Columbus

by Laurence Bergreen

  Employing Indian interpreters who had miraculously survived a spell in Spain after the first voyage and then returned to their homeland, Columbus explained his plans to build another settlement, this time on Guacanagarí’s territory. The chief claimed to welcome the arrangement, “although the place was unhealthy, being very humid.” Columbus then engaged the startled chieftain in earnest conversation about Christianity. In the past, the Indian leader had been skeptical, but now he “consented to wear about his neck a silver image of the Virgin, something he had refused to do before.”

  With Guacanagarí aboard ship, wrote Peter Martyr, “there were those who advised the Admiral to keep Guacanagarí so that he could be punished if they learned that our men had been punished by his order. But, realizing this was not the time to irritate his feelings, the Admiral let him go.” It was a decision that Columbus would come to regret.

  The chieftain’s brother returned the next day bearing gold, always gold, and accompained by women from Boriquén, or Puerto Rico. If the Spaniards assumed the women were intended for them, they were proved wrong as the Indian proceeded to violate them “both in his own name and his brother’s the king,” said Peter Martyr. After this episode, the Spaniards and, very likely, the exhausted Indian fell asleep aboard ship, at which point the women jumped into the water and fled to land. The Spaniards were slow to awaken to the situation, and by the time they did, the women “had covered such a long distance that our boats were not able to recapture more than four of them . . . when they were getting out of the water.” Peter Martyr cast their dash for freedom in sympathetic terms. “Catalina, with seven other women, relying on the strength of her arms, swam about three miles in a not very calm sea: indeed, that was the distance of the fleet from the shore.” The Spanish crew gave chase in small boats, capturing only three, but not their leader Catalina, who, they believed, had successfully escaped to Guacanagarí.

  By the light of day, Columbus indignantly demanded their return, and sent a search party, which discovered that Guacanagarí himself had escaped in the company of the women with all his possessions. Columbus assigned a subordinate to lead a company of several hundred Spaniards in search of the fugitive Indian, only to wander into “some tortuous gorges, with steep hills on both sides.” They spied a substantial hut in the distance, and thinking that it might conceal Guacanagarí, they approached it. They confronted an Indian with a “wrinkled forehead and thick eyebrows, accompanied by a hundred men . . . armed with bows, arrows, painted lances and poles.” They ran toward the Spaniards “with a threatening look, shouting they were Taíno, that is, ‘noble people,’ not cannibals.” Though not above violence, the “noble people” were less belligerent, and the company of sailors, breathing a collective sigh of relief, gave a “peace signal,” whereupon the Indians “abandoned their arms and their fierceness.” The Spanish fostered the friendship by offering hawk’s bells that the Indians prized for the brass. Despite the reconciliation in the wild, the Indians had no idea of Guacanagarí’s whereabouts, and the Spaniards returned to their ships to ponder the enigmatic ways of the Indians.

  The Admiral took the fleet eastward and anchored near Monte Cristi, on the northwest coast of the Dominican Republic. Sand from tall bluffs thickly matted with vegetation gently crumbled under the combined force of wind and rain to form aprons extending into the turquoise water, revealing every fish, crustacean, and reef beneath the crystalline surface. From this vantage point, this seemed to be the most open and inviting of lands, but Columbus, concerned with the island’s impenetrable vegetation—Ferdinand wrote of “flowers and bird’s nests, some containing eggs and others fledglings, and all the other things that are proper to the summertime,” even though the calendar showed it was December—considered the location too daunting for a fort or even a temporary landfall.

  The fleet had been making very little progress against a steady trade wind. “The weather was so contrary that it was more trouble for us to sail thirty leagues up-wind than to come all the way from Castile,” Chanca complained. It took a full twenty-five days to put the distance behind them.

  At last Columbus glimpsed an Indian settlement through trees near the shore. “A suitable site for a fortress,” in Ferdinand’s words, it featured a plain, a ravine, and palisades sloping to the water’s edge. “The plain has marvelous lands surpassing anything in Castile,” Columbus boasted in a letter to his Sovereigns. “It is fully covered with tall, green grass, better than a field of barley in Spain in the best season.” He estimated that the plain, known as the Vega Real, “has space enough for 20,000 inhabitants to plant grain and vegetables and construct buildings.” There he disembarked with the entire crew, food, and equipment necessary for a settlement intended to supplant the bleak memory of the tiny outpost constructed on his first voyage. Columbus and his men “believed it to be an excellent site for a town because it had a large harbor, though open to the northwest, and a lovely river a crossbow shot in width.” It was located on a promontory of alluvial soil or silt, nestled between the lapping ocean and a gently rising mountain range, divided by a large river emptying into the bay, and marked off by lagoons.

  More relief disguised as exhilaration ensued. “The evenness of the climate seems incredible,” he exulted, “it is so sweet and mild; trees, mountains, and herbs are all in bloom and as fresh as Andalusia in April or May.” Even the wildlife cooperated with his vision: “The sparrows and other birds are so cheerful, with the nightingales always singing.” Nests were everywhere, “and hosts of ducklings are all over, and in the river one finds geese, more than anywhere else, and all the birds are very large: pigeons, herons, and ten thousand other species”—partridges, doves, and others whose names he did not know. “The parrots are countless,” and, one presumes, their screeching endless.

  The maritime prospects elated him. “Two great leagues west of the city”—which existed only in Columbus’s mind at this point—“this land forms an excellent beach, at the end of which is one of the best ports in the world, large enough to hold all existing ships.” It commanded a sweeping view of the ocean, so that any approaching ship could be seen and identified at a safe distance. The soil was rich and red; the air pregnant with pollen. Vivid flame trees cast their scarlet sprays, while underfoot, emerald vegetation seemed to glow from within. To an untrained eye, the site looked ideal for the first real Spanish settlement in the Indies, but the beauty of the place proved deceptive. The Indies proved relatively easy to discover, but much harder to settle—impossible, in fact.

  Farther inland, a lush, inviting, and tranquil plain charmed Columbus. According to the Indians, the site lay near gold mines. He noted with satisfaction a limestone quarry that with habitual overstatement he claimed was even better “than that of which the church of Santa María in Seville is built,” and a “powerful river, better than the Guadalquivir.” Columbus probably had the Ozama River in mind; the name is of Taíno origin. In reality, the waterway, less than a hundred miles long, is no match for the broad and mighty Guadalquivir, the second-longest river in all of Spain, but like the Guadalquivir, it was deep and wide enough to accommodate Spanish ships, and it emptied into the Atlantic.

  He named the town La Isabela, after the queen who conferred legitimacy on his efforts. Guillermo Coma predicted that “in surpassing all others by virtue of its strategic position and benign climate [it] will within a few years be very populated, and filled and frequented by colonists.” And with even less justification, he added, “It will compete with any of the cities of Spain when its buildings are finished and its walls are magnificently raised. They have done the houses, and are constructing the protective walls, which adorn the city and give secure refuge to its inhabitants.” He described how a “wide street” would divide the city, crisscrossed by many other streets, with a fortress rising above the beach.

  He spun out his extravagant ambitions for the tiny settlement. “The Admiral’s residence is called the royal palace, for at some future time, if God, the crea
tor and giver of countless blessings, wills it, the Sovereigns may set out from Cadiz to visit this well-favored land and behold the islands won from them so far from home.” They would sail up the Ozama to stake their claim to the new lands Columbus had discovered. Once there, they would find, among other things, “a noble church . . . bursting with the furnishings sent from Spain by Queen Isabella for the worship of God.” Although the vision of the Catholic Sovereigns worshipping in these new lands seemed far-fetched, Columbus reported that Christianity was taking hold. The Indians, he said, regarded it with devotion and respect as they knelt in contemplation. It was a beautiful fantasy, eminently suitable for export.

  In this spirit, Coma believed that La Isabela was not just another makeshift trading post or embattled fortress, but the early manifestation of a new civilization transplanted from Spain. He advanced the intoxicating but unrealistic conviction that La Isabela, and other new cities like it, would soon rival the capitals of Spain. If Coma expressed a shared sense among Columbus’s men, his words indicated a crucial shift in the voyage’s rationale: Columbus was no longer looking for ancient India. He had found the raw materials, the workers, and the setting for an entirely new and unexpected realm, something implicitly bigger and better than Spain in the sense that it was purer, and little more than three weeks’ journey (weather permitting) from the Canary Islands. Even Las Casas, so quick to condemn Columbus, acknowledged the importance of the new settlement. “When I was appointed prior of the Dominican house in La Plata harbor, I took a large stone from it [La Isabela]. And I laid it as the cornerstone of the monastery I began to build there. For the record,” he noted, “this stone stands in the east corner of the ground floor and was the first stone to be laid, right next to the main entrance and the church.” In this way, he preserved Columbus’s legacy in Hispaniola.

  The ambitious task of building a new fort consumed Columbus, who was determined to learn the lessons of La Navidad and construct a safer refuge for his men.

  Ferdinand remarked that his father became so overwhelmed that he had no time to keep a journal from December 11, 1493, until March 12 of the following year, when he fell seriously ill. “Suddenly during my sleep I was tormented on my whole right side, from the sole of my foot to my head, as if stricken by paralysis, which caused me not a little suffering,” he later reported. “Now I am better, and I have not ceased at that which I ought to concentrate on the best as I can and with contentment. Since then, both night and day, I wear no less clothing than I would in Seville.” All the while, he endured cool, dreary weather, which he likened to a “typical winter in Castile.” He appeared to have recovered his health, but his medical problems would reappear, each time with more severity.

  Raw, incomplete, and unsanitary, La Isabela was formally founded on January 6, 1494, among the most important days in the Christian calendar, the Feast of the Epiphany, that is, the revelation of God in human form, in the person of Jesus Christ. A dozen priests dedicated the settlement in a makeshift church on land. This was the first Mass held in the New World, but under the pressure of events, there was no time to reflect on this milestone.

  Two aides, Alonso de Ojeda and Ginés de Gorbalán, immediately set out from La Isabela for the mining region of the Cibao with about two dozen Spanish scouts and a handful of Indian guides. Columbus lingered at La Isabela, tending to his health.

  Storms, mudslides, and floods assailed Ojeda’s party; the men sought refuge in an Indian village, where Ojeda heard reports of quantities of gold in the hills obscured in the fog and mist. To prove their claims, the Indians displayed three ample nuggets. Ojeda became so excited by the find that he decided to report to Columbus at the first opportunity, and by January 20 he was back at La Isabela, with gold, gifts, and additional Indian servants in tow. His subordinate, Gorbalán, spent an extra day ferreting out additional stores of gold, and arrived at the fort twenty-four hours later. Columbus, his health restored, rejoiced in the find, and readied a mining expedition to the Cibao to bring back a much larger haul, much to the frustration of his men, who yearned for the comfort and safety of Spain.

  Without warning, sickness felled the men. Dr. Chanca, so diligent that he insisted on sampling each new kind of fish lest the men poison themselves, found himself treating three or four hundred fallen explorers, and he teetered on the verge of exhaustion himself. At first, Columbus faulted the climate for the outbreak, but on further consideration, he wrote, “I place greater blame on heavy womanizing, which here is very widespread, so if they are immodest and unrestrained it is not strange that they should suffer the consequences,” that is, syphilis. The disease presents in many ways, and is often self-healing, simply disappearing after a flare-up. Columbus observed of the afflicted, “Thanks be to God, they get well: four or five days and the illness runs its course.” That was not always the case; syphilis sometimes lurks in the nervous system for years until it explodes like a biological time bomb.

  Syphilis was the scourge of both continents, and scientific consensus about the pattern of transmission has fluctuated. Reflecting the conventional view of his time, Fernández de Oviedo, the self-taught naturalist, wrote, “Syphilis first appeared in Spain after Admiral Christopher Columbus discovered the Indies and returned home. Some Christians who accompanied Columbus on the voyage of discovery,” as he called the first voyage, “and some who were on the second voyage brought this plague to Spain, and from them other people were contaminated.” Spanish soldiers brought it with them to Italy during a military campaign, and “from there it spread all over Christendom and was carried by men and women who had the disease.” It was so easy to transmit syphilis, Fernández de Oviedo believed, that merely sharing plates or cups or bedsheets would accomplish the deed. “Very few Christians who associate and lie with the Indian women have escaped the malady,” he warned. “This horrible disease came from the Indies,” where it was “quite common among the natives,” but, “not so dangerous there as it is here in Europe.” The reason for the disparity, according to Fernández de Oviedo, was that Indians cured themselves of syphilis, so he believed, by gulping drafts of water in which splinters of bark or wood that had been thoroughly boiled—not from just any tree, but the fruit-bearing guayacán of Hispaniola, or more precisely, the nearby island of Beata. “Undoubtedly many are cured of syphilis by this treatment.”

  To meet the myriad difficulties facing the settlements, Columbus resolved to rotate his men; some would sail back to Spain, to be replaced with a fresh contingent of soldier-sailors ready to undertake the difficult work ahead. Those returning could boast of the giant gold nuggets waiting to be mined in the Cibao. The decision would alter the character of the voyage, splintering it yet again, and further weaken his uncertain command.

  On the second day of February, 1494, Antonio de Torres, whom Ferdinand characterized as “a man of worth and good judgment, much trusted by Catholic Sovereigns and by the Admiral,” departed from La Isabela with a large fleet—twelve ships in all—bound for Cadiz, Spain. Torres planned to provide a full report of the voyage to the authorities, and to ask for more supplies to maintain the Spanish presence in the islands discovered by Columbus. He would also have to convey the grim news about the massacre at La Navidad and the uncertain prospects for the new settlements.

  In the grand scheme of things, the promise of gold outweighed the loss of life.

  CHAPTER 6

  Rebellion

  It was an amazing sight: a fortune in gold nuggets direct from the Indies—thirty thousand ducats’ worth. Ferdinand and Isabella gazed upon an assortment of misshapen lumps endowed with magical power. To hold them, and to own them, was to feel the weight and might of riches. This glittering plunder was the most powerful of all incentives for the Sovereigns to remain supportive of Columbus and his mission. No matter where he had fallen short, he had kept this pledge.

  To bring these nuggets from the Indies, Antonio de Torres had retraced Columbus’s route, arriving in Cadiz within twenty-five days, on March 7,
1494. In addition to the gold, he brought a sampling of spices and twenty-six Indians, including three believed to be cannibals. They were considered mere curiosities. The greatest excitement was caused by the fortune in gold nuggets.

  Torres carried a lengthy, emotional letter from Columbus to the Sovereigns in which the explorer tried to make the best of the troubled situation in Hispaniola. He explained that he would have sent more gold with Torres’s fleet, “had not the majority of the people here suddenly fallen ill.” He had thought of employing the few men who remained healthy, but he dreaded the “many difficulties and dangers” they would have faced. He would have had to hike through rugged country to the mining region “23 or 24 leagues away,” all the while “fording inlets and rivers on a long journey.”