of the voyage. Columbus was unenthusiastic about this ploy, reluctant to use his power of pardon, skeptical of inviting ruffians onto his crew. He did not broadcast the opportunity widely. Still, four fugitives came out of hiding to take advantage of this offer of amnesty. Their crime had been to spring a comrade from jail, after the jailbird had murdered the town crier of Palos. Contrary to the legend which later grew up—that the
entire crew was comprised entirely of thugs and cutthroats—there were only these four. They were scarcely desperados; they would serve well and honorably; and they would be formally pardoned by the king and queen upon their return.

  From the beginning, greed rather than Christian evangelism proved to be the prime motivator for recruitment. The fantasy of gold, pearls, and spices as far as the eye could see was played up, while the more noble impulses were discarded. Indeed, despite Columbus’s lip service to saving souls—a principal goal of his expedition was to find the Great Khans of the Orient and to determine “the manner in which their conversion to the Holy Faith might be accomplished”—there was scant talk of religion in Palos. The absence of an evangelizing prelate on the manifest was telling. It was an especially strange and glaring omission since a crew facing the unspeakable terrors and uncertainties of the Gloomy Sea would certainly be consoled by regular supplication to their maker.

  With the Niña and the Pinta in hand, and eighty crewmen including four conversos recruited, the town of Palos had fulfilled the letter of its sentence. But the plan called for three ships, and while the town was charged with the responsibility to ensure that all three ships were suitable for exploration, it was left to Columbus to find and charter the third. By a somewhat mixed fortune, a Galician trading vessel called Marigalante (Frivolous Mary) happened to be docked in Palos in May, and, having no better choices, Columbus chartered her reluctantly from her owner, Juan de la Cosa. Square-rigged, with a raised quarterdeck, and a capacity of about 100 tons, she came with a largely Basque crew of forty men. Piously, Columbus renamed her Santa María.

  Next to the Niña and Pinta, the Santa María was larger, heavier, and slower. She was to gain her prominence as the flagship of the flotilla by virtue of her size alone; but Columbus never liked her. When she came to a bad end, Columbus blamed the town of Palos for not providing a ship that “was suitable for discovery” as the crown had required them to do.

  With the addition of the Santa María, the financing of the entire voyage came into play. Columbus estimated its cost at 2 million maravedis, and yet the king and queen, using confiscated Jewish gold, had provided only 1.14 million. For a man who had been impecunious just five months earlier, this foray into high finance was daunting. From the moment he received the royal imprimatur on March 31, he went to work on raising the extra funds.

  But who had that kind of disposable cash lying around? Naturally enough, the Admiral gravitated to his native countrymen in marine commerce. In 1486 in Córdoba, as he languished on the fringes of the royal court, Columbus had met an Italian slave trader named Juanoto Berardi, with whom he had established a close and productive relationship, and from whom he now secured a loan for the lion’s share of the extra money he needed. Berardi was happy to become involved, for his involvement would go a long way to legitimizing his commercial ventures. He, in turn, put Columbus in touch with several other Italian merchants who operated out of Palos on the fringe of the law in the lucrative slave trade. Ironically, the friars at La Rábida facilitated these contacts. By the early summer, Columbus had raised the funds he needed both for the charter of the Santa María and the provisioning of his fleet.

  For his supplies, especially the food for the voyage, the Admiral was disadvantaged by the calendar. By the time he arrived in Palos, the harvest of spring wheat had taken place and had long since been distributed. The second harvest would not take place until late July. Since sea biscuit or twice-baked bread was the staple for long sea voyages, this was a problem. On this front the presence of the royal constable, Juan de la Peñalosa, was helpful, for he had the power to commandeer needed supplies, despite the resentment this caused. In estimating how much wheat he would need, Columbus had before him the example of Bartholomew Dias and his sixteen-month voyage to the Cape of Good Hope. Columbus thought his requirement would be less. He estimated six months to reach Asia, and guessed that he could not count on resupply in the islands he encountered along the way before he reached fabulous Cipangu. If the roofs were painted in gold there, its Grand Khans were certain to have bread and water.

  By late July the preparations were in full swing, and departure was set for early August, the prime season for long-distance sailing. Trouble dogged the process, however, especially in the readying of the Pinta. Her owner, Cristóbal Quintero, dragged his feet and groused and beefed, sowing dissension and undermining the captains. Worse, as the departure date approached, it was discovered that the caulking on the Pinta had been done sloppily. The whiff of deliberate sabotage was in the air. In being ordered to redo their work, a number of workers deserted the project, as did several prospective crewmen.

  As the Admiral dealt with this mischief and supervised the loading of supplies, he was also attentive to outward appearances. He commanded that the badge of the Templars, the Cross Pattee (often thought incorrectly to be the Maltese Cross), be painted large and bold and red on the sails, so that in the far distance there could be no doubt that ships of a Christian crusade were approaching. In case gentle persuasion was not sufficient, the caravels were also armed with small cannons, stone cannon balls, crossbows, and primitive muskets.

  As the day of departure arrived, a funereal gloom settled over Palos. If August 2 was the 9th day of Av in the Jewish calendar, it was the Feast of the Virgin for the Christians of Palos—a day, appropriately enough, to settle accounts and get one’s affairs in order. Dutifully, the practical man, Columbus, paid his crew four months’ wages in advance, and then withdrew with his friars to the Monastery of La Rábida to contemplate with awe the monumental odyssey ahead.

  They viewed him as a radical visionary, but had not the prophet Daniel coupled the vision with the end? “Understand, O son of man, at the time of the end shall be the vision,” and was it not written in the Gospel according to St. Matthew, “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations… and then shall the end come.” Was he that witness?

  Before dawn, on the beach, he knelt before his friends to confess his sins, receive absolution, and take the holy sacrament. At 8 a.m. with the sun well up, the three vessels slid past the bar of Saltes into the Gloomy Sea. The wind filled his topsails, and Columbus set his course for the Canary Islands.

  But the Fortunate Islands, as the Canaries were known, would not to be so auspicious after all. On the first leg of the journey, there were more bad omens, and the fear and dread of the crew deepened.

  24

  Angels of Retribution

  ROME

  In the few years before the Great Jubilee of the year 1500, the God-fearing people of Europe had a quickening sense of time’s passage. With the invention of the printing press the calendar was among the first items to receive mass distribution. Coupled with the widespread dissemination of the calendar was the invention of the coil spring in clockmaking. This made it possible to mass-produce small, lightweight clocks for the home. Between the calendar and the clock, suddenly the medieval man had a fresh and intimate awareness that time was moving quickly and inevitably toward an appointment with an epochal year.

  To the northeast in Nuremberg, Germany, a precocious young painter named Albrecht Dürer would perfectly represent the religious foreboding as the year 1500 approached, when he began to imagine scenes from the book of Revelation. His disturbing visions of the Apocalypse would replace the abstract, mythical, almost comical images of past representations by blending realism with fantasy. Best known is his woodcut etching, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. In this shocking portrayal, the agents of retribution—War, Death, Famine, and Disease—are portrayed dynamically as they gallop across the sky, vying with one another for position and trampling their victims underfoot. If his Four Horsemen is the most famous of his Apocalypse woodcuts, his portrayal of the opening of the Fifth and Sixth Seals in the book of Revelation dramatized the paranoia of the coming cataclysm. When the Sixth Seal was opened, a shower of burning stars would rain down upon a cowering humanity, as t
he sun turned black “as a sackcloth of hair,” and the moon became blood red.

  The signs of the End Times seemed everywhere, either in the glory of Revelation or the disaster of Apocalypse. In Spain, this sense was especially acute. After five hundred years, the infidel in the south had finally been conquered upon the fields of Armageddon. The Jews had been expelled. The Woman of the Apocalypse sat triumphant and resplendent upon the throne, with her magnificent Holy Warrior at her side. Christopher Columbus had been sent forth, and if he was successful, a New World, a New Jerusalem stood to be revealed.

  There was a sense that history had arrived at a pivotal turning point. The earth was on the cusp of renewal, renaissance, reformation, purification… or disaster. Good was in a death struggle with evil, faith with heresy, glory with corruption. If the right side prevailed, the rewards were manifest. To Christian optimists, prophecies were being fulfilled. The strands of the past were coming together. Could the confluence of these epic forces be a factor of random chance? Surely not. For events so earth-transforming, all to happen at the same time, only divine providence could be responsible.