Columbus and His First Voyage: A History in Documents 9781474276832, 9781474276825, 9781474276863, 9781474276856

Table of contents :
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
List of Illustrations
Introduction for Instructors
Contextual Timeline
Timeline of Columbus and His First Voyage
Chapter 1 Columbus: The Man of Myth, the Man of History
Columbus and the First Voyage
Chapter 2 The Capitulations of Santa Fe and Granada, 1492
Santa Fe Capitulations4Santa Fe, 17 April 1492ConfirmationBarcelona, 28 March 1493
Granada Capitulations promising to confer on Columbus the offices of admiral, viceroy, and governor of the islands and mainland he might discover and the title of sir, Granada, 30 April 1492
Chapter 3 Journal of the First Voyage of Christopher Columbus
Journal of the First Voyage of Christopher Columbus
Chapter 4 The Letters of Christopher Columbus Announcing His Discoveries
The Letter of Christopher Columbus to Luis de Santángel, Announcing His Discovery, 1493.11
Letter to the Sovereigns of 4 March 1493 Announcing the Discovery12
Chapter 5 Testimonies from the Columbian Lawsuits
Evidence of the Crown Attorney[List of Questions] Seville, 11 August 1515
Evidence of the Crown Attorney Lepe, 19 September 1515
Evidence of the Crown Attorney Huelva, 25 September 1515
Evidence of the Crown Attorney Santa María de la Antigua, 30 October 1515 . . .
Evidence of the Crown Attorney [List of Questions] Madrid, 28 August 1535
Evidence Begun by Juan Carrillo, Crown Attorney Santo Domingo, 26 January 1536
Glossary
Notes
Selected Bibliography and Further Reading
Index

Citation preview

Chapter Outline

Columbus and His First Voyage

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Columbus and His First Voyage A History in Documents Edited by James E. Wadsworth

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

LON DON • OX F O R D • N E W YO R K • N E W D E L H I • SY DN EY

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP UK

1385 Broadway New York NY 10018 USA

www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2016 © James E. Wadsworth, 2016 James Wadsworth has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: 978-1-4742-7683-2  PB: 978-1-4742-7682-5  ePDF: 978-1-4742-7685-6 ePub: 978-1-4742-7684-9 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Wadsworth, James E., 1968- editor. Title: Columbus and his first voyage: a history in documents/edited by James E. Wadsworth. Description: New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2015048080 (print) | LCCN 2015048343 (ebook) | ISBN 9781474276832 (hardback) | ISBN 9781474276825 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781474276856 (ePDF) | ISBN 9781474276849 (ePub) | ISBN 9781474276856 (epdf) | ISBN 9781474276849 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Columbus, Christopher–Travel–America–Sources. | America–Discovery and exploration–Spanish–Sources. | Columbus, Christopher–Travel–America. | America–Discovery and exploration–Spanish. Classification: LCC E118 .C885 2016 (print) | LCC E118 (ebook) | DDC 970.01/5092–dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015048080 Cover design:Sharon Mah Cover images: (top) The landing of Christopher Columbus in San Salvador in the Bahamas in 1493 / Getty Images. (bottom) Bartolomé de las Casas, Regionvm indicarum per Hispanos olim devastatarum accuratissima descriptio, insertis figuris æneis ad vivum fabrefactis / Bibliothèque nationale de France Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India

To my students who embark with me on a new voyage of discovery every semester.

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Contents

List of Illustrations  viii Introduction for Instructors  ix Contextual Timeline  xi Timeline of Columbus and His First Voyage  xiii

1 Columbus: The Man of Myth, the Man of History  1 2 The Capitulations of Santa Fe and Granada, 1492  25 3 Journal of the First Voyage of Christopher Columbus  35 4 The Letters of Christopher Columbus Announcing His Discoveries  79 5 Testimonies from the Columbian Lawsuits  95 Glossary  129 Notes  140 Selected Bibliography and Further Reading  147 Index  153

List of Illustrations

Figure 1.1 Statue of Liberty, New York Harbor  4 Figure 1.2 Columbus Takes Possession of the New World by Vittorio Bianchini (1797–1880)  5 Figure 1.3 Columbus Memorial at Union Station in Washington D.C., dedicated in 1912  6 Figure 1.4 Columbus Day Protest, Sunday, October 12, 2014, in Los Angeles  7 Figure 1.5 Statue of Columbus with Protest Sign, Columbus Day Protest, Sunday, October 12, 2014, in Los Angeles  8 Figure 1.6 Columbus Day Protesters, Sunday, October 12, 2014, in Los Angeles  8 Figure 1.7 Map of the World, c. 1490 by Henricus Martellus Germanus  13 Figure 1.8 Toscanelli’s Theoretical Map of the Atlantic, 1474, with the Western Hemisphere  16 Figure 1.9 The Path of Columbus’s First Voyage  19 Figure 2.1 Christopher Columbus’s Coat of Arms  27 Figure 3.1 Probable Route of Columbus’s First Voyage through the Caribbean  36 Figure 3.2 Columbus’s Flag from the First Voyage  46 Figure 3.3 Tainos at Work  57 Figure 4.1 Taino Dwellings and Hammock  86 Figure 5.1 Atlantic Coast of Andalusia  113

Introduction for Instructors

Sometimes the best history is taught when the historian gets out of the way and lets the sources inform the nature, depth, and direction of historical understanding. I am not suggesting that the special skills and insights historians bring to the table are unimportant—far from it. I would argue that they are crucial, even irreplaceable. But once we have done our jobs by providing the context and raising the questions, sometimes we just need to let the record be its own advocate for understanding. The conclusions that students of history will reach when left to their own devices can sometimes range from the disturbing to the hilarious, as all history teachers know. But they can also illuminate the past in ways that can surprise and even enlighten us. And the understanding that can blossom from that contact with the real historical record is irreplaceable and unattainable in any other way. When teaching or studying Christopher Columbus and his first voyage, it is easy to get lost in the labyrinth of competing narratives, stereotypes, and myths. Perhaps the only way to cut through this tangle of ideas and emotions is to dive into the actual sources. Documentary histories, however, have a bad habit of being so large or wide-ranging that they lose all sense of focus and so remain unread. And no person in the historical record has become more submerged in the ocean of  documents, biographies, and myths than Christopher Columbus. Consequently, this collection focuses only on the first voyage and on sources produced by Columbus himself and, as much as possible, on the testimony of those who accompanied him. I have not included the famous secondary accounts produced by his contemporaries because, ultimately, they had their information from Columbus and they do more to reveal individual agendas than to deepen our understanding of those first encounters. We have become so accustomed to the Columbus version of events that we have failed to remember that competing narratives existed and struggled for dominance even in his own lifetime. In so doing, we unconsciously oversimplify the first voyage and deny our students the privilege of understanding the nature of history and of historical memory. We also

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Introduction for Instructors

inadvertently tend to reinforce self-serving assumptions and stereotypes. Hence, this collection is not only about what happened on the voyage and who should get credit for it, which was hotly debated in Spanish courts in the sixteenth century, but also about historical memory, the idea of Columbus and how it has changed over time, source analysis, and contemporary debates about Columbus Day.1 In the documents that follow, I have included the core historical documents related to the first voyage. I have tried to include the relevant background for the documents and to provide discussion questions without constraining you or your students’ freedom to engage these historical texts. To that end, I have tried to include only those pedagogical tools that would help support an examination of the texts without getting in the way of that examination. These include maps, a glossary, a timeline, and a bibliography. Though I have tried to provide the relevant context for the first voyage and each document, you will undoubtedly have different approaches and different methods for examining Columbus and the world that produced him. I recognize this and I applaud it. My focus on the first voyage is, in part, a surrender to the constricted historical narrative presented in our schools. Whether we historians like it or not, this is the voyage that interests students the most, this is the one most frequently taught and so has to carry the burden of informing the public about Columbus, his motives, his goals, his ideas, and how all of this would later affect the native peoples of the Americas, and even the world. The first voyage is also the source of many of the myths that swirl around Columbus and so deserves more attention as we seek to correct and complicate the real historical record for our students. It must be said, however, that Columbus’s other voyages were also important, and a study of them would do much to fill out his evolving character and opinions for those who wish a more comprehensive understanding of the man. Other documentary histories already do a good job at providing a more holistic view of Columbus’s life and voyages.2 What they do not do is provide a sufficiently detailed analysis of the first voyage itself that would allow students and readers to grapple with the big questions that the voyage stimulated. Everything Columbus did afterward was tied to that voyage. It is the key to a historical understanding of this man and the earth-shattering events he set in motion. And so it is time to get out of the way. Let our students discover Columbus and his first voyage for themselves.

Contextual Timeline

1200: The Taino emerge as a distinct ethnic group in the Caribbean Islands. 1405–33: The Chinese Admiral Zheng He sails from China to Arabia, East Africa, India, and Indonesia. 1415–69: Dom Henrique, prince of Portugal and sometimes falsely called “the navigator,” actively exploits the Atlantic islands and the coast of West Africa. 1420s: Portugal discovers the Madeira Islands. 1448: The Portuguese establish their first trading post on the coast of Africa 700 kilometers south of Cape Bojador. 1453: Ottoman Turks seize Constantinople and the Hundred Years War between England and France ends without a formal treaty. 1455: Johann Gutenberg prints the “Gutenberg Bible” using metal type in a screw-type press. 1479: Spain concedes Portuguese monopoly of the West African trade in return for the Canary Islands. 1488: Bartolomeu Dias rounds the Cape of Good Hope. 1492: Columbus sails on his first journey. 1493: Columbus sails on his second journey with 1,500 male adventurers. He begins the conquest of the “New World.” 1493–94: The Pope settles a dispute between Portugal and Spain in what is called the Treaty of Tordesillas which draws a line in the ocean dividing the world between Portuguese areas of influence from Africa to India and Spanish influence over most of the Western Hemisphere. 1496: Columbus’s brother, Bartolomé Colón, founds the city of Santo Domingo on Hispañola. 1497: John Cabot lands on Newfoundland. 1498: Vasco da Gama sails to India.

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Contextual Timeline

1498: Columbus sails on his third voyage. 1500: The Portuguese captain, Pedro Álvares Cabral, lands on what will become the coast of Brazil while on his way to India. 1502: Columbus sails on his fourth and final voyage. 1506: Columbus dies in Valladolid, Spain.

Timeline of Columbus and His First Voyage

1451: Columbus born in Genoa, Italy. 1476: Columbus is shipwrecked off the coast of Portugal. 1479: Columbus marries Felipa Perestrella e Moniz. 1484: The king of Portugal rejects Columbus’s plans to sail west across the Atlantic. 1485: Columbus moves to Spain. 1487: The Spanish Crown also rejects Columbus’s proposal. 1488: The Portuguese reject Columbus’s proposal a second time. 1492 April 17: Isabel and Fernando grant Columbus the Capitulations of Santa Fe. April 30: Isabel and Fernando grant Columbus the Capitulations of Granada. May 23: The court order to supply Columbus with two ships is read to the townspeople of Palos. August 3: Three ships, the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María set sail from Palos, Spain, with Columbus, the Pinzón brothers, and their ninety or so crew members. August 6–7: The rudder of the Pinta becomes unshipped and has to be repaired. September 2: The expedition reaches Gomera Island in the Canaries. September 6: The expedition leaves Gomera to sail across the Atlantic. September 16: The expedition reaches the edge of the Sargasso Sea. September 18: Martín Alonso chases some birds flying westward in hopes of sighting land. September 25: First false sighting of land.

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Timeline of Columbus and His First Voyage

October 7: The second false sighting of land. October 11: Land sighted by Rodrigo de Triana. October 12: Columbus and his men strike land at the Island of Guanahaní in the Bahamas and name it San Salvador. They kidnap some natives to serve as guides. October 15: Columbus and his men land at the island, which Columbus names Santa María de la Concepción. October 15: Columbus encounters a native from San Salvador who is carrying as trade goods some beads and other items the Spanish have given as gifts while on the island of San Salvador. October 16: Columbus and his men land at the island, which Columbus names Fernandina. October 19: Columbus and his men land at the island called Saomete, which he names Isabella. October 28: Columbus and his men land at the island of Cuba, which he names Juana. November 2: Columbus sends two men and two Indians into the interior of Cuba in search of the “king” of that land. November 4: Columbus first reports the existence of monstrous races in the area. November 5–11: Columbus orders that the ships be careened for cleaning and repair. November 6: The two men sent in search of the “king” return and report that they have found no evidence of cities. November 6: Columbus first sees the natives smoking tobacco. November 11–12: Columbus kidnaps five youths who have come onboard his ships and then sends his men to Cuba to kidnap seven women and children so the native men he has already taken will behave better while in Spain. The night of the twelfth, the husband of one of the women and the father of the three children comes to the ships and begs to be allowed to go with his family. November 21: Martín Alonso Pinzón breaks company with Columbus, and Columbus accuses him of doing it out of avarice. November 22: Martín Alonso continues on to the island of Babeque, apparently in search of gold.

Timeline of Columbus and His First Voyage

November 25: Columbus obtains a new mast and yard for the mizzen of the Niña from the large pines found growing on the island of Cuba. November 28 to December 3: Columbus does not sail due to foul weather, but he does explore the island and discovers a large village with whom he trades. December 5: Columbus arrives on Española (Hispañola). December 17: Columbus begins trading for gold with the people of Española. December 24–25: The Santa María is shipwrecked and the natives rescue the crew and the cargo using large canoes. December 26: Columbus demonstrates the power of his weaponry for the local “king” in order to instill fear and respect because Columbus has determined to establish a small settlement there. December 30: Columbus receives word that the Pinta has been sighted on the coast of Española. He sends a canoe with one of his sailors to search for it. 1493 January 2: Columbus puts on another military display to convince the “king” to fear the men he is leaving behind in the settlement he now calls La Navidad. January 4: Columbus sails away from La Navidad where he leaves thirty-nine men and a fortress built from the lumber of the Santa María. January 6: Martín Alonso and the Pinta rejoin Columbus and the Niña. Martín Alonso reports that he has traded for large quantities of gold. January 13: Seven of Columbus’s men fight a short battle with about fifty natives on Española. January 16: Columbus begins the return journey across the Atlantic. February 12–15: The ships encounter bad weather. February 14: Columbus writes a letter to the king and queen of Spain, seals it in a barrel, and throws it into the sea. February 15: Columbus writes letters to his friends Luis de Santángel and Rafael Sánchez, though this date has been disputed. February 18: Columbus arrives at the Azores.

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Timeline of Columbus and His First Voyage

February 19: The people of the Azores capture and imprison the members of Columbus’s crew whom he has sent to pray at a nearby monastery. February 22: The Portuguese release his crew. March 4: Columbus and his crew sail into port at Restelo, Portugal, and Columbus writes letters to the king of Portugal and the king and queen of Spain. March 9–11: Columbus visits with the king of Portugal. March 13: Columbus sails from Lisbon, Portugal, for Palos, Spain. March 15: Columbus and the Niña arrive at Palos, Spain, and Martín Alonso Pinzón sails into the harbor later that day on the Pinta. March: Martín Alonso Pinzón dies at the monastery of La Rábida some days after returning to Spain.

1 Columbus: The Man of Myth, the Man of History As a student of history and of Christopher Columbus, you may have found yourself swamped in the mire of competing opinions and viscerally emotional debates—many of which remain uninformed by authentic historical documentation. Perhaps this is truest for Columbus’s first voyage that long ago left the oceans of history to sail in the ethereal realms of myth. Everyone knows what happened. Of course they do. Or do they? At some point in your education you have most likely met the heroified Christopher Columbus. He is often portrayed as the restless genius who thought great thoughts and did great deeds almost single-handedly and was subsequently unjustly treated and died as a pauper. You have almost certainly heard of the flat earth theory in which Columbus conceived of a spherical earth that could be circumnavigated while the rest of the world believed it was flat. You have also probably heard of the restless crew who could only be pacified by Columbus’s charismatic leadership. You may even have heard that Queen Isabel was so infatuated with Columbus’s towering intellect and manly courage that she pawned the crown jewels to fund the voyage. And you may also have encountered the idea that the native peoples of what we now call the Americas were so overwhelmed by the majesty of Columbus and his ships that they accepted him as a god come from heaven and submitted to his superior intellect, technology, culture, and religion. Since the 1970s, and more intensely, during the 1992 quincentennial celebrations of Columbus’s first voyage, cracks and holes have been punched, sometimes ruthlessly, in these myths. They no longer shine so brightly— tarnished now by the memory of the horrific and earth-transforming events that voyage set in motion.1 Whatever you might think of Columbus, it

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cannot be denied that that first voyage left the world irrevocably changed. We simply cannot understand the modern world in all its complexity without an accurate understanding of that event. This is not to say that your parents and teachers should celebrate Columbus by making you sing songs to his honor and to lie to you about what he actually did. It means that all of us have a moral obligation to the past, the present, and the future to tell the truth. Perhaps the best way to do this is to let the people who sailed on that voyage tell their versions of what happened. No matter how contradictory and contentious, they are the only voices we have. The voices of the indigenous peoples who first met the strangers on their beaches might have given us a very different account of the men who tread so confidently over their lands, their cultures, and even their bodies. But those voices now lie silent in the soil that devoured their corpses. It may come as a surprise to many that for five hundred years (until 1996) with the publication of the testimonies from the trials that came in the wake of Columbus’s voyages, the general public has had only one perspective, one source for what occurred on that voyage—Columbus. His letter to his friend, Luis de Santángel, was widely published within a few months of his return. His logs or journals were abstracted by Bartolomé de las Casas and present the only detailed account of the voyage we have. Columbus’s son Fernando published a glowing biography of Columbus, and contemporary historians, like Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés and Las Casas, published narratives of the first voyage. But all of these sources acquired their information, either directly or indirectly, from Columbus.2 Until 1989, when the Columbus letter to the sovereigns was found and published, the only primary sources publicly available were Columbus’s letter to Luis Santángel and the Las Casas transcription or summary of Columbus’s journals. We now possess three accounts by Columbus, and they do not always agree with each other. By one of the accidents of fate that often confound the future, Martín Alonso Pinzón, the man responsible for recruiting Columbus’s crew, the experienced sailor and pirate, and the captain of the Pinta, died before his version of what occurred on that voyage could be proclaimed to the world. He was on his way to the Royal Court when he perished from an illness some say he acquired on the island of Hispañola. And so, his voice has remained muted for over five hundred years. But he did speak before he died and so did the men who accompanied him. The story they told differs in significant ways from the narrative Columbus penned.

Columbus: The Man of Myth, the Man of History

Scholars have used the vast array of letters and trial records that still exist in Spanish archives to examine Columbus and his voyages. But scholarship rarely penetrates the fortress of textbook publishing houses, and so the English-speaking public has remained ignorant of what those competing voices said.3 This ignorance, combined with a healthy dose of wishful thinking, political motivation, and nationalistic banner waving, has contributed to the construction of multipurpose Columbian myths. Indeed, these myths have proven so pervasive and enduring that it can be said that Columbus stepped out of history and into myth in the late eighteenth century, and he has never gone back. He has become a durable and versatile symbol employed in the construction of national identities.4 In the United States, this mythical construction began as the North American British colonists sought a non-British icon around which to construct a new non-British identity following the Seven Years’ War (1754–63).5 Columbus was first transformed into a Hellenized, feminine deity called Columbia, whose most iconic representation stands in New York harbor holding aloft a lighted torch (see Figure 1.1). Then in the early nineteenth century, as the fledgling United States embarked on the conquest and dispossession of the indigenous inhabitants, Columbus was remade again into the romantic conquering hero (see Figure 1.2). This version of the Columbian myth was most successfully promoted by Washington Irving in his 1828 biography, The History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus.6 Not only were Americans already primed to believe in the romantic, conquering hero, but they had already reimagined and retooled Columbus to suit their own imperialistic designs on the lands of the Native Americans.7 Some myths have proven so useful and so self-serving that they are not easily discarded. And so most Americans remain at the mercy of the romanticized, conquering hero image that effectively dehumanized a much more complex and interesting man. Indeed, the heroic image of the man who bestrode the great Atlantic has cast such a long and impenetrable shadow that it is almost as if he sailed alone, unaided, and unaccompanied. However, the reinvention of Columbus has not ended. For Catholic and Italian Americans, Columbus has become a kind of American ethnic saint. They used Columbus’s Catholicism and Italian ancestry to reveal the hypocrisy of an American society that revered the famous admiral, while persecuting the people who shared both his ethnicity and his religion.8 After the Civil War, when a divided nation needed something to celebrate, the myth of Columbus as the civic saint emerged. This myth lives with us

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Figure 1.1  Statue of Liberty, New York Harbor. Source:  H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock Note:  This most iconic representation of Columbia brought together the iconographic representations of America as a Grecian goddess that first surfaced in the late eighteenth century.

still in our ongoing celebrations of Columbus Day. After a century of informal Columbus Day celebrations, Colorado became the first state to observe an official Columbus Day holiday in 1905. In 1937, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt confirmed Columbus Day as a federal holiday. Children are now forced to sing silly songs and play dress up. Parades are held, sermons given, masses said, and statuary erected. But all is not well with these self-serving reimaginings of Columbus. Many voices have been raised in protest, including, though certainly not limited to, the descendants of the native inhabitants of the Americas who weathered the storm of the European onslaught that began in the fall of 1492 (see Figures 1.3–1.6). They have protested Columbus Day celebrations around the country and pointed to his brutal quest for wealth in the Indies

Columbus: The Man of Myth, the Man of History

Figure 1.2 Columbus Takes Possession of the New World by Vittorio ­Bianchini (1797–1880). Source:  SuperStock Note:  The admiral stands with arms outstretched toward heaven giving thanks to God. A huge cross has been erected as a sign of divine sanction. The standard of Castile-León and the green Maltese cross Columbus carried as the emblem of the fleet flutter in the background. A native bows before Columbus in apparent awe and reverence.

as the beginning of what became a holocaust for indigenous peoples—one that would last for five hundred years.9 A movement has emerged in recent decades to rechristen Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Some states have already abandoned Columbus Day, such as South Dakota (for Native American Day), Oregon, Alaska, and Hawaii (for Discoverers Day), as have some cities, such as Berkeley in 1992 and Minneapolis and Seattle in 2014. Some Italian Americans perceive these changes as attacks on their own heritage. Some Catholics likewise feel slighted as Columbus has come to be an important part of their cultural and religious traditions through groups like the fraternal order of the Knights of Columbus.

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Figure 1.3 Columbus Memorial at Union Station in Washington D.C., ­dedicated in 1912. Source:  Juan Camilo Bernal, Photographer Note:  Columbus stands majestically in the prow of a ship flanked by an old man to his left, representing the Old World, and a Native American on his right, representing the New World. A globe is poised overhead surrounded by imperial eagles suggesting Columbus’s role in the creation of imperial Spain and as the symbol of United States’ imperial ambitions. On the prow flies the angelic maiden of discovery leading the way. Her purity and piety suggest the virtue of Columbus’s cause as he goes forth under divine sanction.

Often their concerns focus on a sense of being excluded in favor of a different ethnic group. Given the history of persecution Italian Americans and Catholics suffered in nineteenth-century and early-twentieth-century America and their role in promoting Columbus Day celebrations, this perspective should not surprise us.

Columbus: The Man of Myth, the Man of History

Ultimately, this debate is about historical memory and the selective appropriation of the past, as we have already seen with the construction of the Columbian myths. Resistance to Columbus Day often coincides with the belief that Columbus was guilty of genocide against the Taino inhabitants of Hispañola. Genocides are usually considered one-sided, systematic, and intentional attempts to destroy entire ethnic, cultural, or religious groups.10 Some like to compare Columbus’s activities on Hispañola to the Nazi genocide of the 1930s and 1940s.11 These comparisons are without historical merit. They are rhetorical strategies meant to enflame feelings and shame opponents, rather than useful historical analyses. They also equate mass murder, death by contagion, kidnapping, enslavement, and warfare with genocide, which is a historical and morally indefensible position. In so doing, these comparisons so confuse the term genocide that it no longer has any real meaning. It is certainly true that Columbus returned to Hispañola on his second voyage in 1493 with what might be called an invasion force of seventeen ships: 1,500 men (no women) and the full range of European plants and livestock. It is also true that his single-minded determination to derive profit from the island led him to increasingly brutal and rapacious tactics. He did nothing to constrain the excesses of his men who maimed, murdered, and raped with little restraint.12 He imposed a gold tax on the Taino and then authorized the grotesquely deforming punishments of cutting off of ears and noses for minor offenses. He also led a pacification campaign against the beleaguered inhabitants of Hispañola. Columbus sent indigenous people in ever-increasing numbers back to Spain as slaves.13 He gave Taino lands and,

Figure 1.4  Columbus Day Protest, Sunday, October 12, 2014, in Los Angeles. Source:  Bob Berg

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Figure 1.5  Statue of Columbus with Protest Sign, Columbus Day Protest, Sunday, October 12, 2014, in Los Angeles. Source:  Bob Berg

Figure 1.6  Columbus Day Protesters, Sunday, October 12, 2014, in Los ­Angeles. Source:  Bob Berg

Columbus: The Man of Myth, the Man of History

eventually, entire Taino villages to Spaniards for their own use.14 In short, he set in motion many of the most negative and appalling practices the Spanish would adopt in the Americas. Within sixty-five years, the Taino of Hispañola, Cuba, and Puerto Rico had virtually disappeared. All this looks very much like genocide, but only if we forget the importance of intentionality. What is fundamentally different here from Nazi industrial slaughter is that Columbus never set out to destroy the population. Exploit it ruthlessly? Yes. Destroy it? No. Spaniards and other Europeans could be sadistic, callous, and wasteful of human life as they sought to acquire indigenous land, resources, and labor, but for men determined to live as lords upon the land, destruction of the indigenous population did not serve their interests. The Spanish Crown tried, sometimes feebly, to protect indigenous lives precisely so that they could be used as laborers. They, like Columbus, understood that the real wealth of the Indies was the indigenous population who could work the land, mine the silver and gold, herd the cattle, fight in their wars, and serve in their houses. It is often forgotten by Columbus bashers that Columbus did not invent this type of exploitation. He merely copied what had already been done in the Canary Islands by the Spanish and in Africa by the Portuguese.15 Columbus made explicit comparisons between his activities and that of other Spanish and Portuguese adventurers. In a 1496 letter to Fernando and Isabel, he argued that “one Indian is worth three negroes” and concluded with chilling casualness, “Although they die now, they will not always die. The Negroes and the Canary Islanders died at first.”16 It should be said that the native Canary Island population also collapsed in the face of warfare, disease, and enslavement. The survivors were absorbed by the Spanish colonists, though some people still claim direct native descent. Columbus’s enslavement of the indigenous population, however brutal, was also in keeping with contemporary practices in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic where the slave trade was rapidly becoming one of the most profitable forms of trade. To use the Taino of Hispañola as slave laborers would have occurred to virtually any European who first encountered them. Likewise, he can hardly be held accountable for the unanticipated and unintentional introduction of diseases that killed the vast majority of the indigenous population, nor for the brutal campaigns of other Europeans who followed him across the Atlantic over the next five hundred years. No post-contact state in Europe or America ever sought to eliminate indigenous peoples in the Americas wholesale. They did seek to conquer and dominate, which is always a bloody affair, and by the nineteenth century, many people of European descent adopted the reprehensible notion that the

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only good Indian was a dead Indian. Still, some indigenous groups did suffer true genocidal campaigns, such as the Pequot of Connecticut in the 1630s, the Natchez of Mississippi in 1731, the Foxes in Wisconsin in the 1730s, and possibly various indigenous groups in California post-1849. So attempted genocides did occur during the European invasion of indigenous lands and they must not be forgotten. But to paint the entire European encounter with the same broad brush is just as historically inaccurate and morally irresponsible as the heroified Columbus myths that have so dominated popular beliefs about Columbus. Ironically, both these mythical constructs—the heroified and the demonic Columbus—draw on different historical sources. In many ways, the romantic conquering hero myth to which we are most accustomed is based on the adventurous narratives of the first voyage where Columbus comes off as a benign observer of new and wonderful lands and people. The Columbus of the holocaust, however, is based on his subsequent voyages where the gloves came off, and he set to the business of reaping a profit from native bodies and lands. Still, we must guard against falling into the trap of supplanting old myths with new ones. Columbus was no saint, but he also was not the destroying angel of the apocalypse bent on the genocide of the indigenous peoples of the entire Western Hemisphere. The subsequent history of European expansion into the Western Hemisphere leaves no reason to expect that any other European “discoverer” would have behaved much differently. Should we excuse Columbus’s excesses then? Of course not. His own contemporaries condemned him and the practices he unleashed on Hispañola—though they mostly challenged the legality of slavery rather than the morality of it.17 Should we hold him up as the symbol of the wanton destruction of indigenous societies? Well, since we have made him into a multipurpose national icon, we should not be surprised when that icon is bent to new purposes and turned against the ideologies that created it. In the end, and despite our own personal feelings about Columbus, what we should strive for is honesty and faithfulness to the historical records we possess. Sometimes honesty and faithfulness lead us to uncomfortable conclusions.

Columbus and the First Voyage Europe was a peninsula on the move in the late fifteenth century. The great culling of the Black Death in the fourteenth century had ironically

Columbus: The Man of Myth, the Man of History

stimulated considerable energy. Initially, however, the consequences were devastating. The mortality rates varied from region to region. Some lost a third of their population, and others may have lost as much as 90 percent. The population of Eurasia did not recover completely until the seventeenth century. The pandemic disrupted global trade and contributed to political and social revolutions. The Juan Dynasty of China collapsed in 1368. In much of Europe, lordly control over peasants weakened, and peasants revolted or experienced increased freedom as rent-paying tenants. The massive population loss created new opportunities for social promotion. The standard of living rose for many, creating new tastes and appetites for exotic goods. New forms of agriculture and improved technologies made European lands more productive. New bookkeeping, banking, and credit methods made money more available for commercial use and international trade expanded. The Mediterranean seethed with shipping and, eventually, with Christian and Muslim pirates. The Ottoman Turks swept into Constantinople in 1453, and later North Africa, setting the stage for violent religious conflicts that would leave Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean awash in blood for centuries. The pope ruled Christianity from Rome. Literacy and print culture expanded. The monarchies of England, France, Spain, and Portugal sought new mercantile opportunities. Venice and Genoa dominated the Mediterranean trade with Muslim traders who brought in the exotic goods of the East where Arab traders dominated the Indian Ocean trade. Africa loomed large as the mysterious land of gold and slaves and the potential target for crusading expansion.18 Christopher Columbus, the weaver’s son from Genoa, was born in 1451. He emerged from the Genoese commercial and banking networks that crisscrossed the Mediterranean. Columbus enjoyed a rudimentary education before going to work on Genoese ships where he learned to sail, developed his commercial sensibilities, and inserted himself into the merchant communities that thrived in Spain and Portugal. A shipwreck in 1476 left him in Portugal, where he married Felipa Moniz Perestrelo, the daughter of a noble family with connections at court, and where he absorbed the vibrant culture of exploration. The Genoese, Catalans, and Majorcans had been key to the exploration of the Atlantic in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. But the baton soon passed to Castile and Portugal, who competed over the conquest and colonization of the Canary Islands. Castile eventually succeeded in claiming the Canaries, while Portugal seized the Madeira Islands, the Azores, and the

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Cape Verde Islands. Even while Columbus stopped in the Canaries on his way across the Atlantic, the conquest and colonization of those islands was still ongoing. Columbus had the Guanche people of the Canaries very much in mind as he gazed for the first time upon the inhabitants of what became the Americas. These four island chains proved crucial in training Iberian sailors in how to navigate the Atlantic wind and ocean currents. They were also vital because they sat astride the Atlantic trade winds. The Canaries, the Madeiras, and the Cape Verde Islands all lay on the outward journey for any vessel sailing down the African Coast. The Azores lay in the path of the homeward journey as sailors soon learned it was far easier to swing wide into the Atlantic and so catch the eastward trade winds rather than to battle the winds rushing south along the African Coast. These islands then became weigh stations where sailors could restock vital water and food supplies and enjoy safe harbors to rest and repair their ships.19 This Iberian maritime expansion was driven more by geopolitics and the desire for personal profit and aggrandizement of men like the famous Dom Henrique of Portugal than by a desire to gain access to spices. In fact, Asian spices were not in short supply in Europe. Pepper from the Malabar Coast of India, cinnamon from Ceylon (modern-day Sri Lanka), clove from the Moluccas in Indonesia, ginger from southern China, and nutmeg from the Banda Islands in Indonesia all filtered into Europe through the traditional Red Sea route. Muslim ships and merchants brought spices and other exotic goods into the Mediterranean. Not until the 1470s did a quest for Asian spices emerge as a motive, and then it was not driven by scarcity so much as by the promise of quick and substantial profits if such a trade could be secured. Still, permanently poor and food-deficient regions like Portugal had good reasons to seek profit elsewhere. North Africa, with its Muslim population, vibrant gold trade, and waving fields of grain proved enticing. Not only could profit be had, but it could be done under the guise of pursuing the crusade against the infidels. Of course, access to new lands and sources of wealth could always be turned to one’s advantage in the contentious political environment of early modern Europe. This constant search for profit led the Portuguese to push out into the Atlantic, probing for new islands, and south down the African coast in search of new resources to exploit. These expeditions bore fruit. By the 1480s, the Madeiras were producing large quantities of sugar. The Portuguese fort of São Jorge da Mina in Africa pulled the gold wealth of Africa to Portuguese investors. The Canary Islands also began to produce profits in sugar for Spanish investors. In short, there was money to be made in exploiting

Columbus: The Man of Myth, the Man of History

Figure 1.7  Map of the World, c. 1490 by Henricus Martellus Germanus. Source:  Heritage Images Note:  This map represents the state of European geographic knowledge about the time of Columbus’s first voyage. Africa is beginning to take shape, but Asia remains problematic.

Atlantic islands and the African coast, and a lot of it.20 Then, in 1488, the Portuguese mariner, Bartolomeu Dias, rounded the southern tip of Africa opening the possibility for the first time in European history of direct waterborne trade with the wealthy commercial centers of India. This exploration and expansion was possible only because a maritime technological revolution had been occurring. Astrolabes, of Arabic origin, allowed navigators to determine latitude by calculating the height of the sun or the North Star above the horizon. Tables and charts with compass bearings and latitude calculations enable sailors to risk sailing beyond the sight of land. But more important than these navigational technologies, whose use and importance has often been overstated, were the vehicles that allowed sailing for months at a time on the open seas. New ship designs with stern-post rudders and edge-to-edge planking nailed to a “skeleton of ribs” permitted smaller more maneuverable ships called “caravels.”21 The smaller caravels often utilized two sails, sometimes one square and one triangular, and sometimes both triangular, and could haul fifty to seventy tons of cargo.

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The increasing use of square and triangular sails on the same vessel permitted ships to harness tail winds efficiently while still being able to sail close to the wind. This allowed ships to tack against headwinds and to navigate the shallow waters and variable winds of bays and inlets close to shore. The larger version of the caravels was the nao, which was “full rigged,” meaning it had two square sails and one triangular sail, and it could carry ninety to two hundred tons. Both of these designs permitted large cargoes for long voyages while still being able to withstand the punishment of open sea sailing and the rigors of coastal navigation. Two of the ships that sailed with Columbus, the Pinta and the Niña, were caravels, while the Santa María was a larger nao.22 Columbus absorbed this exploratory fervor and developed a plan by which he could claim a piece of the action and catapult himself into the lower nobility. Despite the religious undertones that appear in Columbus’s accounts, he clearly perceived his grand expedition as a profit-making enterprise by which he would elevate himself socially and economically. But where exactly did he plan to go? Quite simply, he wanted to sail west to get to the east, or what the Europeans at the time called the Indies. Columbus used the terms “parts of India” and “regions of India” but never India itself. The plural Indies referred to all of what we would call Asia and even parts of Africa. It extended from Ethiopia to Japan and Mongolia to Indonesia. This was a big target, to be sure. Europeans, however, knew little of this region, and what they did know was fanciful and dated. The popular accounts of Marco Polo and John Mandeville were inaccurate and out of date (two hundred and one hundred years old, respectively) by the time Columbus read them.23 The Great Khan of China, to which Columbus frequently referred in his journal, disappeared in the upheaval of 1368, which overthrew the Mongol state in China. Since it was well known in Europe that the Mongols no longer ruled China, it is hard to explain Columbus’s continued references to the Great Khan. Still, the limitations of European knowledge are reflected in the contract Isabel and Fernando granted Columbus at Santa Fe in 1492, which only mentioned islands and mainlands. In his journals, Columbus made it equally clear that he believed he would encounter islands that were near Japan, what he called Cipangu, and off the coast of China, what he called Cathay. So he was not at all surprised to find islands because that is precisely what he had come looking for. What confused him was that he could not identify any large regional power with vibrant and extensive trade in luxury commodities such as gold and spices.

Columbus: The Man of Myth, the Man of History

Still, by the early 1480s, Columbus had devised a plan to sail west to the islands that lie on the extreme eastern boarders of China. His project rested on three assumptions. First, the Portuguese had already discovered many islands in the Atlantic, and it was perfectly logical to expect that others could be found. Second, he believed that the distance between the east-west extensions of the Eurasian land mass was very small. He was not alone in this misconception. The Italian cosmographer, Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli, created a theoretical map of the Atlantic in 1474 that portrayed the Atlantic as populated with numerous islands and placed the Asian mainland very near the Western Hemisphere (see Figure 1.8). Columbus may have seen a version of this map and been influenced by it. Third, Columbus believed that the circumference of the globe was only about 18,000 miles. The actual circumference is 24,901 miles. By shrinking the size of the earth and magnifying the size of the Eurasian land mass, Columbus believed that the distance between the Canaries and Japan was only 2,400 nautical miles. The real distance is 10,600 nautical miles. Had Columbus not bumped into the fabled islands to the west, he would have disappeared into the waters of history like so many had before him. Columbus presented this plan to the Portuguese king, Dom João II (1481–95), in the early 1480s, who submitted it to a committee for consultation. The sticking point in the discussions seems to have been disagreement about the size of the earth. Columbus insisted that it was much smaller than the Portuguese experience had shown it to be. The Portuguese had also been probing the Atlantic west of the Azores for a long time. At least eight known expeditions were sent between 1452 and 1487.24 In addition, the goal for the Portuguese was never China, but India, with its rich markets and the possibility of military alliances with Christian kings against the Muslims. Columbus’s search for royal support proved difficult. The Portuguese had rejected him in the 1480s. In 1487, the Spanish also rejected him. So he sent his brother, Bartolomé, to England and France seeking support. In 1488, he went back to Portugal only to be rejected again when the news of Bartolomeu Dias’s successful voyage seemed to prove a more viable route to India existed for the Portuguese to exploit. After his first rejection in Portugal, Columbus turned to Spain. When he moved to Spain in 1485, he found a kingdom in the process of political consolidation and geographic expansion. Isabel and Fernando had been married in 1469, uniting the Crowns of Aragon and Castile into a single monarchy. Isabel had to put down a civil war in Castile and consolidate power into her hands. To do so, she sought a political unity based on religious

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IRELAND BRAZIL

CAMBALUC QUINSAY

Ocean of East India

CATHAY OR CHINA

M

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e at

er

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an

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EQUATOR

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GREAT JAVA UR

AM

T T LE

TROPIC OF CAPRICORN CANDYN

JAVA

SIERRA LEONE

ST. BRENDAN’S ISLE 90

ANGUANA

Figure 1.8  Toscanelli’s Theoretical Map of the Atlantic, 1474, with the Western Hemisphere.

EA

Gr

ia In d

CANARIES

IN

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ANTILLIA TROPIC OF CANCER

MADEIRA

GU

A

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CIPAN GU OR JAPAN

CH

LISBON AZORES

30

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Columbus: The Man of Myth, the Man of History

and cultural unity. Thus, she actively persecuted Jewish and Muslims minorities and pursued the last war of the Reconquista, or the reconquest of Spain from Muslim hands. In 1482, she began the ten-year campaign against the last Muslim kingdom of Granada. In 1492, she completed that conquest, expelled the Jews, and then sent Columbus on an exploratory commercial voyage into the Atlantic. Columbus’s luck had finally changed in 1492 because the conquest of Granada removed the Muslim middlemen to the Asian trade in Iberia. Isabel and Fernando still had to contend with the Italian middlemen, and Columbus offered the possibility, however farfetched, of developing Spanish commerce directly with Asia. Conscious of the Portuguese success in 1488, and anxious to prevent a Portuguese monopoly on the India trade, they decided to send Columbus on his voyage despite the misgivings of their advisers. Palos became the embarkation point for Columbus’s voyage due to a combination of historical accidents. Fisherman from Palos had created an international incident with Portugal by fishing in Portuguese waters south of Cape Bojador in 1491. As punishment, Isabel and Fernando ordered the town to pay for two ships and their crews with two months’ provisions. They then allowed Columbus to use these ships for his expedition. Other Spanish ports could not be used because they were bulging with Jewish refugees who had chosen to retain their faith rather than to remain in Spain. Columbus also had connections in the area, which he hoped to exploit.25 With the Crown’s help, Columbus chartered two caravels, the Niña and the Pinta, on Palos’s account, and he chartered the nao, the Santa María, on his own account. Acquiring the ships was one thing, but convincing experienced sailors to throw in their lot with a foreigner of no reputation on a long and dangerous voyage proved more difficult. Once the experienced sea captain, Martín Alonso Pinzón, agreed to go with Columbus and convinced his brother, Vicente Yañez Pinzón, to join them, the two of them managed to raise a crew. Despite persistent myths to the contrary, only three of the eighty-five crew members came from the public jail. Still, it took all of Martín Alonso’s considerable reputation to convince sailors to join the expedition. Their hesitation had nothing to do with the fear of falling off the edge of the earth. Rather, many did not believe any new land could be found since the Portuguese had failed to find anything in all of their expeditions west of the Azores.26 The ships finally sailed from Palos on August 3, 1492, on a southward route to the Canaries. Neither Columbus nor his contemporaries saw this

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voyage as unique or unprecedented. It was, as we have seen, part of an ongoing extension of European trading networks. Columbus’s genius or his madness, depending on your perspective, was to sail west from the Canaries with a tailwind. This ensured that he would have no difficulty in finding winds to push him west. It did, however, create a very dangerous situation should the voyage not reach land because, at some point, he would have to turn around and sail back into the wind. Even with the triangular sails, sailing against the wind was difficult and time consuming. And it always took longer to cover the same distance. No explorer who valued his skin would do such a thing. The Polynesian explorers of the Pacific always sailed into the wind so that they could be assured a safe return. Even the Portuguese had preferred to sail west from the Azores into the wind. Columbus ignored the practicality of this approach and sailed into the wind anyway. This was the source of the tension among his crew, not some nonsensical belief in a flat earth. Columbus noted in his journal that the men were glad when they encountered a contrary wind that forced them to tack because they had been concerned that “in these seas no wind ever blew in the direction of Spain.” Simply put, they did not want to die of starvation or thirst while fighting a headwind on the homeward journey. There is no evidence of the mutiny so often reported in Columbus’s own accounts.27 Grumbling? Yes. Worry? Yes. Mutiny. No. Despite their fears, however, they survived and completed one of the most significant voyages in the history of the world. But what did they find?28 They found a tropical island world that stretched from what is now South America in a great arching Y shape almost to the tip of what are now Florida in the north and the Yucatan Peninsula in the west. This was a variegated landscape of flat and mountainous islands, estuaries, reefs, swamps, and forests. The towering forests yielded edible fruits and vegetables and roots. The waters produced abundant fish, shellfish, manatees, turtles, and waterfowl. Despite the simplistic impressions left by Columbus, the native Taino peoples, who were the most populous group in the Caribbean at the time, had developed complex societies with rich cultural and spiritual traditions, social hierarchies, and economies. They created music and poetry and crafted delicate artifacts with great skill. They lived in sedentary villages clustered around a central plaza and governed by chiefs who often belonged to larger confederacies. Their societies had only two classes distinguished by their dress and ornamentation. Special ceremonial masks served as emblems of rank. The

NORTH AMERICA

EUROPE

RES São Miguel A Santa María ZO

SARGASSO

Lisbon

Palos

SEA

Cape Bojador

Cuba

ATLANTIC

OCEAN

AFRICA

Hispaniola

Caribbean Sea

SOUTH AMERICA

0

500

1000 Miles

Figure 1.9  The Path of Columbus’s First Voyage.

Columbus: The Man of Myth, the Man of History

Canary Is.

Source:  Adapted with permission from Keith A. Pickering’s “The Transatlantic Track of Columbus’s First Voyage,” 2011. 19

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Taino enjoyed decorating their bodies by flattening the forehead, piercing ears and noses with feathers or other ornaments, adorning their waists and necks with belts and necklaces of feathers or pieces of gold and shell and painting their bodies. The favorite colors were red and black. The Tainos were also talented horticulturalists who used large fields with three-feet-high mounds into which they planted their crops, thus reducing erosion and the need for weeding, improving drainage, and increasing their yields. The primary crops were cassava and sweet potato, but they also cultivated maize, “squash, beans, peppers, and peanuts,” cotton, and tobacco. Their religious world teamed with deities known as zemis. “Yúcahu, the lord of cassava and the sea,” and his mother Atabey, “the goddess of fresh water and human fertility,” reigned as the supreme deities. Lesser zemis populated the landscape, and each person selected and worshiped their own zemis. The Tainos also enjoyed a complex religious and cultural calendar filled with ceremonies that connected them to the divine, reinforced social hierarchies, provided outlets for social tensions, and reconnected them to each other.29 There is no reason to believe Columbus’s claims that the Taino worshiped him as a divine being come from heaven. Columbus even admitted that he could not understand what the Taino were saying at the same time he claimed the status of a god among them. Other European explorers often suffered from the same kind of hubris and made similar claims. The Taino may have thought that Columbus enjoyed special spiritual powers, but it would have been a real stretch to deify him. The Taino were also skilled navigators. They built large seaworthy dugout canoes, some of which could carry 150 men. They paddled the waters of the Caribbean freely to engage in warfare, trade, and food gathering. Extensive trade networks carried individuals and groups on long distance voyages where they exchanged the products specific to their regions. Columbus found that both the men and women he kidnapped to serve as guides had detailed knowledge of the islands and their peoples and of the ocean and its currents. Trade was so endemic that Columbus even picked up a trader who was carrying Spanish goods he had acquired from the islands of San Salvador and Santa María, the first two islands Columbus had visited. It had only been three days since the first landfall and already Spanish goods had entered indigenous trading networks. The Taino’s enemies, the Caribs, occupied the lower Antilles. The Caribs also practiced agriculture and maintained trading contacts with the

Columbus: The Man of Myth, the Man of History

Arawaks of South America. They raided the Tainos for wives and ate pieces of flesh from captive warriors to acquire their power. Much has been made of this practice, and Columbus later used it to justify enslaving the Caribs. In truth, many native tribes in the Americas practiced some form of cannibalism. Despite the fact that the Taino succumbed to the combined effects of enslavement, warfare, disease, and starvation within sixty-five years of contact, they left an indelible mark on the world. They bequeathed cassava, maize, “sweet potatoes, beans, squash, peanuts, guava, mamey, pineapple,” rubber, tobacco, cotton, and hammocks to the rest of the world. Taino food items contributed to global population increase as the cassava and peanuts spread to sub-Saharan Africa, the sweet potato to China, and maize to Europe. They enriched our language with words such as barbecue, cannibal, hurricane, savanna, canoe, and cacique.30 And yet, these first indigenous peoples to be encountered by Columbus lived on the margins of what has been called the Continental Core of America. This Continental Core ran along the spine of the Andes Mountains through the densely populated lands of Mesoamerica into the central river systems of North America all the way to the St. Lawrence River Valley.31 As the European explorers who followed Columbus across the Atlantic would soon discover, this was a land of complex societies that engaged in intensive agriculture, built huge cities and complicated states, practiced elaborate and  deeply spiritual ceremonies, spoke thousands of languages, and had successfully tamed the land their ancestors had discovered twenty thousand years before. Because we know the outcome of the first encounters of 1492, we often struggle to understand them in the proper historical context and search for simple explanations based on assumptions of European dominance and native passivity, ignorance, and weakness. We forget that the indigenous peoples of the Americas were just as intelligent as Europeans and many demonstrated a clearer grasp of what was at stake than Europeans did. They had developed complex and ingenious technologies to exploit their environments. They proved just as curious as Europeans and just as able and willing to exploit Europeans for their own political, economic, military, and social agendas. We also forget that the European conquest of indigenous societies spanned many generations and is still not complete—such as some areas of the Amazon Basin. What followed 1492 was not the inevitable triumph of a superior society. It was, instead, a hard scrabble competition in which indigenous peoples

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frequently held the upper hand over Europeans. Indigenous peoples also benefited from their alliances with Europeans—such as the Tlascalans of Mexico. In short, what happened after 1492 cannot be reduced to the simplistic triad of guns, germs, and steel.32 Though these technologies and diseases played a significant role, we should never forget the importance of human choice and motivation. So the Columbus of history remains far more complicated and interesting than the petrified, white-washed Columbus of myth. His goals were far from lofty. His geographical knowledge was fatally flawed. His methods proved controversial—even in his own time. He became a good self-propagandist, but a terrible administrator. He initiated the Native American slave trade and authorized and encouraged extreme brutality on the part of his men on Hispañola. In some ways, he was a grasping and greedy man who found solace in his own self-righteous sense of religious purpose. But he was also undoubtedly courageous and driven, maybe even foolhardy. He also proved adept at manipulating the Spanish Crown to allow him to pursue his own agenda for more than a decade. He left his family a legacy of wealth and fame that endures to this day. We know that other European states possessed the political will, technology, and desire to push out into the Atlantic searching for new fisheries or new lands and would have eventually bumped into those shores. But they did not. Or, if they did, we have no clear record of it. Columbus did. And Columbus publicized his success and turned it into a source of wealth and fame. For good or ill, and no matter what one thinks of Columbus, his first voyage matters. It matters not because he “discovered” America. He did not. The local natives did not need to be discovered. They already knew where they were. Also, “America” as an idea or as a place did not exist in 1492. What Columbus did was prove that the Atlantic could be crossed safely and repeatedly. His first voyage matters because it initiated the first sustained contact between Europe and the new lands to the west. These lands became the source of wealth and power that permitted Europe to catch up to and then to leap ahead of the great centers of humanity in India and Asia by 1800.33 Without the gold, silver, food, and raw materials flowing out of the Americas into Europe, it is inconceivable that the people of the peninsula we call Europe could have competed with the Asian economic powerhouses. Columbus’s account of that first voyage also spawned a very real crisis of identity for Europeans. Indigenous peoples and their creative ways of being

Columbus: The Man of Myth, the Man of History

human challenged everything Europeans thought they knew about the world. The European self-examination that followed contributed not only to an explosion of learning and exploration that eventually gave us the Enlightenment and the scientific and industrial revolutions, but also the concepts of democratic societies and nation states.34 The consequences of that voyage have irrevocably altered the planet. The Columbian Exchange in food, raw materials, people, animals, plants, wealth, ideas, genes, and everything else that began flowing across the waters of the Atlantic has proven to be one of the most transformative periods in the history of the human species.35 Only the Neolithic Revolution that occurred between 5,000 and 10,000 years ago, when humans first began to domesticate plants and animals and to form sedentary societies, compares in the scale of transformation.36 Yet, the human costs of these transformations simply cannot be calculated. Though we cannot know for certain the pre-contact population of the Western Hemisphere, it is clear that indigenous populations declined rapidly in the first hundred years of contact. Even if some estimates exaggerate the numbers, it cannot be denied that the high mortality rates of the indigenous population post contact, most of whom died of disease, represent one of the greatest demographic catastrophes in the history of the world. They also represent the dark underbelly of the Columbian legacy and myth and should not be forgotten. We are much diminished as a species by the loss of the human cultures, languages, and religions that succumbed to the European invasion. The suffering inflicted, both intentional and unintentional, has left an enduring scar on the face of humanity.37 When considering the Columbian legacy, it can be said that, in a very real sense, the first voyage is the most important voyage. It is the one that set in motion a truly global transformation that is still underway. It accelerated the great convergence of human societies that would soon hurtle toward the crescendo of nineteenth-century imperialism and twentieth-century industrial slaughter.38 His voyage pioneered the water route that connected for the first time in world history the great middle belt of the earth where most of its people lived. This voyage and Columbus’s description of the indigenous peoples and the native climate also provided the political, legal, ideological, and religious context for the European expansion into the Americas.39 In many ways, Columbus set the agenda on that first voyage that has guided European interaction with indigenous peoples the world over ever since. So this is why Columbus and his first voyage matter. It is a conflicted legacy that continues to haunt and fascinate us, as it should.

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2 The Capitulations of Santa Fe and Granada, 1492 It is difficult to overstate the historical significance of the privileges granted to Columbus between 1492 and 1502 by Queen Isabel and King Fernando. Together, these privileges codified the “legal and political concepts” that would be used both to justify and to challenge the extension of Spanish political authority over the lands and peoples on the other side of the Atlantic. They also contain the legal authorization to colonize these lands and to transform the inhabitants into loyal vassals of the Crown living in a society meant to mirror that of Castile.1 As can be seen in the Capitulations, the monarchy’s initial interest in the enterprise was both economic and geopolitical. Isabel and Fernando had won a vicious civil war in Castile. They had been embroiled in a bitter competition with the Portuguese over the Atlantic and with Granada over the North African trade. The Portuguese surrendered their claim to the Spanish throne and to the Canary Islands in 1479. In 1481, Isabel and Fernando began the conquest of Granada, which they completed in 1492. Consequently, they were deeply interested in establishing commercial contacts in Asia before the Portuguese followed up on the successful rounding of the southern tip of Africa by Bartolomeu Dias in 1488. But to secure such contacts, they also needed to be able to take possession of the islands or trading stations Columbus might find, and so he had to be empowered with royal authority to do so—hence, the titles of admiral, governor, and viceroy. For his part, Columbus also saw the Capitulations as creating a business partnership with the Crown, and he energetically pursued favorable terms. But, as the Granada Confirmation demonstrates, it was about more than

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money. It was about social standing. Columbus had already done well in this regard, having married a woman with connections in the Portuguese royal court. But after his proposed voyage met with rejection by the Portuguese king and Columbus’s patrons at court were executed by the king for an unrelated matter, Columbus and his wife’s family sought refuge in Castile. There, Columbus acquired the patronage of the Duke of Medinaceli, who introduced him at court. By 1492, Columbus already knew Isabel and Fernando and had seen the benefits of hereditary office and noble status. Overcome by his good fortune at acquiring their patronage, Columbus sought confirmation that the Crown meant to elevate him to noble status with hereditary royal offices should he succeed in his endeavor. The confirmation was granted in Granada on April 30, 1492. Thus, in 1492, the interests of Columbus and the monarchy intersected quite nicely. Should he succeed, they would both stand to benefit. Should he fail, the expedition would be a financial disappointment, but the monarchy would not be liable to fulfill the privileges outlined in the Capitulations. It is essential to understand this relationship if we are to understand how Columbus constructed the narrative he presented in his letters and the journal of his first voyage. The Capitulations and his journals and letters also reveal much about Columbus’s character: “personal aggrandizement, absolute authority, unwillingness to consider the interests of others, and grasping for wealth.”2 This contract and his stubborn insistence that he had fulfilled the conditions of the contract brought him into constant conflict with just about everyone— the interests of the Crown, settlers, royal officials in the colonies and in Spain, explorers, etc. Having given Columbus unrestricted power over the lands and people he would discover, the Crown soon regretted their lack of foresight. Initially, Columbus’s enterprise of the Indies produced little profit. Once partners in commerce, the Crown and Columbus became competitors, each seeking a larger portion of the same pie. Decades of dispute followed as the Crown sought to pull back from their initial agreement and extend royal authority over the growing colonies. Columbus’s family, however, sued the Crown in an attempt to claim perpetual rights over all of Spanish America and all Spanish trade and conquests in the region. For all of these reasons, the Capitulations remain essential historical documents for understanding Columbus, the first voyage, and its legacies. These documents emerged from the negotiations of representatives appointed by Columbus and the Crown. “Columbus appointed Friar Juan Pérez, prior of

The Capitulations of Santa Fe and Granada, 1492

Figure 2.1  Christopher Columbus’s Coat of Arms. Source:  DEA Picture Library, from the Book of Privileges, 1502 Note:  This is the coat of arms granted to Columbus in May of 1493 as a reward for his successful voyage. The castle and the lion were the emblems of the kingdoms of Castile and León over which Queen Isabel ruled. ­Columbus modified the original patent in 1502 by using the royal colors of yellow and red in the upper right quadrant, adding a mainland to the islands of the lower left quadrant and employing the five anchors, which was the heraldry of the Admiral of Castile, instead of using the traditional arms of his family as permitted in the original patent.

the Franciscan monastery of La Rábida and parish priest of Palos; Fernando and Isabel delegated the king’s secretary, Juan de Coloma.”3 Coloma then presented each point to the monarchs and then wrote “It pleases Their Highnesses” after they gave their assent. They were then recorded in the chancery records and copies were made for Columbus. The texts presented here are translations made by Helen Nader from copies made of these texts, and others relating to Columbus’s voyages, which are collected in the Book of Privileges.

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As you read the Capitulations, consider the following questions: 1 How might the privileges granted to Columbus influence his state of mind and color his perceptions of the people and lands he would discover? 2 What seems to be behind the Crown’s decision to form this economic and political relationship? 3 What do the Capitulations tell us about Columbus’s motives and goals for the first voyage? 4 Where do the queen and king seem to think Columbus is going? What do they expect him to find? 5 What is the power granted to Columbus in article 8 of the Capitulations of Santa Fe? Why would he negotiate for this power?

The Capitulations of Santa Fe and Granada, 1492

Santa Fe Capitulations4 Santa Fe, 17 April 1492 Confirmation Barcelona, 28 March 1493 [1] The things requested and that Your Highnesses give and grant to Sir Christopher Columbus in partial reward for what he has discovered in the Ocean Seas’ and will discover on the voyage that now, with the help of God, he is to make on the same seas in the service of Your Highnesses, are the following: [2] First, Your Highnesses, as the lords you are of the Ocean Seas, appoint Sir Christopher Columbus from now on as your admiral on all those islands and mainland discovered or acquired by his command and expertise in the Ocean Seas during his lifetime and, after his death, by his heirs and successors one after the other in perpetuity, with privileges and prerogatives equal to those that Sir Alfonso Enriquez, your high admiral of Castile, and his other predecessors in the office held in their districts. [3] It pleases Their Highnesses. Juan de Coloma. [4] Also, Your Highnesses appoint Sir Christopher your viceroy and governor general in all those islands and any mainland and islands that he may discover and acquire in the seas. For the governance of each and every one of them, he will nominate three persons for each office, and Your Highnesses will select and appoint the one most beneficial to your service, and thus the lands that our Lord permits him to find and acquire will be best governed to the service of Your Highnesses. [5] It pleases Their Highnesses. Juan de Coloma. [6] You wish him to have and take for himself one-tenth of all and any merchandise, whether pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and any other things and merchandise of whatever kind, name, or sort it may be, that is bought, exchanged, found, acquired, and obtained within the limits of the admiralty that Your Highnesses from now on bestow on Sir Christopher, deducting all the relevant expenses incurred, so that, of what remains clear and free, he may take and keep one-tenth for himself and do with it as he pleases, reserving the other nine-tenths for Your Highnesses. [7] It pleases Their Highnesses. Juan de Coloma.

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[8] Should any lawsuits arise on account of the merchandise that he brings back from the islands and mainland acquired or discovered, or over merchandise taken in exchange from other merchants there in the place where this commerce and trade is held and done, and if taking cognizance of such suits belongs to him by virtue of the privileges pertaining to his office of admiral, may it please Your Highnesses that he or his deputy, and no other judge, shall be authorized to take cognizance of and give judgment on it from now on. [9] It pleases Their Highnesses, if it pertains to the office of admiral and conforms to what the admiral Sir Alfonso Enriquez and his other predecessors had in their districts, and if it be just. Juan de Coloma. [10] On all vessels outfitted for trade and business, each time, whenever, and as often as they are outfitted, Sir Christopher Columbus, if he wishes, may contribute and pay one-eighth of all that is spent on the outfitting and likewise he may have and take one-eighth of the profits that result from such outfitting. [11] It pleases Their Highnesses. Juan de Coloma. [12] These are authorized and dispatched with the replies from Your Highnesses at the end of each article. In the town of Santa Fe de La Vega de Granada, on the seventeenth day of April in the year of the birth of our savior Jesus Christ one thousand four hundred and ninety-two. I, the King I, the Queen [13] By command of the king and queen. Juan de Coloma. [14] Registered. Calcena.

The Capitulations of Santa Fe and Granada, 1492

Granada Capitulations promising to confer on Columbus the offices of admiral, viceroy, and governor of the islands and mainland he might discover and the title of sir, Granada, 30 April 1492 [1] Sir Fernando and Lady Isabel, by the grace of God king and queen of  Castile, León, Aragón, Sicily, Granada, Toledo, Valencia, Galicia, the Balearics, Seville, Sardinia, Córdoba, Corsica, Murcia, Jaén, the Algarve, Algeciras, Gibraltar and the Canary Islands, count and countess of Barcelona, lords of Vizcaya and Molina, dukes of Athens and Neopatria, counts of Roussillon and Cerdagne, marquises of Oristano and Goceano. Because you, Christopher Columbus, are going at our command with some of our ships and personnel to discover and acquire certain islands and mainland in the Ocean Sea, and it is hoped that, with the help of God, some of the islands and mainland in the Ocean Sea will be discovered and acquired by your command and expertise, it is just and reasonable that you should be remunerated for placing yourself in danger for our service. Wanting to honor and bestow favor for these reasons, it is our grace and wish that you, Christopher Columbus, after having discovered and acquired these islands and mainland in the Ocean Sea, will be our admiral of the islands and mainland that you discover and acquire and will be our admiral, viceroy, and governor of them. You will be empowered from that time forward to call yourself Sir Christopher Columbus, and thus your sons and successors in this office and post may entitle themselves sir, admiral, viceroy, and governor of them. You and your proxies will have the authority to exercise the office of admiral together with the offices of viceroy and governor of the islands and mainland that you discover and acquire. You will have the power to hear and dispose of all the lawsuits and cases, civil and criminal, related to the offices of admiral, viceroy, and governor, as you determine according to the law, and as the admirals of our kingdoms are accustomed to administer it. You and your proxies will have the power to punish and penalize delinquents as well as exercising the offices of admiral, viceroy, and governor in all matters

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pertaining to these offices. You will enjoy and benefit from the fees and salaries attached, belonging, and corresponding to these offices, just as our high admiral enjoys and is accustomed to them in the admiralty of our kingdoms. [2] With this our writ or its transcript certified by a public clerk, we order Prince Sir Juan, our most dear and very beloved son, and the princes, dukes, prelates, marquises, counts, masters, priors, and commanders of the orders; royal councilors, judges of our appellate court, and judges and any other justices of our household, court, and chancery; subcommanders and commanders of our castles, forts, and buildings; all municipal councils, royal judges, corregidores, municipal judges, sheriffs, appeals judges, councilmen, parish delegates, commissioned and noncommissioned officers, municipal officials, and voting citizens of all the cities, towns, and villages of these our kingdoms and domains and of those that you may conquer and acquire; captains, masters, mates, warrant officers, sailors and ship’s crews; and each and every one of our subjects and citizens now and in the future, that, having discovered and acquired any islands and mainland in the Ocean Sea, once you or your designated representative have performed the oath and formalities required in such cases, from then on you shall be accepted and regarded for the rest of your life, and your sons and successors after you forevermore, as our admiral of the Ocean Sea and viceroy and governor of the islands and mainland that you, Sir Christopher Columbus, discover and acquire. [All these officials and people] shall put into effect everything pertaining to these offices, together with you and the proxies you appoint to the offices of admiral, viceroy, and governor. They shall pay and cause to be paid to you the salary, fees, and other perquisites of these offices. They shall observe and cause to be observed for you all the honors, gifts, favors, liberties, privileges, prerogatives, exemptions, immunities, and each and all of the other things that, by virtue of the offices of admiral, viceroy, and governor, you should receive and that should be paid to you fully and completely, in such a way that nothing will be withheld from you. They shall not place or consent to place hindrance or obstacle against you in any way. [3] For with this writ we grant to you from now on the offices of admiral, viceroy, and governor as a hereditary right forevermore, and we grant you actual and prospective possession of them, as well as the authority to administer them and collect the dues and salaries attached and pertaining to each of them.

The Capitulations of Santa Fe and Granada, 1492

[4] If it should be necessary for you, and you should request it of them, we command our chancellor, notaries, and other officials who preside over the table with our seals to give, issue, forward, and seal our letter of privilege with the circle of signatures, in the strongest, firmest, and most sufficient manner that you may request and find necessary. None of you or them shall do otherwise in any way concerning this, under penalty of our displeasure and a fine of 10,000 maravedís for our treasury on each person who does the contrary. [5] Furthermore, we command the man who shows you this writ to summon you to appear before us in our court, wherever we may be, within fifteen days of having been cited, under the same penalty. Under this same penalty, we command every public clerk who may be summoned for this purpose to give the person showing this writ to him a certificate to that effect, inscribed with his rubric, so that we may know how well our command is obeyed. [6] Given in our city of Granada on the thirtieth day of the month of April in the year of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ one thousand our hundred and ninety-two. I, the King I, the Queen [7] I, Juan de Coloma, secretary of the king and queen our lords, had this written at their command. [8] Approved in form: Rodericus, doctor. [9] Registered: Sebastián de Olano. Francisco de Madrid, chancellor.

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3 Journal of the First Voyage of Christopher Columbus Unfortunately, we do not possess Columbus’s logs or journals from the first voyage, and apparently they have not been seen since the sixteenth century. His son, Fernando, used the journals and quoted from them in his biography of Columbus probably written in the 1530s, but not published until 1571, and then only in Italian.1 Fernando’s account of the first voyage takes up twenty-three pages out of 127 in the biography—at least in the 1732 English version.2 Clearly, Fernando considered the first voyage important enough to take up one-fifth of his account. Even so, as is usually the case in works about Columbus, the narrative of the first voyage is too concise and laudatory to be of much use in our search for a deeper understanding of this voyage. It does, however, represent the Columbus family’s version of the story then in dispute in the courts of Spain. Of far greater value is the detailed abstract of the journals created by Bartolomé de las Casas in the 1530s, which includes large quotes from Columbus. This abstract was taken from the 1493 Barcelona copy of the logs presented by Columbus to the Catholic monarchs. It “remained in manuscript form until 1875.”3 The English translation used here was made by Sir Clements R. Markham in 1893.4 In his abstract, Las Casas took pains to summarize sailing directions and to comment on events. He is the source of the myth that Columbus created two logs—an accurate one for himself and a false log to fool his crew.5 But he also allowed the admiral to speak for himself in long quotes that give us unusual insight into Columbus’s perceptions and attitudes, allowing us to see how they shifted over time as he struggled to fit the lands he “discovered” into the cosmology he had created.

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San Salvador

f ro m

Rum Cay Long Is. (Fernandina)

Ragged Is. (Is. de Arena)

s l an

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Samana Cay Crooked Is. (Santa María)

Cayo Cruz

ry I

Columbus and His First Voyage

Great Exuma

FLORIDA

a C an

Fortune Is. (Isabela)

Acklins

Plana Cays (San Salvador)

Atlantic Ocean

Mayaguana

Caicos Is.

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Little Inagua

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CUBA (JUANA)

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50

100 Miles

Great Inagua (Babeque)

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P (C t. G ab ua o d ya el can M es on te)

Caribbean Sea 0

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Possible route of the Pinta and Martín Alonso Pinzón

HISPANIOLA (ESPAÑOLA)

to Az (G o lf o

ores

S am d e la s a n a B a y F le ch a s)

Figure 3.1  Probable Route of Columbus’s First Voyage through the Caribbean. Source:  Adapted with permission from Keith A. Pickering’s “Inter-Island Track of Columbus’s First Voyage,” 2011 Note:  We do not know where Columbus made first landfall, nor his exact route while in the Caribbean. The first landfall was certainly in the lower Bahamas and many islands have been promoted as possible sights. Modern research has demonstrated that it probably was not Waitling Island as Samuel Elliot Morrison claimed, despite the fact that the island’s official name was changed to San Salvador in 1925.

Journal of the First Voyage of Christopher Columbus

It is almost painful to watch as Columbus trips over himself in an attempt to justify his decisions, transfer blame for his failures to others, and to portray the lands and people as vastly wealthy and immeasurably valuable. His disappointment at not finding the great trading cities he expected is palpable, as is his desperate self-interest. After all, these logs were being prepared for a royal audience. And they had to be satisfied that Columbus had complied with the conditions of the Capitulations, or his grand voyage would be his ruin rather than his salvation. One of the many puzzling aspects of the journals is Columbus’s insistence that he had discovered the Far East, or at least the islands east of the mainland, while never seeking to prove it by searching for the great markets to the west that Marco Polo had described. He did push west at first, from the Bahamas to Cuba, but Columbus then turned south and east and spent eleven weeks battling the trade winds before he turned toward home.6 The answer to the puzzle is revealed in Columbus’s obsession with gold. His journals reveal that he subscribed to the belief that the heat of the tropical sun produced gold.7 Weeks of pushing north and west up the Cuban coast delivered no great results and his interpretation of Indian gestures regarding the source of gold always pointed south. So Columbus abandoned his westward voyage and turned south.8 But Martín Alonso Pinzón, the weathered old seaman, had become impatient with poking about in harbors and sought the source of the gold himself. Columbus accused him of avarice and desertion and bitterly resented Martín, always suspicious that he might attempt to reach Spain first and so steal Columbus’s glory. Still, after Martín had discovered, and perhaps even visited the placer gold deposits on Hispañola, he did not sail for home. Instead, he turned west and reported to the admiral what he had found. This is not the conduct of a deserter, but of an impatient partner.9 Columbus could never forgive Martín for this act of independence and for finding the source of gold he had so desperately sought. But once Columbus had ascertained that gold deposits really existed on the island, he wasted no time in turning his ships toward Spain. Even though he had found no cities and no great trading stations, Columbus declared that he had accomplished the purpose of his voyage.10 Yet the financial returns from the voyage were going to be paltry at best, and Columbus knew it. His persistent misidentification of spices, trees, and resins displayed his frantic search to find something on the voyage that he could turn to a profit. He filled his hulls full of a plant he believed to be aloe, only to find that it was worthless when he returned home.

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In the end, he settled on the greatest treasure of the Indies—the people themselves. Columbus’s description of the natives was strangely conflicted. The natives’ ignorance of warfare establishes their innocent credentials but also makes them easy to conquer. Their nakedness might evoke an [Edenic innocence] . . . , but . . . it could also suggest savagery and similarity to beasts. Their commercial inexpertise showed that they were both uncorrupted and easily duped. Their rational faculties made them both identifiable as humans and exploitable as slaves.11

Though Columbus was the first to construct the contradictory ethnographies of good (noble) and bad (ignoble) Indians, Columbus emphasized their great potential as easily controlled slaves, Christians, and laborers. Columbus contrasted the peaceful Taino, who lived a simple Edenic life, with the cannibalistic Caribs who preyed upon them—stealing their women for wives and their men for food. His constant comparison of the natives with the Guanches of the Canaries was meant to emphasize their capacity for commercial and religious exploitation. With the construction of La Navidad in 1493, the first European settlement in the New World, Columbus demonstrated that he had already decided that colonization and exploitation of the native people was the only way to gain real profit from the voyage. Leaving men behind also provided a convenient excuse for the necessity of a second voyage. In describing the natives, Columbus fell back on a variety of ethnographies that had been developing in the Western world since at least the early medieval period when Europeans expanded beyond their homelands.12 These cosmologies were based on medieval notions about the nature of humanity that emphasized the importance of religion and outward characteristics such as the color of one’s skin. The so-called monstrous races reported by Marco Polo in Asia, Columbus in the Caribbean, and Francisco Escobar in Mexico were thought to be the products of weird deformities such as having only one huge foot or the head of a dog or a single eye in the middle of the forehead or gargantuan ears, or even tails, as Columbus reported on Cuba.13 These ethnographies traveled in European brains and combined with the growing egotism of their own civilizational superiority. Explorers sent back detailed reports of the strange peoples they found in the New World, Africa, and Australia. They described them by what they lacked— domesticated plants and animals, technology, law codes, written language,

Journal of the First Voyage of Christopher Columbus

universal religion, clothing, etc.—and by the physical characteristics they found surprising or disgusting—social nakedness, tattooing, and dark skin color, etc.14 The early descriptions Columbus left of innocent Edenic peoples quickly gave way to negative descriptions of laziness, ignorance, backwardness, and brutishness. Columbus highlighted native capacity for conversion and enslavement.15 Later, Martin Frobisher in North America described them as fierce, cruel, and ugly.16 William Dampier applied the concept to Australian aborigines whom he described as lazy, inept, and filled with childish disinterest in the superior technology of the Europeans.17 In effect, these entire descriptions dehumanized and infantilized native peoples the world over. Dehumanization and infantilization are the key components of the ethnography of the savage first fully articulated by Columbus in 1492, and they have manifested themselves in every society. In all of these cases, the explorers felt no hesitation in kidnapping, raping, enslaving, and murdering natives in an unabashed and unapologetic seizure of their lands and their resources. For example, Columbus noted in a letter to the nurse of the Spanish prince Don Juan how cheaply young native girls of nine or ten years of age could be purchased as sex slaves on Hispañola.18 Frobisher murdered native men, kidnapped native women and children, and even stripped an old woman naked seeking to discover if she had cloven feet.19 James Cook, in the eighteenth century, expressed remorse that he had been “forced” to kill natives of New Zealand because they resisted his efforts to kidnap them.20 Henry Morton Stanley, in the nineteenth century, cut a bloody trail through Africa with his elephant guns.21 Rudyard Kipling, in 1898, praised the US invasion of the Philippines and consoled the young nation as it took on the heavy burden of lifting the world’s benighted, malevolent children of nature out of their spiritual and cultural darkness.22 And so, the ethnography of the savage first articulated by Columbus, though certainly not created by him, provided a comforting justification for the dispossession of native peoples the world over and the looting of their resources. For example, in a 1495 memorandum to Isabel and Fernando, Columbus claimed that the welfare of the natives would be best served by enslaving them and sending them to Spain. “We believe,” he said, that “they will immediately lose [their inhumanity] when they are out of their own land.”23 On Columbus’s return journey to Hispañola in 1493, the inhabitants of the island would feel the brunt of this ethnography with devastating consequences.

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Another curiosity of the first voyage is the care taken to outfit the ships with competent mariners, officers, translators, and skilled laborers, such as gunners, caulkers, and coopers, while doing little to supply the expedition with experienced merchants in Asian commodities.24 And more curiously, given Columbus’s obsession with gold, no goldsmith or assayer was onboard. It seems clear that the Crown had never stopped to consider what would happen if the voyage proved successful. If it had, perhaps it never would have signed the Capitulations of Santa Fe.

As you read the three accounts by Columbus of his first voyage, you should ask yourself the following questions: 1. In what ways does Columbus contradict himself in his three accounts of the voyage? 2. How might his contradictions and discrepancies be explained? 3. How does he describe the land and the people he encounters? 4. What does he leave out of these descriptions? (Mosquitos should come to mind.) 5. What do Columbus’s accounts tell us about his first impression of the natives? 6. Why does he include what he does? 7. Why does Columbus emphasize the practice of social nakedness? What might this practice have meant to him? 8. Do his descriptions of the lands and the natives seem to serve a particular agenda? 9. What seems to be going on between Columbus and Martín Alonso Pinzón? 10. How does Columbus portray himself and the other members of the voyage? 11. Can you find some underlying pattern to his behavior that might inform you about his goals and motivations? 12. Can you gain any insight into how the natives perceived Columbus?

Journal of the First Voyage of Christopher Columbus

Journal of the First Voyage of Christopher Columbus O most Christian, and very high, very excellent, and puissant Princes, King and Queen of the Spains and of the islands of the Sea, our Lords, in this present year of 1492, . . . acting on the information that I had given to your Highnesses touching the lands of India, and respecting a Prince who is called Gran Can, which means in our language King of Kings, how he and his ancestors had sent to Rome many times to ask for learned men of our holy faith to teach him, and how the Holy Father had never complied, insomuch that many people believing in idolatries were lost by receiving doctrine of perdition: YOUR HIGHNESSES, as Catholic Christians and Princes who love the holy Christian faith, and the propagation of it, and who are enemies to the sect of [Mohamad] and to all idolatries and heresies, resolved to send me, Cristóbal Colon, to the said parts of India to see the said princes, and the cities and lands, and their disposition, with a view that they might be converted to our holy faith; and ordered that I should not go by land to the eastward, as had been customary, but that I should go by way of the west, whither up to this day, we do not know for certain that any one has gone. . . . in the same month of January, your Highnesses gave orders to me that with a sufficient fleet I should go to the said parts of India, and for this they made great concessions to me, and ennobled me, so that henceforward I should be called Don, and should be Chief Admiral of the Ocean Sea, perpetual Viceroy and Governor of all the islands and continents that I should discover and gain, and that I might hereafter discover and gain in the Ocean Sea, and that my eldest son should succeed, and so on from generation to generation forever. I left the city of Granada on the 12th day of May, in the same year of 1492, being Saturday, and came to the town of Palos, which is a seaport; where I equipped three vessels well suited for such service; and departed from that port, well supplied with provisions and with many sailors, on the 3d day of August of the same year, being Friday, half an hour before sunrise, taking the route to the islands of Canaria, belonging to your Highnesses, which are in the said Ocean Sea, that I might thence take my departure for navigating until I should arrive at the Indies, and give the letters of your Highnesses to those princes.

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Friday, 3d of August We departed on Friday, the 3d of August, in the year 1492, from the bar of Saltes, at 8 o’clock, and proceeded with a strong sea breeze until sunset, towards the south, for 60 miles, equal to 15 leagues; afterwards S.W. and W.S.W., which was the course for the Canaries.

. . . Thursday, 9th of August The Admiral says that many honorable Spanish gentlemen who were at Gomera with Doña Ines Peraza, mother of Guillen Peraza (who was afterwards the first Count of Gomera), and who were natives of the island of Hierro, declared that every year they saw land to the west of the Canaries; and others, natives of Gomera, affirmed the same on oath. The Admiral here says that he remembers, when in Portugal in the year 1484, a man came to the King from the island of Madeira, to beg for a caravel to go to this land that was seen, who swore that it could be seen every year, and always in the same way. He also says that he recollects the same thing being affirmed in the islands of the Azores; and all these lands were described as in the same direction, and as being like each other, and of the same size. Having taken in water, wood, and meat, and all else that the men had who were left at Gomera by the Admiral when he went to the island of Canaria to repair the caravel Pinta [Its rudder had become displaced.], he finally made sail from the said island of Gomera, with his three caravels, on Thursday, the 6th day of September.

. . . Tuesday, 18th of September This day and night they made over 55 leagues, the Admiral only counting 48. In all these days the sea was very smooth, like the river at Seville. This day Martin Alonso, with the Pinta, which was a fast sailer, did not wait, for he said to the Admiral, from his caravel, that he had seen a great multitude of birds flying westward, that he hoped to see land that night, and that he therefore pressed onward. A great cloud appeared in the north, which is a sign of the proximity of land.

Journal of the First Voyage of Christopher Columbus

. . . Saturday, 22nd of September They shaped a course W.N.W. more or less, her head turning from one to the other point, and made 30 leagues. Scarcely any weed was seen. They saw some sandpipers and another bird. Here the Admiral says: “This contrary wind was very necessary for me, because my people were much excited at the thought that in these seas no wind ever blew in the direction of Spain.” Part of the day there was no weed, and later it was very thick.

. . . Tuesday, 25th of September This day began with a calm, and afterwards there was wind. They were on their west course until night. The Admiral conversed with Martin Alonso Pinzón, captain of the other caravel Pinta, respecting a chart which he had sent to the caravel three days before, on which, as it would appear, the Admiral had certain islands depicted in that sea. Martin Alonso said that the ships were in the position on which the islands were placed, and the Admiral replied that so it appeared to him: but it might be that they had not fallen in with them, owing to the currents which had always set the ships to the N.E., and that they had not made so much as the pilots reported. The Admiral then asked for the chart to be returned, and it was sent back on a line. The Admiral then began to plot the position on it, with the pilot and mariners. At sunset Martin Alonso went up on the poop of his ship, and with much joy called to the Admiral, claiming the reward as he had sighted land. When the Admiral heard this positively declared, he says that he gave thanks to the Lord on his knees, while Martin Alonso said the Gloria in excelsis with his people. The Admiral’s crew did the same. Those of the Niña all went up on the mast and into the rigging, and declared that it was land. It so seemed to the Admiral, and that it was distant 25 leagues. They all continued to declare it was land until night. The Admiral ordered the course to be altered from W. to S.W., in which direction the land had appeared.

Wednesday, 26th of September The Admiral continued on the west course until afternoon. Then he altered course to S.W., until he made out that what had been said to be land was only clouds.

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. . . Wednesday, 3rd of October They navigated on the usual course, and made good 47 leagues, counted as 40. Sandpipers appeared, and much weed, some of it very old and some quite fresh and having fruit. They saw no birds. The Admiral, therefore, thought that they had left the islands behind them which were depicted on the charts. The Admiral here says that he did not wish to keep the ships beating about during the last week, and in the last few days when there were so many signs of land, although he had information of certain islands in this region. For he wished to avoid delay, his object being to reach the Indies. He says that to delay would not be wise.

. . . Saturday, 6th of October The Admiral continued his west course, and during day and night they made good 40 leagues, 33 being counted. This night Martin Alonso said that it would be well to steer south of west, and it appeared to the Admiral that Martin Alonso did not say this with respect to the island of Cipango. He saw that if an error was made the land would not be reached so quickly, and that consequently it would be better to go at once to the continent and afterwards to the islands.

Sunday, 7th of October The west course was continued; for two hours they went at the rate of 12 miles an hour, and afterwards 8 miles an hour. They made good 23 leagues, counting 18 for the people. This day, at sunrise, the caravel Niña, which went ahead, being the best sailer, and pushed forward as much as possible to sight the land first, so as to enjoy the reward which the Sovereigns had promised to whoever should see it first, hoisted a flag at the mast-head and fired a gun, as a signal that she had sighted land, for such was the Admiral’s order. He had also ordered that, at sunrise and sunset, all the ships should join him; because those two times are most proper for seeing the greatest distance, the haze clearing away. No land was seen during the afternoon, as reported by the caravel Niña, and they passed a great number of birds flying from N. to S.W. This gave rise to the belief that the birds were either going to sleep on land, or were flying from the winter which might be supposed to be near in the land whence they were coming. The Admiral was aware that most of

Journal of the First Voyage of Christopher Columbus

the islands held by the Portuguese were discovered by the flight of birds. For this reason he resolved to give up the west course, and to shape a course W.S.W. for the two following days. He began the new course one hour before sunset. They made good, during the night, about 5 leagues, and 23 in the day, altogether 28 leagues.

. . . Thursday, 11th of October As the caravel Pinta was a better sailer, and went ahead of the Admiral, she found the land, and made the signals ordered by the Admiral. The land was first seen by a sailor named Rodrigo de Triana. But the Admiral, at ten o’clock, being on the castle of the poop,’ saw a light, though it was so uncertain that he could not affirm it was land. He called Pero Gutierrez, a gentleman of the King’s bed-chamber, and said that there seemed to be a light, and that he should look at it. He did so, and saw it. The Admiral said the same to Rodrigo Sanchez of Segovia, whom the King and Queen had sent with the fleet as inspector, but he could see nothing, because he was not in a place whence anything could be seen. After the Admiral had spoken he saw the light once or twice, and it was like a wax candle rising and falling. It seemed to few to be an indication of land; but the Admiral made certain that land was close. When they said the Salve, which all the sailors were accustomed to sing in their way, the Admiral asked and admonished the men to keep a good look-out on the forecastle, and to watch well for land; and to him who should first cry out that he saw land, he would give a silk doublet, besides the other rewards promised by the Sovereigns, which were 10,000 maravedis to him who should first see it.’ At two hours after midnight the land was sighted at a distance of two leagues. They shortened sail, and lay by under the mainsail without the bonnets.

[Friday, 12th of October] The vessels were hove to, waiting for daylight; and on Friday they arrived at a small island of the Lucayos, called, in the language of the Indians, Guanahani. Presently they saw naked people. The Admiral went on shore in the armed boat, and Martin Alonso Pinzón, and Vicente [Yáñez], his brother, who was captain of the Niña. The Admiral took the royal standard, and the captains went with two banners of the green cross, which the Admiral took in all the ships as a sign, with an F and a Y and a crown over each letter, one on one

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Columbus and His First Voyage

Figure 3.2  Columbus’s Flag from the First Voyage.

side of the cross and the other on the other. Having landed, they saw trees very green, and much water, and fruits of diverse kinds. The Admiral called to the two captains, and to the others who leaped on shore, and to Rodrigo Escovedo, secretary of the whole fleet, and to Rodrigo Sanchez of Segovia, and said that they should bear faithful testimony that he, in presence of all, had taken, as he now took, possession of the said island for the King and for the Queen his Lords, making the declarations that are required, as is now largely set forth in the testimonies which were then made in writing. Presently many inhabitants of the island assembled. What follows is in the actual words of the Admiral in his book of the first navigation and discovery of the Indies. “I,” he says, “that we might form great friendship, for I knew that they were a people who could be more easily freed and converted to our holy faith by love than by force, gave to some of them red caps, and glass beads to put round their necks, and many other things of little value, which gave them great pleasure, and made them so much our friends that it was a marvel to see. They afterwards came to the ship’s boats where we were, swimming and bringing us parrots, cotton threads in skeins, darts, and many other things; and we exchanged them for other things that we gave them, such as glass beads and small bells. In fine, they took all, and gave what they had with good will. It appeared to me to be a race of people very poor in everything. They go as naked as when their mothers bore them, and so do the women, although I did not see more than one young girl. All I saw were youths, none more than thirty years of age. They are very well made, with very handsome bodies, and very good countenances. Their hair is short and coarse, almost like the hairs of a horse’s tail. They wear the hairs brought

Journal of the First Voyage of Christopher Columbus

down to the eyebrows, except a few locks behind, which they wear long and never cut. They paint themselves black, and they are the color of the Canarians, neither black nor white. Some paint themselves white, others red, and others of what color they find. Some paint their faces, others the whole body, some only round the eyes, others only on the nose. They neither carry nor know anything of arms, for I showed them swords, and they took them by the blade and cut themselves through ignorance. They have no iron, their darts being wands without iron, some of them having a fish’s tooth at the end, and others being pointed in various ways. They are all of fair stature and size, with good faces, and well made. I saw some with marks of wounds on their bodies, and I made signs to ask what it was, and they gave me to understand that people from other adjacent islands came with the intention of seizing them, and that they defended themselves. I believed, and still believe, that they come here from the mainland to take them prisoners. They should be good servants and intelligent, for I observed that they quickly took in what was said to them, and I believe that they would easily be made Christians, as it appeared to me that they had no religion. I, our Lord being pleased, will take hence, at the time of my departure, six natives for your Highnesses, that they may learn to speak. I saw no beast of any kind except parrots, on this island.” The above is in the words of the Admiral.

Saturday, 13th of October “As soon as dawn broke many of these people came to the beach, all youths, as I have said, and all of good stature, a very handsome people. Their hair is not curly, but loose and coarse, like horse hair. . . . They brought skeins of cotton thread, parrots, darts, and other small things which it would be tedious to recount, and they give all in exchange for anything that may be given to them. I was attentive, and took trouble to ascertain if there was gold. I saw that some of them had a small piece fastened in a hole they have in the nose, and by signs I was able to make out that to the south, or going from the island to the south, there was a king who had great cups full, and who possessed a great quantity. I tried to get them to go there, but afterwards I saw that they had no inclination. I resolved to wait until tomorrow in the afternoon and then to depart, shaping a course to the S.W., for, according to what many of them told me, there was land to the S., to the S.W., and N.W., and that the natives from the N.W. often came to attack them, and went on

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to the S.W. in search of gold and precious stones. . . . Here also is found the gold they wear fastened in their noses. But, in order not to lose time, I intend to go and see if I can find the island of Cipango. Now, as it is night, all the natives have gone on shore with their canoes.”

Sunday, 14th of October “I saw so many islands that I hardly knew how to determine to which I should go first. Those natives I had with me said, by signs, that there were so many that they could not be numbered, and they gave the names of more than a hundred. At last I looked out for the largest, and resolved to shape a course for it, and so I did. It will be distant five leagues from this of San Salvador, and the others some more, some less. All are very flat, and all are inhabited. The natives make war on each other, although these are very simple-minded and handsomely-formed people.”

Monday, 15th of October “I came upon a man alone in a canoe going from Santa Maria to Fernandina. He had a little of their bread, about the size of a fist, a calabash of water, a piece of brown earth powdered and then kneaded, and some dried leaves, which must be a thing highly valued by them, for they bartered with it at San Salvador. He also had with him a native basket with a string of glass beads, and two blancas, by which I knew that he had come from the island of San Salvador, and had been to Santa Maria, and thence to Fernandina. He came alongside the ship, and I made him come on board as he desired, also getting the canoe inboard, and taking care of all his property. I ordered him to be given to eat bread and treacle, and also to drink: and so I shall take him on to Fernandina, where I shall return everything to him, in order that he may give a good account of us, that, our Lord pleasing, when your Highnesses shall send here, those who come may receive honor, and that the natives may give them all they require.”

Tuesday, 16th of October “I sailed from the island of Santa Maria de la Concepcion at about noon, to go to Fernandina Island, which appeared very large to the westward, and I navigated all that day with light winds. I could not arrive in time to be

Journal of the First Voyage of Christopher Columbus

able to see the bottom, so as to drop the anchor on a clear place, for it is necessary to be very careful not to lose the anchors. So I stood off and on all that night until day, when I came to an inhabited place where I anchored, and whence that man had come that I found yesterday in the canoe in mid channel. He had given such a good report of us that there was no want of canoes alongside the ship all that night, which brought us water and what they had to offer. I ordered each one to be given something, such as a few beads, ten or twelve of those made of glass on a thread, some timbrels made of brass such as are worth a maravedi in Spain, and some straps, all which they looked upon as most excellent. I also ordered them to be given treacle to eat when they came on board. At three o’clock I sent the ship’s boat on shore for water, and the natives with good will showed my people where the water was, and they themselves brought the full casks down to the boat, and did all they could to please us. . . . They do not know any religion, and I believe they could easily be converted to Christianity, for they are very intelligent . . . I saw neither sheep, nor goats, nor any other quadruped. It is true I have been here a short time, since noon, yet I could not have failed to see some if there had been any.”

Wednesday, 17th of October “My wish was to follow the coast of this island to the S.E., from where I was, the whole coast trending N.N.W. and S.S.E.; because all the Indians I bring with me, and others, made signs to this southern quarter, as the direction of the island they call Samoet, where the gold is. Martin Alonso Pinzón, captain of the caravel Pinta, on board of which I had three of the Indians, came to me and said that one of them had given him to understand very positively that the island might be sailed round much quicker by shaping a N.N.W. course. I saw that the wind would not help me to take the course I desired, and that it was fair for the other, so I made sail to the N.N.W. When I was two leagues from the cape of the island, I discovered a very wonderful harbor. . . . On shore I found eight or ten men, who presently came to us and showed us the village, whither I sent the people for water, some with arms, and others with the casks; and, as it was some little distance . . . and here they found a man who had a piece of gold in his nose, the size of half a castellano, on which they saw letters. I quarreled with these people because they would not exchange or give what was required; as I wished to see what and whose this money was; and they replied that they were not accustomed to barter.”

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. . . Friday, 19th of October “I weighed the anchors at daylight, sending the caravel Pinta on an E.S.E. course, the caravel Niña S.S.E., while I shaped a S.E. course, giving orders that these courses were to be steered until noon, and that then the two caravels should alter course so as to join company with me. Before we had sailed for three hours we saw an island to the east, for which we steered, and all three vessels arrived at the north point before noon. Here there is an islet, and a reef of rocks to seaward of it, besides one between the islet and the large island. The men of San Salvador, whom I bring with me, called it Saomete, and I gave it the name of Isabella. . . . Tomorrow I intend to go so far inland as to find the village, and see and have some speech with this king, who, according to the signs they make, rules over all the neighboring islands, goes about clothed, and wears much gold on his person. I do not give much faith to what they say, as well because I do not understand them well as because they are so poor in gold that even a little that this king may have would appear much to them.”

. . . Sunday, 21st of October “At ten o’clock I arrived here, off this islet, and anchored, as well as the caravels. After breakfast I went on shore, and found only one house, in which there was no one, and I supposed they had fled from fear, because all their property was left in the house. I would not allow anything to be touched, but set out with the captains and people to explore the island. If the others already seen are very beautiful, green, and fertile, this is much more so, with large trees and very green. Here there are large lagoons with wonderful vegetation on their banks. Throughout the island all is green, and the herbage like April in Andalusia. The songs of the birds were so pleasant that it seemed as if a man could never wish to leave the place. The flocks of parrots concealed the sun; and the birds were so numerous, and of so many different kinds, that it was wonderful. There are trees of a thousand sorts, and all have their several fruits; and I feel the most unhappy man in the world not to know them, for I am well assured that they are all valuable. I bring home specimens of them, and also of the land. . . . I intended to search the island until I had had speech with the king, and seen whether he had the gold of which I had heard. I shall then shape a course for another much larger island, which I believe to be Cipango, judging from the signs made

Journal of the First Voyage of Christopher Columbus

by the Indians I bring with me. They call it Cuba, and they say that there are ships and many skillful sailors there. Beyond this island there is another called Bosio, which they also say is very large, and others we shall see as we pass, lying between. According as I obtain tidings of gold or spices I shall settle what should be done. I am still resolved to go to the mainland and the city of Guisay, and to deliver the letters of your Highnesses to the Gran Can, requesting a reply and returning with it.”

. . . Wednesday, 24th of October “At midnight I weighed the anchors and left the anchorage at Cabo del Isleo, in the island of Isabella. From the northern side, where I was, I intended to go to the island of Cuba, where I heard of the people who were very great, and had gold, spices, merchandise, and large ships. They showed me that the course thither would be W.S.W., and so I hold. For I believe that it is so, as all the Indians of these islands, as well as those I brought with me in the ships, told me by signs. I cannot understand their language, but I believe that it is of the island of Cipango that they recount these wonders. On the spheres I saw, and on the delineations of the map of the world, Cipango is in this region. So I shaped a course W.S.W. until daylight, but at dawn it fell calm and began to rain, and went on nearly all night. I remained thus, with little wind, until the afternoon, when it began to blow fresh . . .”

. . . Friday, 26th of October “The ship was on the south side of the islands, which were all low, distant 5 or 6 leagues. I anchored there. The Indians on board said that thence to Cuba was a voyage in their canoes of a day and a half; these being small dug-outs without a sail. Such are their canoes. I departed thence for Cuba, for by the signs the Indians made of its greatness, and of its gold and pearls, I thought that it must be Cipango.”

. . . Tuesday, 30th of October He left the Rio de Mares and steered N.W., seeing a cape covered with palm trees, to which he gave the name of Cabo de Palmas, after having made good 15 leagues. The Indians on board the caravel Pinta said that beyond that cape

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there was a river, and that from the river to Cuba it was four days’ journey. The captain of the Pinta reported that he understood from that, that this Cuba was a city, and that the land was a great continent trending far to the north. The king of that country, he gathered, was at war with the Gran Can, whom they called Cami, and his land or city Fava, with many other names. The Admiral resolved to proceed to that river, and to send a present, with the letter of the Sovereigns, to the king of that land. For this service there was a sailor who had been to Guinea, and some of the Indians of Guanahani wished to go with him, and afterwards to return to their homes. . . . He says that he must attempt to reach the Gran Can, who he thought was here or at the city of Cathay, which belongs to him, and is very grand, as he was informed before leaving Spain. All this land, he adds, is low and beautiful, and the sea deep.

. . . Thursday, November the 1st At sunrise the Admiral sent the boats on shore to the houses that were there, and they found that all the people had fled. After some time a man made his appearance. The Admiral ordered that he should be left to himself, and the sailors returned to the boats. After dinner, one of the Indians on board was sent on shore. He called out from a distance that there was nothing to fear, because the strangers were good people and would do no harm to anyone, nor were they people of the Gran Can, but they had given away their things in many islands where they had been. The Indian then swam on shore, and two of the natives took him by the arms and brought him to a house, where they heard what he had to say. When they were certain that no harm would be done to them they were reassured, and presently more than sixteen canoes came to the ships with cotton-thread and other trifles. The Admiral ordered that nothing should be taken from them, that they might understand that he sought for nothing but gold, which they call nucay. Thus they went to and fro between the ships and the shore all day, and they came to the Christians on shore with confidence. The Admiral saw no gold whatever among them, but he says that he saw one of them with a piece of worked silver fastened to his nose. They said, by signs, that within three days many merchants from inland would come to buy the things brought by the Christians, and would give information respecting the king of that land. So far as could be understood from their signs, he resided at a distance of four days’ journey. They had sent many messengers in all directions, with news

Journal of the First Voyage of Christopher Columbus

of the arrival of the Admiral. “These people,” says the Admiral, “are of the same appearance and have the same customs as those of the other islands, without any religion so far as I know, for up to this day I have never seen the Indians on board say any prayer; though they repeat the Salve and Ave Maria with their hands raised to heaven, and they make the sign of the cross. The language is also the same, and they are all friends; but I believe that all these islands are at war with the Gran Can, whom they called Cavila, and his province Bafan. They all go naked like the others.”

Friday, 2nd of November The Admiral decided upon sending two Spaniards, one named Rodrigo de Jerez, who lived in Ayamonte, and the other Luis de Torres, who had served in the household of the Adelantado of Murcia, and had been a Jew, knowing Hebrew, Chaldee, and even some Arabic. With these men he sent two Indians, one from among those he had brought from Guanahani, and another a native of the houses by the river-side. He gave them strings of beads with which to buy food if they should be in need, and ordered them to return in six days. He gave them specimens of spices, to see if any were to be found. Their instructions were to ask for the king of that land, and they were told what to say on the part of the Sovereigns of Castile, how they had sent the Admiral with letters and a present, to inquire after his health and establish friendship, favoring him in what he might desire from them. They were to collect information respecting certain provinces, ports, and rivers of which the Admiral had notice, and to ascertain their distances from where he was.

Sunday, 4th of November At sunrise the Admiral again went away in the boat, and landed to hunt the birds he had seen the day before. After a time, Martin Alonso Pinzón came to him with two pieces of cinnamon, and said that a Portuguese, who was one of his crew, had seen an Indian carrying two very large bundles of it; but he had not bartered for it, because of the penalty imposed by the Admiral on any one who bartered. He further said that this Indian carried some brown things like nutmegs. The master of the Pinta said that he had found the cinnamon trees. The Admiral went to the place, and found that they were not cinnamon trees. The Admiral showed the Indians some specimens of

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cinnamon and pepper he had brought from Castile, and they knew it, and said, by signs, that there was plenty in the vicinity, pointing to the S.E. He also showed them gold and pearls, on which certain old men said that there was an infinite quantity in a place called Bohio, and that the people wore it on their necks, ears, arms, and legs, as well as pearls. He further understood them to say that there were great ships and much merchandise, all to the S.E. He also understood that, far away, there were men with one eye, and others with dogs’ noses who were cannibals, and that when they captured an enemy, they beheaded him and drank his blood, and cut off his private parts.

. . . Tuesday, 6th of November Yesterday, at night, says the Admiral, the two men came back who had been sent to explore the interior. They said that after walking 12 leagues they came to a village of 50 houses, where there were a thousand inhabitants, for many live in one house. These houses are like very large booths. They said that they were received with great solemnity, according to custom, and all, both men and women, came out to see them. They were lodged in the best houses, and the people touched them, kissing their hands and feet, marveling and believing that they came from heaven, and so they gave them to understand. They gave them to eat of what they had. When they arrived, the chief people conducted them by the arms to the principal house, gave them two chairs on which to sit, and all the natives sat round them on the ground. The Indian who came with them described the manner of living of the Christians, and said that they were good people. Presently the men went out, and the women came sitting round them in the same way, kissing their hands and feet, and looking to see if they were of flesh and bones like themselves. They begged the Spaniards to remain with them at least five days. The Spaniards showed the natives specimens of cinnamon, pepper, and other spices which the Admiral had given them, and they said, by signs, that there was plenty at a short distance from thence to S.E., but that there they did not know whether there was any. Finding that they had no information respecting cities, the Spaniards returned; and if they had desired to take those who wished to accompany them, more than 500 men and women would have come, because they thought the Spaniards were returning to heaven. There came, however, a principal man of the village and his son, with a servant. The Admiral conversed with them, and showed them much honor. They made signs respecting many lands and islands in those parts. The Admiral thought of bringing them to the Sovereigns. He says that he knew not what

Journal of the First Voyage of Christopher Columbus

fancy took them; either from fear, or owing to the dark night, they wanted to land. The ship was at the time high and dry, but, not wishing to make them angry, he let them go on their saying that they would return at dawn, but they never came back. The two Christians met with many people on the road going home, men and women with a half-burnt weed in their hands, being the herbs they are accustomed to smoke.

. . . Monday, 12th of November The Admiral left the port and river of Mares before dawn to visit the island called Babeque, so much talked of by the Indians on board, where, according to their signs, the people gather the gold on the beach at night with candles, and afterwards beat it into bars with hammers. To go thither it was necessary to shape a course E. b. S. After having made 8 leagues along the coast, a river was sighted, and another 4 leagues brought them to another river, which appeared to be of great volume, and larger than any they had yet seen. The Admiral did not wish to stop nor to enter any of these rivers, for two reasons: the first and principal one being that wind and weather were favorable for going in search of the said island of Babeque; the other, that, if there was a populous and famous city near the sea, it would be visible, while, to go up the rivers, small vessels are necessary, which those of the expedition were not. Much time would thus be lost; moreover, the exploration of such rivers is a separate enterprise. All that coast was peopled near the river, to which the name of Rio del Sol was given. The Admiral says that, on the previous Sunday, the 11th of November, it seemed good to take some persons from amongst those at Rio de Mares, to bring to the Sovereigns, that they might learn our language, so as to be able to tell us what there is in their lands. Returning, they would be the mouthpieces of the Christians, and would adopt our customs and the things of the faith. “I saw and knew” (says the Admiral) “that these people are without any religion, not idolaters, but very gentle, not knowing what is evil, nor the sins of murder and theft, being without arms, and so timid that a hundred would fly before one Spaniard, although they joke with them. They, however, believe and know that there is a God in heaven, and say that we have come from Heaven. At any prayer that we say, they repeat, and make the sign of the cross. Thus your Highnesses should resolve to make them Christians, for I believe that, if the work was begun, in a little time a multitude of nations would be converted to our faith, with the acquisition of great lordships, peoples, and riches for Spain. Without doubt, there is in these lands a vast quantity of gold, and the Indians I have on board

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do not speak without reason when they say that in these islands there are places where they dig out gold, and wear it on their necks, ears, arms, and legs, the rings being very large. There are also precious stones, pearls, and an infinity of spices. In this river of Mares, whence we departed tonight, there is undoubtedly a great quantity of mastic, and much more could be raised, because the trees may be planted, and will yield abundantly. The leaf and fruit are like the mastic, but the tree and leaf are larger. As Pliny describes it, I have seen it on the island of Chios in the Archipelago. I ordered many of these trees to be tapped, to see if any of them would yield resin; but, as it rained all the time I was in that river, I could not get any, except a very little, which I am bringing to your Highnesses. It may not be the right season for tapping, which is, I believe, when the trees come forth after winter and begin to flower. But when I was there the fruit was nearly ripe. Here also there is a great quantity of cotton, and I believe it would have a good sale here without sending it to Spain, but to the great cities of the Gran Can, which will be discovered without doubt, and many others ruled over by other lords, who will be pleased to serve your Highnesses, and whither will be brought other commodities of Spain and of the Eastern lands; but these are to the west as regards us. There is also here a great yield of aloes, though this is not a commodity that will yield great profit. The mastic, however, is important, for it is only obtained from the said island of Chios, and I believe the harvest is worth 50,000 ducats, if I remember right. There is here, in the mouth of the river, the best port I have seen up to this time, wide, deep, and clear of rocks. It is an excellent site for a town and fort, for any ship could come close up to the walls; the land is high, with a temperate climate, and very good water. “Yesterday a canoe came alongside the ship, with six youths in it. Five came on board, and I ordered them to be detained. They are now here. I afterwards sent to a house on the western side of the river, and seized seven women, old and young, and three children. I did this because the men would behave better in Spain if they had women of their own land, than without them. For on many occasions the men of Guinea have been brought to learn the language in Portugal, and afterwards, when they returned, and it was expected that they would be useful in their land, owing to the good company they had enjoyed and the gifts they had received, they never appeared after arriving. Others may not act thus. But, having women, they have the wish to perform what they are required to do; besides, the women would teach our people their language, which is the same in all these islands, so that those who make voyages in their canoes are understood everywhere. On the other hand, there are a thousand different languages in Guinea, and one native does not understand another.

Journal of the First Voyage of Christopher Columbus

“The same night the husband of one of the women came alongside in a canoe, who was father of the three children—one boy and two girls. He asked me to let him come with them, and besought me much. They are now all consoled at being with one who is a relation of them all. He is a man of about 45 years of age.” All these are the words of the Admiral. He also says that he had felt some cold, and that it would not be wise to continue discoveries in a northerly direction in the winter. On this Monday, until

Figure 3.3  Tainos at Work. Source:  Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, Historia generaly natural de las indias, vol. 1 (1851–1855), plate 2 Note:  Upper left-hand corner is a fire drill. Next to that is a man paddling a canoe. In the center, men are apparently harvesting crops. In the bottom left-hand corner a man carries burdens on a pole.

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sunset, he steered a course E. b. S., making 18 leagues, and reaching a cape, to which he gave the name of Cabo de Cuba.

. . . Wednesday, 21st of November This day Martin Alonso Pinzón parted company with the caravel Pinta, in disobedience to and against the wish of the Admiral, and out of avarice, thinking that an Indian who had been put on board his caravel could show him where there was much gold. So he parted company, not owing to bad weather, but because he chose. Here the Admiral says: “He had done and said many other things to me.”

Thursday, 22nd of November This night Martin Alonso shaped a course to the east, to go to the island of Babeque, where the Indians say there is much gold. He did this in sight of the Admiral, from whom he was distant 16 miles. The Admiral stood towards the land all night. He shortened sail, and showed a lantern, because Pinzón would thus have an opportunity of joining him, the night being very clear, and the wind fair to come, if he had wished to do so.

. . . Monday, 26th of November The Admiral conjectured that the land he saw today S.E. of the Cabo de Campana was the island called by the Indians Bohio: it looked as if this cape was separated from the mainland. The Admiral says that all the people he has hitherto met with have very great fear of those of Caniba or Canima. They affirm that they live in the island of Bohio, which must be very large, according to all accounts. The Admiral understood that those of Caniba come to take people from their homes, they being very cowardly, and without knowledge of arms. For this cause it appears that these Indians do not settle on the seacoast, owing to being near the land of Caniba. When the natives who were on board saw a course shaped for that land, they feared to speak, thinking they were going to be eaten; nor could they rid themselves of their fear. They declared that the Canibas had only one eye and dogs’ faces. The Admiral thought they lied, and was inclined to believe that it was people from the dominions of the Gran Can who took them into captivity.

Journal of the First Voyage of Christopher Columbus

Tuesday, 27th of November Yesterday, at sunset, they arrived near a cape named Campana by the Admiral; and, as the sky was clear and the wind light, he did not wish to run in close to the land and anchor, although he had five or six singularly good havens under his lee. The Admiral also says: “How great the benefit that is to be derived from this country would be, I cannot say. It is certain that where there are such lands there must be an infinite number of things that would be profitable. But I did not remain long in one port, because I wished to see as much of the country as possible, in order to make a report upon it to your Highnesses; and besides, I do not know the language, and these people neither understand me nor any other in my company; while the Indians I have on board often misunderstand. Moreover, I have not been able to see much of the natives, because they often take to flight. But now, if our Lord pleases, I will see as much as possible, and will proceed by little and little, learning and comprehending; and I will make some of my followers learn the language. For I have perceived that there is only one language up to this point. After they understand the advantages, I shall labor to make all these people Christians. They will become so readily, because they have no religion nor idolatry, and your Highnesses will send orders to build a city and fortress, and to convert the people. I assure your Highnesses that it does not appear to me that there can be a more fertile country nor a better climate under the sun, with abundant supplies of water. This is not like the rivers of Guinea, which are all pestilential. I thank our Lord that, up to this time, there has not been a person of my company who has had so much as a headache, or been in bed from illness, except an old man who has suffered from the stone all his life, and he was well again in two days. I speak of all three vessels. If it will please God that your Highnesses should send learned men out here, they will see the truth of all I have said. I have related already how good a place Rio de Mares would be for a town and fortress, and this is perfectly true; but it bears no comparison with this place, nor with the Mar de Nuestra Señora. For here there must be a large population, and very valuable productions, which I hope to discover before I return to Castile. I say that if Christendom will find profit among these people, how much more will Spain, to whom the whole country should be subject. Your Highnesses ought not to consent that any stranger should trade here, or put his foot in the country, except Catholic Christians, for this was the beginning and end of the undertaking; namely,

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the increase and glory of the Christian religion, and that no one should come to these parts who was not a good Christian.”

. . . Monday, 3rd of December The Admiral assures the Sovereigns that ten thousand of these men would run from ten, so cowardly and timid are they. No arms are carried by them, except wands, on the point of which a short piece of wood is fixed, hardened by fire, and these they are very ready to exchange. Returning to where he had left the boats, he sent back some men up the hill, because he fancied he had seen a large apiary. Before those he had sent could return, they were joined by many Indians, and they went to the boats, where the Admiral was waiting with all his people. One of the natives advanced into the river near the stern of the boat, and made a long speech, which the Admiral did not understand. At intervals the other Indians raised their hands to Heaven, and shouted. The Admiral thought he was assuring him that he was pleased at his arrival; but he saw the Indian who came from the ship change the color of his face, and turn as yellow as wax, trembling much, and letting the Admiral know by signs that he should leave the river, as they were going to kill him. He pointed to a cross-bow which one of the Spaniards had, and showed it to the Indians, and the Admiral let it be understood that they would all be slain, because that cross-bow carried far and killed people. He also took a sword and drew it out of the sheath, showing it to them, and saying the same, which, when they had heard, they all took to flight; while the Indian from the ship still trembled from cowardice, though he was a tall, strong man. The Admiral did not want to leave the river, but pulled towards the place where the natives had assembled in great numbers, all painted, and as naked as when their mothers bore them. Some had tufts of feathers on their heads, and all had their bundles of darts. The Admiral says: “I came to them, and gave them some mouthfuls of bread, asking for the darts, for which I gave in exchange copper ornaments, bells, and glass beads. This made them peaceable, so that they came to the boats again, and gave us what they had. The sailors had killed a turtle, and the shell was in the boat in pieces. The sailor-boys gave them some in exchange for a bundle of darts. These are like the other people we have seen, and with the same belief that we came from Heaven. They are ready to give whatever thing they have in exchange for any trifle without saying it is little; and I believe they would do the same with gold and spices if they had any.

Journal of the First Voyage of Christopher Columbus

I saw a fine house, not very large, and with two doors, as all the rest have. On entering, I saw a marvelous work, there being rooms made in a peculiar way, that I scarcely know how to describe it. Shells and other things were fastened to the ceiling. I thought it was a temple, and I called them and asked, by signs, whether prayers were offered up there. They said that they were not, and one of them climbed up and offered me all the things that were there, of which I took some.”

. . . Monday, 17th of December It blew very hard during the night from E. N. E., but there was not much sea, as this part of the coast is enclosed and sheltered by the island of Tortuga. The sailors were sent away to fish with nets. They had much intercourse with the natives, who brought them certain arrows of the Caniba or Canibales. They are made of reeds, pointed with sharp bits of wood hardened by fire, and are very long. They pointed out two men who wanted certain pieces of flesh on their bodies, giving to understand that the Canibales had eaten them by mouthfuls. The Admiral did not believe it. Some Christians were again sent to the village, and, in exchange for glass beads, obtained some pieces of gold beaten out into fine leaf. They saw one man, whom the Admiral supposed to be Governor of that province, called by them Cacique, with a piece of gold leaf as large as a hand, and it appears that he wanted to barter with it. He went into his house, and the other remained in the open space outside. He cut the leaf into small pieces, and each time he came out he brought a piece and exchanged it. When he had no more left, he said by signs that he had sent for more, and that he would bring it another day.

. . . Saturday, 22nd of December At dawn the Admiral made sail to shape a course in search of the islands which the Indians had told him contained much gold, some of them having more gold than earth. But the weather was not favorable, so he anchored again, and sent away the boat to fish with a net. The lord of that land, who had a place near there, sent a large canoe full of people, including one of his principal attendants, to invite the Admiral to come with the ships to his land, where he would give him all he wanted. The chief sent, by this servant, a girdle which, instead of a purse, had attached to it a mask with two large ears made of beaten gold, the tongue, and the nose. These people are

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very open-hearted, and whatever they are asked for they give most willingly; while, when they themselves ask for anything, they do so as if receiving a great favor. So says the Admiral. They brought the canoe alongside the boat, and gave the girdle to a boy; then they came on board with their mission. It took a good part of the day before they could be understood. Not even the Indians who were on board understood them well, because they have some differences of words for the names of things. At last their invitation was understood by signs. The Admiral determined to start tomorrow, although he did not usually sail on a Sunday, owing to a devout feeling, and not on account of any superstition whatever. But in the hope that these people would become Christians through the willingness they show, and that they will be subjects of the Sovereigns of Castile, and because he now holds them to be so, and that they may serve with love, he wished and endeavored to please them. Before leaving, today, the Admiral sent six men to a large village three leagues to the westward, because the chief had come the day before and said that he had some pieces of gold. When the Christians arrived, the secretary of the Admiral, who was one of them, took the chief by the hand. The Admiral had sent him, to prevent the others from imposing upon the Indians. As the Indians are so simple, and the Spaniards so avaricious and grasping, it does not suffice that the Indians should give them all they want in exchange for a bead or a bit of glass, but the Spaniards would take everything without any return at all. The Admiral always prohibits this, although, with the exception of gold, the things given by the Indians are of little value. But the Admiral, seeing the simplicity of the Indians, and that they will give a piece of gold in exchange for six beads, gave the order that nothing should be received from them unless something had been given in exchange.

. . . Tuesday, 25th of December. Christmas Navigating yesterday, with little wind, from Santo Tome to Punta Santa, and being a league from it, at about eleven o’clock at night the Admiral went down to get some sleep, for he had not had any rest for two days and a night. As it was calm, the sailor who steered the ship thought he would go to sleep, leaving the tiller in charge of a boy. The Admiral had forbidden this throughout the voyage, whether it was blowing or whether it was calm. The boys were never to be entrusted with the helm. The Admiral had no anxiety respecting sand-banks and rocks, because, when he sent the boats to that king on Sunday, they had passed to the east of Punta Santa at least

Journal of the First Voyage of Christopher Columbus

three leagues and a half, and the sailors had seen all the coast, and the rocks there are from Punta Santa, for a distance of three leagues to the E.S.E. They saw the course that should be taken, which had not been the case before, during this voyage. It pleased our Lord that, at twelve o’clock at night, when the Admiral had retired to rest, and when all had fallen asleep, seeing that it was a dead calm and the sea like glass, the tiller being in the hands of a boy, the current carried the ship on one of the sand-banks. If it had not been night the bank could have been seen, and the surf on it could be heard for a good league. But the ship ran upon it so gently that it could scarcely be felt. The boy, who felt the helm and heard the rush of the sea, cried out. The Admiral at once came up, and so quickly that no one had felt that the ship was aground. Presently the master of the ship, whose watch it was, came on deck. The Admiral ordered him and others to launch the boat, which was on the poop, and lay out an anchor astern. The master, with several others, got into the boat, and the Admiral thought that they did so with the object of obeying his orders. But they did so in order to take refuge with the caravel, which was half a league to leeward. The caravel would not allow them to come on board, acting judiciously, and they therefore returned to the ship; but the caravel’s boat arrived first. When the Admiral saw that his own people fled in this way, the water rising and the ship being across the sea, seeing no other course, he ordered the masts to be cut away and the ship to be lightened as much as possible, to see if she would come off. But, as the water continued to rise, nothing more could be done. Her side fell over across the sea, but it was nearly calm. Then the timbers opened, and the ship was lost. The Admiral went to the caravel to arrange about the reception of the ship’s crew, and as a light breeze was blowing from the land, and continued during the greater part of the night, while it was unknown how far the bank extended, he hove her to until daylight. He then went back to the ship, inside the reef; first having sent a boat on shore with Diego de Arana of Cordova, alguazil of the fleet, and Pedro Gutierrez, gentleman of the king’s bedchamber, to inform the king, who had invited the ships to come on the previous Saturday. His town was about a league and a half from the sand-bank. They reported that he wept when he heard the news, and he sent all his people with large canoes to unload the ship. This was done, and they landed all there was between decks in a very short time. Such was the great promptitude and diligence shown by that king. He himself, with brothers and relations, was actively assisting as well in the ship as in the care of the property when it was landed, that all might be properly guarded. Now and then he sent one of his relations weeping to the Admiral, to console him,

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saying that he must not feel sorrow or annoyance, for he would supply all that was needed. The Admiral assured the Sovereigns that there could not have been such good watch kept in any part of Castile, for that there was not even a needle missing. He ordered that all the property should be placed by some houses which the king placed at his disposal, until they were emptied, when everything would be stowed and guarded in them. Armed men were placed round the stores to watch all night. “The king and all his people wept [says the Admiral]. They are a loving people, without covetousness, and fit for anything; and I assure your Highnesses that there is no better land nor people. They love their neighbors as themselves, and their speech is the sweetest and gentlest in the world, and always with a smile. Men and women go as naked as when their mothers bore them. Your Highnesses should believe that they have very good customs among themselves. The king is a man of remarkable presence, and with a certain self-contained manner that is a pleasure to see. They have good memories, wish to see everything, and ask the use of what they see.” All this is written by the Admiral.

Wednesday, 26th of December Today, at sunrise, the king of that land came to the caravel Niña, where the Admiral was, and said to him, almost weeping, that he need not be sorry, for that he would give him all he had; that he had placed two large houses at the disposal of the Christians who were on shore, and that he would give more if they were required, and as many canoes as could load from the ship and discharge on shore, with as many people as were wanted. This had all been done yesterday, without so much as a needle being missed. “So honest are they,” says the Admiral, “without any covetousness for the goods of others, and so above all was that virtuous king.” While the Admiral was talking to him, another canoe arrived from a different place, bringing some pieces of gold, which the people in the canoe wanted to exchange for a hawk’s bell; for there was nothing they desired more than these bells. They had scarcely come alongside when they called and held up the gold, saying Chuq chuq for the bells, for they are quite mad about them. After the king had seen this, and when the canoes which came from other places had departed, he called the Admiral and asked him to give orders that one of the bells was to be kept for another day, when he would bring four pieces of gold the size of a man’s hand. The Admiral rejoiced to hear this, and afterwards a sailor, who came from the shore, told him that it was wonderful what pieces of gold the men

Journal of the First Voyage of Christopher Columbus

on shore were getting in exchange for next to nothing. For a needle they got a piece of gold worth two castellanos, and that this was nothing to what it would be within a month. The king rejoiced much when he saw that the Admiral was pleased. He understood that his friend wanted much gold, and he said, by signs, that he knew where there was, in the vicinity, a very large quantity; so that he must be in good heart, for he should have as much as he wanted. He gave some account of it, especially saying that in Cipango, which they call Cibao, it is so abundant that it is of no value, and that they will bring it, although there is also much more in the island of Española, which they call Bohio, and in the province of Caritaba. The king dined on board the caravel with the Admiral and afterwards went on shore, where he received the Admiral with much honor. He gave him a collation consisting of three or four kinds of ajes, with shrimps and game, and other viands they have, besides the bread they call cazavi. He then took the Admiral to see some groves of trees near the houses, and they were accompanied by at least a thousand people, all naked. The lord had on a shirt and a pair of gloves, given to him by the Admiral, and he was more delighted with the gloves than with anything else. In his manner of eating, both as regards the highbred air and the peculiar cleanliness he clearly showed his nobility. After he had eaten, he remained some time at table, and they brought him certain herbs, with which he rubbed his hands. The Admiral thought that this was done to make them soft, and they also gave him water for his hands. After the meal he took the Admiral to the beach. The Admiral then sent for a Turkish bow and a quiver of arrows, and took a shot at a man of his company, who had been warned. The chief, who knew nothing about arms, as they neither have them nor use them, thought this a wonderful thing. He, however, began to talk of those of Caniba, whom they call Caribes. They come to capture the natives, and have bows and arrows without iron, of which there is no memory in any of these lands, nor of steel, nor any other metal except gold and copper. Of copper the Admiral had only seen very little. The Admiral said, by signs, that the Sovereigns of Castile would order the Caribs to be destroyed, and that all should be taken with their hands tied together. He ordered a lombard and a hand-gun to be fired off, and seeing the effect caused by its force and what the shots penetrated, the king was astonished. When his people heard the explosion they all fell on the ground. They brought the Admiral a large mask, which had pieces of gold for the eyes and ears and in other parts, and this they gave, with other trinkets of gold that the same king had put on the head and round the neck of the Admiral, and of other Christians, to whom they also gave many pieces. The Admiral

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received much pleasure and consolation from these things, which tempered the anxiety and sorrow he felt at the loss of the ship. He knew our Lord had caused the ship to stop here, that a settlement might be formed. “From this,” he says, “originated so many things that, in truth, the disaster was really a piece of good fortune. For it is certain that, if I had not lost the ship, I should have gone on without anchoring in this place, which is within a great bay, having two or three reefs of rock. I should not have left people in the country during this voyage, nor even, if I had desired to leave them, should I have been able to obtain so much information, nor such supplies and provisions for a fortress. And true it is that many people had asked me to give them leave to remain. Now I have given orders for a tower and a fort, both well built, and a large cellar, not because I believe that such defenses will be necessary. I believe that with the force I have with me I could subjugate the whole island, which I believe to be larger than Portugal, and the population double. But they are naked and without arms, and hopelessly timid. Still, it is advisable to build this tower, being so far from your Highnesses. The people may thus know the skill of the subjects of your Highnesses, and what they can do; and will obey them with love and fear. So they make preparations to build the fortress, with provision of bread and wine for more than a year, with seeds for sowing, the ship’s boat, a caulker and carpenter, a gunner and cooper. Many among these men have a great desire to serve your Highnesses and to please me, by finding out where the mine is whence the gold is brought. Thus everything is got in readiness to begin the work. Above all, it was so calm that there was scarcely wind or wave when the ship ran aground.” This is what the Admiral says; and he adds more to show that it was great good luck, and the settled design of God, that the ship should be lost in order that people might be left behind. If it had not been for the treachery of the master and his boat’s crew, who were all or mostly his countrymen, in neglecting to lay out the anchor so as to haul the ship off in obedience to the Admiral’s orders, she would have been saved. In that case, the same knowledge of the land as has been gained in these days would not have been secured, for the Admiral always proceeded with the object of discovering, and never intended to stop more than a day at any one place, unless he was detained by the wind. Still, the ship was very heavy and unsuited for discovery. It was the people of Palos who obliged him to take such a ship, by not complying “with what they had promised to the King and Queen, namely, to supply suitable vessels for this expedition. This they did not do. Of all that there was on board the ship, not a needle, nor a board, nor a nail was lost, for she remained as whole as when she sailed, except that it was

Journal of the First Voyage of Christopher Columbus

necessary to cut away and level down in order to get out the jars and merchandise, which were landed and carefully guarded.” He trusted in God that, when he returned from Spain, according to his intention, he would find a ton of gold collected by barter by those he was to leave behind, and that they would have found the mine, and spices in such quantities that the Sovereigns would, in three years, be able to undertake and fit out an expedition to go and conquer the Holy Sepulchre. “With this in view,” he says, “I protested to your Highnesses that all the profits of this my enterprise should be spent in the conquest of Jerusalem, and your Highnesses laughed and said that it pleased them, and that, without this, they entertained that desire.” These are the Admiral’s words.

Thursday, 27th of December The king of that land came alongside the caravel at sunrise, and said that he had sent for gold, and that he would collect all he could before the Admiral departed; but he begged him not to go. The king and one of his brothers, with another very intimate relation, dined with the Admiral, and the two latter said they wished to go to Castile with him. At this time the news came that the caravel Pinta was in a river at the end of this island. Presently the cacique sent a canoe there, and the Admiral sent a sailor in it. For it was wonderful how devoted the cacique was to the Admiral. The necessity was now evident of hurrying on preparations for the return to Castile.

. . . Monday, 31st of December Today the Admiral was occupied in seeing that water and fuel were taken on board for the voyage to Spain, to give early notice to the Sovereigns, that they might dispatch ships to complete the discoveries. For now the business appeared to be so great and important that the Admiral was astonished. He did not wish to go until he had examined all the land to the eastward, and explored the coast, so as to know the route to Castile, with a view to sending sheep and cattle. But as he had been left with only a single vessel, it did not appear prudent to encounter the dangers that are inevitable in making discoveries. He complained that all this inconvenience had been caused by the caravel Pinta having parted company.

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. . . Wednesday, 2nd of January In the morning the Admiral went on shore to take leave of the King Guacanagari, and to depart from him in the name of the Lord. . . . In order to show him the force of the lombards, and what effect they had, he ordered one to be loaded and fired into the side of the ship that was on shore, for this was apposite to the conversation respecting the Caribs, with whom Guacanagari was at war. The king saw whence the lombard-shot came, and how it passed through the side of the ship and went far away over the sea. The Admiral also ordered a skirmish of the crews of the ships, fully armed, saying to the cacique that he need have no fear of the Caribs even if they should come. All this was done that the king might look upon the men who were left behind as friends, and that he might also have a proper fear of them. . . . He left on that island of Española, which the Indians called Bohio, 39 men with the fortress, and he says that they were great friends of Guacanagari. The lieutenants placed over them were Diego de Arana of Cordova, Pedro Gutierrez, keeper of the king’s drawing-room, and servant of the chief butler, and Rodrigo de Escovedo, a native of Segovia, nephew of Fray Rodrigo Perez, with all the powers he himself received from the Sovereigns. He left behind all the merchandise which had been provided for bartering, which was much, that they might trade for gold. He also left the ship’s boat, that they, most of them being sailors, might go, when the time seemed convenient, to discover the gold mine, in order that the Admiral, on his return, might find much gold. They were also to find a good site for a town, for this was not altogether a desirable port; especially as the gold the natives brought came from the east; also, the farther to the east the nearer to Spain. He also left seeds for sowing, and his officers, the alguazil and secretary, as well as a ship’s carpenter, a caulker, a good gunner familiar with engineering . . ., a cooper, a physician, and a tailor, all being seamen as well.

Thursday, 3rd of January The Admiral did not go today. . . . The sea also was rather rough, so that they could not land from the boat. He determined to depart tomorrow, with the grace of God. The Admiral said that if he had the caravel Pinta with him he could make sure of shipping a ton of gold, because he could then follow the coasts of these islands, which he would not do alone, for fear some accident might impede his return to Castile, and prevent him from

Journal of the First Voyage of Christopher Columbus

reporting all he had discovered to the Sovereigns. If it was certain that the caravel Pinta would arrive safely in Spain with Martin Alonso Pinzón, he would not hesitate to act as he desired; but as he had no certain tidings of him, and as he might return and tell lies to the Sovereigns, that he might not receive the punishment he deserved for having done so much harm in having parted company without permission, and impeded the good service that might have been done, the Admiral could only trust in our Lord that he would grant favorable weather, and remedy all things.

. . . Sunday, 6th of January After noon it blew fresh from the east. The Admiral ordered a sailor to go to the masthead to look out for reefs, and he saw the caravel Pinta coming, with the wind aft, and she joined the Admiral. As there was no place to anchor, owing to the rocky bottom, the Admiral returned for ten leagues to Monte Cristi, with the Pinta in company. Martin Alonso Pinzón came on board the caravel Niña, where the Admiral was, and excused himself by saying that he had parted company against his will, giving reasons for it. But the Admiral says that they were all false; and that on the night when Pinzón parted company he was influenced by pride and covetousness. He could not understand whence had come the insolence and disloyalty with which Pinzón had treated him during the voyage. The Admiral had taken no notice, because he did not wish to give place to the evil works of Satan, who desired to impede the voyage. It appeared that one of the Indians, who had been put on board the caravel by the Admiral with others, had said that there was much gold in an island called Baneque, and, as Pinzón’s vessel was light and swift, he determined to go there, parting company with the Admiral, who wished to remain and explore the coasts of Juana and Española, with an easterly course. When Martin Alonso arrived at the island of Baneque he found no gold. He then went to the coast of Española, on information from the Indians that there was a great quantity of gold and many mines in that island of Española, which the Indians call Bohio. He thus arrived near the Villa de Navidad, about 15 leagues from it, having then been absent more than twenty days, so that the news brought by the Indians was correct, on account of which the King Guacanagari sent a canoe, and the Admiral put a sailor on board; but the Pinta must have gone before the canoe arrived. The Admiral says that the Pinta obtained much gold by barter, receiving large pieces the size of two fingers in exchange

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for a needle. Martin Alonso took half, dividing the other half among the crew . . .

. . . Tuesday, 8th of January As the wind was blowing fresh from the east and S.E., the Admiral did not get under way this morning. He ordered the caravel to be filled up with wood and water and with all other necessaries for the voyage. He wished to explore all the coast of Española in this direction. But those he appointed to the caravels as captains were brothers, namely, Martin Alonso Pinzón and Vicente [Yáñez]. They also had followers who were filled with pride and avarice, considering that all now belonged to them, and unmindful of the honor the Admiral had done them. They had not and did not obey his orders, but did and said many unworthy things against him; while Martin Alonso had deserted him from the 21st of November until the 6th of January without cause or reason, but from disaffection. All these things had been endured in silence by the Admiral in order to secure a good end to the voyage. He determined to return as quickly as possible, to get rid of such an evil company, with whom he thought it necessary to dissimulate, although they were a mutinous set, and though he also had with him many good men; for it was not a fitting time for dealing out punishment . . .

Wednesday, 9th of January The Admiral says that this night, in the name of our Lord, he would set out on his homeward voyage without any further delay whatever, for he had found what he sought, and he did not wish to have further cause of offence with Martin Alonso until their Highnesses should know the news of the voyage and what had been done. Afterwards he says, “I will not suffer the deeds of evil-disposed persons, with little worth, who, without respect for him to whom they owe their positions, presume to set up their own wills with little ceremony.”

Thursday, 10th of January He departed from the place where he had anchored, and at sunset he reached a river, to which he gave the name of Rio de Gracia, three leagues to the S.E. He came to at the mouth, where there is good anchorage on the east side.

Journal of the First Voyage of Christopher Columbus

There is a bar with no more than two fathoms of water, and very narrow across the entrance. It is a good and well-sheltered port, except that there are many shipworms, owing to which the caravel Pinta, under Martin Alonso, received a good deal of damage. He had been here bartering for 16 days, and got much gold, which was what Martin Alonso wanted. As soon as he heard from the Indians that the Admiral was on the coast of the same island of Española, and that he could not avoid him, Pinzón came to him. He wanted all the people of the ship to swear that he had not been there more than six days. But his treachery was so public that it could not be concealed. He had made a law that half of all the gold that was collected was his. When he left this port he took four men and two girls by force. But the Admiral ordered that they should be clothed and put on shore to return to their homes. “This,” the Admiral says, “is a service of your Highnesses. For all the men and women are subjects of your Highnesses, as well in this island as in the others. Here, where your Highnesses already have a settlement, the people ought to be treated with honor and favor, seeing that this island has so much gold and such good spice-yielding lands.”

. . . Wednesday, 23rd of January Tonight the wind was very changeable, but, making the allowances applied by good sailors, they made 84 miles, or 21 leagues, N.E. by N. Many times the caravel Niña had to wait for the Pinta, because she sailed badly when on a bowline, the mizzen being of little use owing to the weakness of the mast. He says that if her captain, that is, Martin Alonso Pinzón, had taken the precaution to provide her with a good mast in the Indies, where there are so many and such excellent spars, instead of deserting his commander from motives of avarice, he would have done better.

Thursday, 14th of February This night the wind increased, and the waves were terrible, rising against each other, and so shaking and straining the vessel that she could make no headway, and was in danger of being stove in. They carried the mainsail very closely reefed, so as just to give her steerage-way, and proceeded thus for three hours, making 20 miles. Meanwhile, the wind and sea increased, and, seeing the great danger, the Admiral began to run before it, there being nothing else to be done. The caravel Pinta began to run before the wind at

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the same time, and Martin Alonso ran her out of sight, although the Admiral kept showing lanterns all night, and the other answered. It would seem that she could do no more, owing to the force of the tempest, and she was taken far from the route of the Admiral. He steered that night E.N.E., and made 54 miles, equal to 13 leagues. At sunrise the wind blew still harder, and the cross sea was terrific. They continued to show the closely-reefed mainsail, to enable her to rise from between the waves, or she would otherwise have been swamped. An E.N.E. course was steered, and afterwards N.E. by E. for six hours, making 71 leagues. The Admiral ordered that a pilgrimage should be made to Our Lady of Guadalupe, carrying a candle of 6 lbs. of weight in wax, and that all the crew should take an oath that the pilgrimage should be made by the man on whom the lot fell. As many chickpeas were got as there were persons on board, and on one a cross was cut with a knife. They were then put into a cap and shaken up. The first who put in his hand was the Admiral, and he drew out the chick-pea with a cross, so the lot fell on him; and he was bound to go on the pilgrimage and fulfil the vow. Another lot was drawn, to go on pilgrimage to Our Lady of Loreto, which is in the march of Ancona, in the Papal territory, a house where Our Lady works many and great miracles. The lot fell on a sailor of the port of Santa María, named Pedro de Villa, and the Admiral promised to pay his travelling expenses. Another pilgrimage was agreed upon, to watch for one night in Santa Clara at Moguer, and have a mass said, for which they again used the chickpeas, including the one with a cross. The lot again fell on the Admiral. After this the Admiral and all the crew made a vow that, on arriving at the first land, they would all go in procession, in their shirts, to say their prayers in a church dedicated to Our Lady. Besides these general vows made in common, each sailor made a special vow; for no one expected to escape, holding themselves for lost, owing to the fearful weather from which they were suffering. The want of ballast increased the danger of the ship, which had become light, owing to the consumption of the provisions and water. On account of the favorable weather enjoyed among the islands, the Admiral had omitted to make provision for this need, thinking that ballast might be taken on board at the island inhabited by women, which he had intended to visit. The only thing to do was to fill the barrels that had contained wine or fresh water with water from the sea, and this supplied a remedy. To remedy this, and that their Highnesses might know how our Lord had granted a victory in all that could be desired respecting the Indies, and that they might understand that there were no storms in those parts, which may

Journal of the First Voyage of Christopher Columbus

be known by the herbs and trees which grow even within the sea; also that the Sovereigns might still have information, even if he perished in the storm, he took a parchment and wrote on it as good an account as he could of all he had discovered, entreating anyone who might pick it up to deliver it to the Sovereigns. He rolled this parchment up in waxed cloth, fastened it very securely, ordered a large wooden barrel to be brought, and put it inside, so that no one else knew what it was. They thought that it was some act of devotion, and so he ordered the barrel to be thrown into the sea. Afterwards, in the showers and squalls, the wind veered to the west, and they went before it, only with the foresail, in a very confused sea, for five hours. They made 21 leagues N.E. They had taken in the reefed mainsail, for fear some wave of the sea should carry all away.

. . . Monday, 18th of February Yesterday, after sunset, the Admiral was sailing round the island, to see where he could anchor and open communications. He let go one anchor, which he presently lost, and then stood off and on all night. After sunrise he again reached the north side of the island, where he anchored, and sent the boat on shore. They had speech with the people, and found that it was the island of Santa María, one of the Azores. They pointed out the port to which the caravel should go.

Tuesday, 19th of February After sunset three natives of the island came to the beach and hailed. The Admiral sent the boat, which returned with fowls and fresh bread. It was carnival time, and they brought other things which were sent by the captain of the island, named Juan de Castañeda, saying that he knew the Admiral very well, and that he did not come to see him because it was night, but that at dawn he would come with more refreshments, bringing with him three men of the boat’s crew, whom he did not send back owing to the great pleasure he derived from hearing their account of the voyage. The Admiral ordered much respect to be shown to the messengers, and that they should be given beds to sleep in that night, because it was late, and the town was far off. As on the previous Thursday, when they were in the midst of the storm, they had made a vow to go in procession to a church of Our Lady as soon as they came to land, the Admiral arranged that half the crew should

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go to comply with their obligation to a small chapel, like a hermitage, near the shore; and that he would himself go afterwards with the rest. Believing that it was a peaceful land, and confiding in the offers of the captain of the island, and in the peace that existed between Spain and Portugal, he asked the three men to go to the town and arrange for a priest to come and say mass. The half of the crew then went in their shirts, in compliance with their vow. While they were at their prayers, all the people of the town, horse and foot, with the captain at their head, came and took them all prisoners. The Admiral, suspecting nothing, was waiting for the boat to take him and the rest to accomplish the vow. At 11 o’clock, seeing that they did not come back, he feared that they had been detained, or that the boat had been swamped, all the island being surrounded by high rocks. He could not see what had taken place, because the hermitage was round a point. He got up the anchor, and made sail until he was in full view of the hermitage, and he saw many of the horsemen dismount and get into the boat with arms. They came to the caravel to seize the Admiral. The captain stood up in the boat, and asked for an assurance of safety from the Admiral, who replied that he granted it; but, what outrage was this, that he saw none of his people in the boat? The Admiral added that they might come on board, and that he would do all that might be proper. The Admiral tried, with fair words, to get hold of this captain, that he might recover his own people, not considering that he broke faith by giving him security, because he had offered peace and security, and had then broken his word. The captain, as he came with an evil intention, would not come on board. Seeing that he did not come alongside, the Admiral asked that he might be told the reason for the detention of his men, an act which would displease the King of Portugal, because the Portuguese received much honor in the territories of the King of Castile, and were as safe as if they were in Lisbon. He further said that the Sovereigns had given him letters of recommendation to all the Lords and Princes of the world, which he would show the captain if he would come on board; that he was the Admiral of the Ocean Sea, and Viceroy of the Indies, which belonged to their Highnesses, and that he would show the commissions signed with their signatures, and attested by their seals, which he held up from a distance.

Thursday, 21st of February Yesterday the Admiral left that island of Santa María for that of San Miguel, to see if a port could be found to shelter his vessel from the bad weather.

Journal of the First Voyage of Christopher Columbus

There was much wind and a high sea, and he was sailing until night without being able to see either one land or the other, owing to the thick weather caused by wind and sea. The Admiral says he was in much anxiety, because he only had three sailors who knew their business, the rest knowing nothing of seamanship. . . . After sunrise the island of San Miguel was not in sight, so the Admiral determined to return to Santa María, to see if he could recover his people and boat, and the anchors and cables he had left there.

Friday, 22nd of February Yesterday the Admiral anchored off Santa María, in the place or port where he had first anchored. Presently a man came down to some rocks at the edge of the beach, signaling that they were not to go away. Soon afterwards the boat came with five sailors, two priests, and a scrivener. They asked for safety, and when it was granted by the Admiral, they came on board, and as it was night they slept on board, the Admiral showing them all the civility he could. In the morning they asked to be shown the authority of the Sovereigns of Castile, by which the voyage had been made. The Admiral felt that they did this to give some color of right to what they had done, and to show that they had right on their side. As they were unable to secure the person of the Admiral, whom they intended to get into their power when they came with the boat armed, they now feared that their game might not turn out so well, thinking, with some fear, of what the Admiral had threatened, and which he proposed to put into execution. In order to get his people released, the Admiral displayed the general letter of the Sovereigns to all Princes and Lords, and other documents, and having given them of what he had, the Portuguese went on shore satisfied, and presently released all the crew and the boat. The Admiral heard from them that if he had been captured also, they never would have been released, for the captain said that those were the orders of the King his Lord.

. . . Monday, 4th of March Thus God preserved them until daylight, though all the time they were in infinite fear and trouble. When it was light, the Admiral knew the land, which was the rock of Cintra, near the river of Lisbon, and he resolved to run in because there was nothing else to be done. So terrible was the storm, that in the village of Cascaes, at the mouth of the river, the people

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were praying for the little vessel all that morning. After they were inside, the people came off, looking upon their escape as a miracle. . . . Presently the Admiral wrote to the king of Portugal, who was then at a distance of nine leagues, to state that the Sovereigns of Castile had ordered him to enter the ports of his Highness, and ask for what he required for payment, and requesting that the king would give permission for the caravel to come to Lisbon, because some ruffians, hearing that he had much gold on board, might attempt a robbery in an unfrequented port, knowing that they did not come from Guinea, but from the Indies.

Tuesday, 5th of March Today the great ship of the King of Portugal was also at anchor off Rastelo, with the best provision of artillery and arms that the Admiral had ever seen. The master of her, named Bartolome Diaz, of Lisbon, came in an armed boat to the caravel, and ordered the Admiral to get into the boat, to go and give an account of himself to the agents of the king and to the captain of that ship. The Admiral replied that he was the Admiral of the Sovereigns of Castile, and that he would not give an account to any such persons, nor would he leave the ship except by force, as he had not the power to resist. The master replied that he must then send the master of the caravel. The Admiral answered that neither the master nor any other person should go except by force, for if he allowed anyone to go, it would be as if he went himself; and that such was the custom of the Admirals of the Sovereigns of Castile, rather to die than to submit, or to let any of their people submit. The master then moderated his tone, and told the Admiral that if that was his determination he might do as he pleased. He, however, requested that he might be shown the letters of the Kings of Castile, if they were on board. The Admiral readily showed them, and the master returned to the ship and reported what had happened to the captain, named Alvaro Dama. That officer, making great festival with trumpets and drums, came to the caravel to visit the Admiral, and offered to do all that he might require.

. . . Friday, 15th of March Yesterday, after sunset, she went on her course with little wind, and at sunrise she was off Saltes. At noon, with the tide rising, they crossed the bar of Saltes, and reached the port which they had left on the 3rd of August

Journal of the First Voyage of Christopher Columbus

of the year before. The Admiral says that so ends this journal, unless it becomes necessary to go to Barcelona by sea, having received news that their Highnesses are in that city, to give an account of all his voyage which our Lord had permitted him to make . . . “I know respecting this voyage,” says the Admiral, “that he has miraculously shown his will, as may be seen from this journal, setting forth the numerous miracles that have been displayed in the voyage, and in me who was so long at the court of your Highnesses, working in opposition to and against the opinions of so many chief persons of your household, who were all against me, looking upon this enterprise as folly. But I hope, in our Lord, that it will be a great benefit to Christianity, for so it has ever appeared.” These are the final words of the Admiral Don Cristobal Colon respecting his first voyage to the Indies and their discovery.

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4 The Letters of Christopher Columbus Announcing His Discoveries In addition to the journals that he kept on his voyage, Columbus wrote six letters describing his accomplishments. The first he claimed to have written on February 14, 1493, to Fernando and Isabel during a terrible storm that threatened his ship. This letter he placed in a barrel and threw into the sea in the hopes that if the ship went down some memory of his accomplishments would survive. The second and third were two virtually identical letters supposedly written on February 15 to his friends Luis de Santángel and Rafael Sánchez, who were officials of the court and who had helped him gain royal permission to sail. The fifth and sixth he wrote on March 4 to the king of Portugal and to Fernando and Isabel while he was stopping over in Lisbon.1 Until 1989, the only version of the letter known to exist was that sent to Luis Santángel and Rafael Sánchez, which was widely published. The others had disappeared. But in 1989, “Antonio Rumeu de Armas published a transcription of an authenticated sixteenth-century copy of Columbus’s Libro Copiador,” or copy book, in which he kept personal copies of important documents.2 Among these copies was the long missing March 4 letter to the Sovereigns of Spain, which was not translated into English until 1993 by Margarita Zamora.3 As Margarita Zamora noted in her introduction to the letter to the sovereigns, a comparison of these two letters reveals that Columbus constructed his narratives to suit his audience, or perhaps the SantángelSanchez version was a sanitized, whitewashed, and heroic version restructured for use as political propaganda.4

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Though the letters follow a similar narrative structure and contain much of the same information, some information is clearly suppressed in the letter to Santángel-Sánchez. The Santángel-Sánchez version of the letter suppresses information that might assist competitors in locating the islands and in knowing which ships served best for the purposes of exploration. It avoids any information that might cast the expedition in a bad light. For example, this letter does not mention the conflict with Martín Alonso Pinzón, the grounding of the Santa María, or the ridicule Columbus experienced in Spain before the voyage.5 But, in the letter to the sovereigns, Columbus was much more candid and self-promoting. In it Columbus complained that the members of his party did not serve him well, and he directly criticized Martín Alonso Pinzón. He mentioned that he left the men from the Santa María in a fort with provisions without stating that the ship had been wrecked.6 He complained openly that he had been mistreated, and he petitioned the Crown for greater privileges because of his service, including a cardinalate for his underage son. In this case, he arrogantly compared his family to that of the Medicis of Florence, and he offered what appears to be a poorly veiled accusation that the monarchs were guilty of the sin of ingratitude. Columbus also suggested that the ultimate goal of his voyage was the conquest of the Holy Land.7 Many scholars now believe the letter to Luís Santángel “is a revised version of a lost Columbian original, doctored by royal officials at the behest of Fernando and Isabel, who were in Barcelona when the original letter arrived.”8 In some editions they attempted to show that the islands Columbus had discovered were near to the Canaries by shortening the voyage from thirty-three to twenty days, placing the newly discovered islands on the same latitude as the Canaries, and changing Columbus’s February 15 statement that he was by the Azores to state that he was off the Canaries.9 Columbus’s letter to the Crown must be seen in the context of the probanzas de mérito. These were reports sent to the Crown by men who led campaigns of conquest during the protracted wars called the reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula (711–1492) and the conquest of the Canary Islands (fourteenth and fifteenth centuries). The probanzas’s purpose was to inform the Crown of newly conquered lands and to demonstrate their suitability for colonization by describing the native inhabitants and exploitable sources of wealth (usually precious metals). They also sought to portray the author as a daring, noble, self-sacrificing man who sought only to serve the

The Letters of Christopher Columbus Announcing His Discoveries

Crown and propagate the Christian faith—which was all meant to justify the often brutal and even illegal actions of the author. In the process, the successes and contributions of others were downplayed or ignored. All of this was done in hopes of acquiring royal patronage in the form of titles, privileges, governorships, and even monetary rewards.10 Columbus’s letters follow the pattern of the probanzas so closely that it is clear that he was influenced by this literary genre. The effect of these conflicting accounts is to pull down the mythical Columbus from the ethereal realms of the romantic conquering hero and make him human, subject to all the foibles of humanity. He becomes real and authentic, complicated and passionate, and far more interesting as a subject of historical study.

As you compare the two versions of the letters Columbus penned reporting on his voyage, consider the following questions: 1. How do the accounts differ? Why? 2. Do the differences and contradictions suggest a different narrative cloaked by Columbus’s desire for self-promotion? How do you know? 3. What might those differences suggest about Columbus and what happened on the first voyage? 4. Why does he portray the natives the way he does? 5. What discrepancies can you find between Columbus’s letters and his log? 6. How do you explain those discrepancies? 7. What do the letters and the log reveal about Columbus’s motives, goals, and fears? 8. What do the different accounts suggest about the nature of historical sources and the challenges of constructing narratives from them?

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The Letter of Christopher Columbus to Luis de Santángel, Announcing His Discovery, 1493.11 Sir: As I know you will be rejoiced at the glorious success that our Lord has given me in my voyage, I write this to tell you how in thirty-three days I sailed to the Indies with the fleet that the illustrious King and Queen, our Sovereigns, gave me, where I discovered a great many islands, inhabited by numberless people; and of all I have taken possession for their Highnesses by proclamation and display of the Royal Standard without opposition. To the first island I discovered I gave the name of San Salvador, in commemoration of His Divine Majesty, who has wonderfully granted all this. The Indians call it Guanahani. The second I named the Island of Santa María de Concepcion; the third, Fernandina; the fourth, Isabella; the fifth, Juana; and thus to each one I gave a new name. When I came to Juana, I followed the coast of that isle toward the west, and found it so extensive that I thought it might be the mainland, the province of Cathay; and as I found no towns nor villages on the sea-coast, except a few small settlements, where it was impossible to speak to the people, because they fled at once, I continued the said route, thinking I could not fail to see some great cities or towns; and finding at the end of many leagues that nothing new appeared, and that the coast led northward, contrary to my wish, because the winter had already set in, I decided to make for the south, and as the wind also was against my proceeding, I determined not to wait there longer, and turned back to a certain harbor whence I sent two men to find out whether there was any king or large city. They explored for three days, and found countless small communities and people, without number, but with no kind of government, so they returned. I heard from other Indians I had already taken that this land was an island, and thus followed the eastern coast for one hundred and seven leagues, until I came to the end of it. From that point I saw another isle to the eastward, at eighteen leagues’ distance, to which I gave the name of Hispaniola. I went thither and followed its northern coast to the east, as I had done in Juana, one hundred and seventy-eight leagues eastward, as in Juana. This island, like all the others, is most extensive. It has many ports along the sea-coast excelling any in Christendom—and many fine, large, flowing rivers. The land there is elevated, with many mountains and peaks incomparably higher than in the center isle. They are most beautiful, of a

The Letters of Christopher Columbus Announcing His Discoveries

thousand varied forms, accessible, and full of trees of endless varieties, so high that they seem to touch the sky, and I have been told that they never lose their foliage. I saw them as green and lovely as trees are in Spain in the month of May. Some of them were covered with blossoms, some with fruit, and some in other conditions, according to their kind. The nightingale and other small birds of a thousand kinds were singing in the month of November when I was there. There were palm trees of six or eight varieties, the graceful peculiarities of each one of them being worthy of admiration as are the other trees, fruits and grasses. There are wonderful pine woods, and very extensive ranges of meadow land. There is honey, and there are many kinds of birds, and a great variety of fruits. Inland there are numerous mines of metals and innumerable people. Hispaniola is a marvel. Its hills and mountains, fine plains and open country, are rich and fertile for planting and for pasturage, and for building towns and villages. The seaports there are incredibly fine, as also the magnificent rivers, most of which bear gold. The trees, fruits and grasses differ widely from those in Juana. There are many spices and vast mines of gold and other metals in this island. They have no iron, nor steel, nor weapons, nor are they fit for them, because although they are well-made men of commanding stature, they appear extraordinarily timid. The only arms they have are sticks of cane, cut when in seed, with a sharpened stick at the end, and they are afraid to use these. Often I have sent two or three men ashore to some town to converse with them, and the natives came out in great numbers, and as soon as they saw our men arrive, fled without a moment’s delay although I protected them from all injury. At every point where I landed, and succeeded in talking to them, I gave them some of everything I had—cloth and many other things—without receiving anything in return, but they are a hopelessly timid people. It is true that since they have gained more confidence and are losing this fear, they are so unsuspicious and so generous with what they possess, that no one who had not seen it would believe it. They never refuse anything that is asked for. They even offer it themselves, and show so much love that they would give their very hearts. Whether it be anything of great or small value, with any trifle of whatever kind, they are satisfied. I forbade worthless things being given to them, such as bits of broken bowls, pieces of glass, and old straps, although they were as much pleased to get them as if they were the finest jewels in the world. One sailor was found to have got for a leathern strap, gold of the weight of two and a half castellanos, and others for even more worthless things much more; while for a new blancas they would give all they had, were it two or three castellanos of pure gold or an arroba or two of spun cotton. Even bits of the broken hoops of wine casks they accepted, and

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gave in return what they had, like fools, and it seemed wrong to me. I forbade it, and gave a thousand good and pretty things that I had to win their love, and to induce them to become Christians, and to love and serve their Highnesses and the whole Castilian nation, and help to get for us things they have in abundance, which are necessary to us. They have no religion, nor idolatry, except that they all believe power and goodness to be in heaven. They firmly believed that I, with my ships and men, came from heaven, and with this idea I have been received everywhere, since they lost fear of me. They are, however, far from being ignorant. They are most ingenious men, and navigate these seas in a wonderful way, and describe everything well, but they never before saw people wearing clothes, nor vessels like ours. Directly I reached the Indies in the first isle I discovered, I took by force some of the natives, that from them we might gain some information of what there was in these parts; and so it was that we immediately understood each other, either by words or signs. They are still with me and still believe that I come from heaven. They were the first to declare this wherever I went, and the others ran from house to house, and to the towns around, crying out, “Come! come! and see the man from heaven!” Then all, both men and women, as soon as they were reassured about us, came, both small and great, all bringing something to eat and to drink, which they presented with marvelous kindness. In these isles there are a great many canoes, something like rowing boats, of all sizes, and most of them are larger than an eighteenoared galley. They are not so broad, as they are made of a single plank, but a galley could not keep up with them in rowing, because they go with incredible speed, and with these they row about among all these islands, which are innumerable, and carry on their commerce. I have seen some of these canoes with seventy and eighty men in them, and each had an oar. In all the islands I observed little difference in the appearance of the people, or in their habits and language, except that they understand each other, which is remarkable. Therefore I hope that their Highnesses will decide upon the conversion of these people to our holy faith, to which they seem much inclined. I have already stated how I sailed one hundred and seven leagues along the sea-coast of Juana, in a straight line from west to east. I can therefore assert that this island is larger than England and Scotland together, since beyond these one hundred and seven leagues there remained at the west point two provinces where I did not go, one of which they call Avan, the home of men with tails. These provinces are computed to be fifty or sixty leagues in length, as far as can be gathered from the Indians with me, who are acquainted with all these islands. This other, Hispaniola, is larger in

The Letters of Christopher Columbus Announcing His Discoveries

circumference than all Spain from Catalonia to Fuentarabia in Biscay, since upon one of its four sides I sailed one hundred and eighty-eight leagues from west to east. This is worth having, and must on no account be given up. I have taken possession of all these islands, for their Highnesses, and all may be more extensive than I know, or can say, and I hold them for their Highnesses, who can command them as absolutely as the kingdoms of Castile. In Hispaniola, in the most convenient place, most accessible for the gold mines and all commerce with the mainland on this side or with that of the great Khan, on the other, with which there would be great trade and profit, I have taken possession of a large town, which I have named the City of Navidad. I began fortifications there which should be completed by this time, and I have left in it men enough to hold it, with arms, artillery, and provisions for more than a year; and a boat with a master seaman skilled in the arts necessary to make others; I am so friendly with the king of that country that he was proud to call me his brother and hold me as such. Even should he change his mind and wish to quarrel with my men, neither he nor his subjects know what arms are, nor wear clothes, as I have said. They are the most timid people in the world, so that only the men remaining there could destroy the whole region, and run no risk if they know how to behave themselves properly. In all these islands the men seem to be satisfied with one wife except they allow as many as twenty to their chief or men. The women appear to me to work harder than the men, and so far as I can hear they have nothing of their own, for I think I perceived that what one had others shared, especially food. In the islands so far, I have found no monsters, as some expected, but, on the contrary, they are people of very handsome appearance. They are not black as in Guinea, though their hair is straight and coarse, as it does not grow where the sun’s rays are too ardent. And in truth the sun has extreme power here, since it is within twenty-six degrees of the equinoctial line. In these islands there are mountains where the cold this winter was very severe, but the people endure it from habit, and with the aid of the meat they eat with very hot spices. As for monsters, I have found no trace of them except at the point in the second isle as one enters the Indies, which is inhabited by a people considered in all the isles as most ferocious, who eat human flesh. They possess many canoes, with which they overrun all the isles of India, stealing and seizing all they can. They are not worse looking than the others, except that they wear their hair long like women, and use bows and arrows of the same cane, with a sharp stick at the end for want of iron, of which they have none. They are ferocious compared to these other races, who are extremely cowardly; but I

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Figure 4.1  Taino Dwellings and Hammock. Source:  Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, Historia generaly natural de las indias, vol. 1 (1851–1855), plate 1 Note:  Figures 5 and 6 in the upper right-hand corner are drums. Figure 7 ­below them is a tube used to take snuff. The dwelling on the left, called a caney, was for everyday use, while the one on the right, called a bohío, was used by chiefs. At the bottom is a stone axe or celt hafted to a wooden handle.

only hear this from the others. They are said to make treaties of marriage with the women in the first isle to be met with coming from Spain to the Indies, where there are no men. These women have no feminine occupation, but use bows and arrows of cane like those before mentioned, and cover and arm themselves with plates of copper, of which they have a great quantity.

The Letters of Christopher Columbus Announcing His Discoveries

Another island, I am told, is larger than Hispaniola, where the natives have no hair, and where there is countless gold; and from them all I bring Indians to testify to this. To speak, in conclusion, only of what has been done during this hurried voyage, their Highnesses will see that I can give them as much gold as they desire, if they will give me a little assistance, spices, cotton, as much as their Highnesses may command to be shipped, and mastic as much as their Highnesses choose to send for, which until now has only been found in Greece, in the isle of Chios, and the Signoria can get its own price for it; as much lign-aloe as they command to be shipped, and as many slaves as they choose to send for, all heathens. I think I have found rhubarb and cinnamon. Many other things of value will be discovered by the men I left behind me, as I stayed nowhere when the wind allowed me to pursue my voyage, except in the City of Navidad, which I left fortified and safe. Indeed, I might have accomplished much more, had the crews served me as they ought to have done. The eternal and almighty God, our Lord, it is Who gives to all who walk in His way, victory over things apparently impossible, and in this case signally so, because although these lands had been imagined and talked of before they were seen, most men listened incredulously to what was thought to be but an idle tale. But our Redeemer has given victory to our most illustrious King and Queen, and to their kingdoms rendered famous by this glorious event, at which all Christendom should rejoice, celebrating it with great festivities and solemn Thanksgivings to the Holy Trinity, with fervent prayers for the high distinction that will accrue to them from turning so many peoples to our holy faith; and also from the temporal benefits that not only Spain but all Christian nations will obtain. Thus I record what has happened in a brief note written on board the Caravel, off the Canary Isles, on the 15th of February, 1493. Yours to command, THE ADMIRAL Postscript: Since writing the above, being in the Sea of Castile, so much wind arose south southeast, that I was forced to lighten the vessels, to run into this port of Lisbon today which was the most extraordinary thing in the world, from whence I resolved to write to their Highnesses. In all the Indies I always found the temperature like that of May. Where I went in thirty-three days I returned in twenty-eight, except that these gales have detained me fourteen days, knocking about in this sea. Here all seamen say that there has never been so rough a winter, nor so many vessels lost. Done the 14th day of March.

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Letter to the Sovereigns of 4 March 1493 Announcing the Discovery12 Most Christian and lofty and powerful sovereigns: That eternal God who has given Your Highnesses so many victories now gave you the greatest one that to this day He has ever given any prince. I come from the Indies with the armada Your Highnesses gave me, to which [place] I traveled in thirty-three days after departing from your kingdoms; after fourteen of the thirty-three there were light winds in which I covered very little ground. I found innumerable people and very many islands, of which I took possession in Your Highnesses’ name, by royal crier and with Your Highnesses’ royal banner unfurled, and it was not contradicted. To the first [island] I gave the name of San Salvador, in memory of His Supreme Majesty [Jesus Christ], to the second Santa María de la Concepción, to the third Fernandina, to the fourth Isabela, to the fifth Juana, and to the others almost a new name. After I arrived at Juana I followed its coast to the west and found it to be so large that I thought it was probably not an island, but rather a mainland, and most likely the province of Cathay; but I could not verify this because everywhere I arrived the people fled and I could not speak with them. And because I was unable to find a notable settlement, I thought that by hugging the coast I could not fail to find some town or great city, such as those who have gone to that province overland tell it. And after following this land for a long while, I found that I was veering away from the west and it was leading me to the north and I found the wind came from that direction, with which I tried to contend until it passed and a different one arrived, because it was already winter and I had no other intention but to avoid the south wind, and so I turned back. In the meantime I already understood something of the speech and signs of certain Indians I had taken on the island of San Salvador, and I understood [from them] that this was still an island. And thus I came to a very good harbor, from which I sent two men inland, three days’ journey, with one of the Indians I brought, who had become friendly with me, so that they could see and determine if there were any cities or large settlements, and which land it was, and what there was in it. They found many settlements and innumerable people, but no government of any importance. And so they returned, and I departed and took certain Indians at the said harbor so that I could also hear or learn from them about said lands. And thus I followed the sea coast of this island toward the east

The Letters of Christopher Columbus Announcing His Discoveries

one hundred and seven leagues to where it ended. And before leaving it, I saw another island to the east, eighteen leagues out from this one, which I later named Española. And then I went to it and followed its coast on the north side, just as in the case of Juana, due east for one hundred and eightyeight very long leagues. And I continued to enter very many harbors, in each of which I placed a very large cross in the most appropriate spot, as I had done in all the other [harbors] of the other islands, and in many places I found promontories sufficient [for this purpose]. So I went on in this fashion until the sixteenth of January, when I determined to return to Your Highnesses, as much because I had already found most of what I sought as because I had only one caravel left, because the nao that I brought I had left in Your Highnesses’ village of La Navidad, with the men who were using it for fortification. There was another caravel, but one from Palos whom I had put in charge of her, expecting good service, made off with her, with the intention of taking much [damaged] . . . of [from?] an island about which an Indian had given news, that with him I [damaged] . . . after doing whatever. [damaged] . . . and it is the sweetest [thing] to navigate and with the least danger for ships of all sorts. For discovering, however, small caravels are better suited, because going close to land or rivers, in order to discover much, [vessels] must require but little depth and be capable of being assisted with oars. Neither is there ever stormy weather, since in every place I have been I see the grass and trees growing into the sea. Besides the above-mentioned islands, I have found many others in the Indies, of which I have not been able to tell in this letter. They, like these others, are so extremely fertile, that even if I were able to express it, it would not be a marvel were it to be disbelieved. The breezes [are] most temperate, the trees and fruits and grasses are extremely beautiful and very different from ours; the rivers and harbors are so abundant and of such extreme excellence when compared to those of Christian lands that it is a marvel. All these islands are densely populated with the best people under the sun; they have neither ill-will nor treachery. All of them, women and men alike, go about naked as their mothers bore them, although some of the women wear a small piece of cotton or a patch of grass with which they cover themselves. They have neither iron nor weapons, except for canes on the end of which they place a thin sharp stick. Everything they make is done with stones [stone tools]. And I have not learned that any of them have any private property, because while I was spending a few days with this king in the village of La Navidad, I saw that all of the people, and the women in particular, would bring him agis, which is the food they eat, and he would order them to be distributed; a very singular sustenance.

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Nowhere in these islands have I known the inhabitants to have a religion, or idolatry, or much diversity of language among them, but rather they all understand one another. I learned that they know that all powers reside in heaven. And, generally, in whatever lands I traveled, they believed and believe that I, together with these ships and people, came from heaven, and they greeted me with such veneration. And today, this very day, they are of the same mind, nor have they strayed from it, despite all the contact they [the Spaniards at La Navidad] may have had with them. And then, upon arriving at whatever settlement, the men, women, and children go from house to house calling out, “Come, come and see the people from heaven!” Everything they have or had they gave for whatever one gave them in exchange, even taking a piece of glass or broken crockery or some such thing, for gold or some other thing of whatever value. One sailor got more than two and a half castellanos [in gold] for the ends of leather latchets. There are ten thousand like occurrences to tell. The islands are all very flat and low-lying, except for Juana and Española. These two are very high lands, and there are mountain chains and very high peaks, much higher than those of the island of Tenerife. The mountains are of a thousand different shapes and all [are] most beautiful, and fertile and walkable and full of trees; it seems they touch the sky. And both the one and the other of the said islands are very large, such that, as I have said, I traveled in a straight line13 . . . is much larger than England and Scotland together; this other one [stained] is certainly larger than the whole of Española such that, as I said above, I traveled in a straight line, from west to east, one hundred and eighty-eight large leagues that comprise that side [of the island]. Juana has many rivers, and great mountains, and very large valleys and meadows and fields, and it is all full of trees and huge palms of a thousand varieties, such as to make one marvel. La Spañola has the advantage in every respect; the trees are not so tall or of the same kind, but rather very fruitful and broad; and [they are] delectable lands for all things, and for sowing and planting and raising livestock, of which I have not seen any kind on any of these islands. This island has marvelously temperate breezes, and marvelous meadows and fields incomparable to those of Castile; and the same can be said of the rivers of great and good waters, most of which are gold-bearing. There are so many and such good sea harbors that it has to be seen to be believed. I have not tarried in these islands or the others for many reasons, as I said above, but especially because it was winter when I sailed these coasts, which did not allow me to go south because I was on their north side and the [winds] were almost always easterly, which were contrary

The Letters of Christopher Columbus Announcing His Discoveries

to continuing my navigation. Then I did not understand those people nor they me, except for what common sense dictated, although they were saddened and I much more so, because I wanted to have good information concerning everything. And what I did to remedy this was the Indians I had with me, for they learned our language and we theirs, and the next voyage will tell. So, there was no reason for me to tarry at any harbor wasting time when the opportunity came to set sail. Moreover, as I have said, these vessels I brought with me were too large and heavy for such a purpose, especially the nao I brought over, about which I was quite troubled before leaving Castile. I would much have preferred taking small caravels, but since this was the first voyage and the people I brought were afraid of running into high seas and uncertain about the voyage, and there was and has been so much opposition, and anybody dared to contradict this route and ascribe to it a thousand dangers without being able to give me any reasons, they caused me to act against my own judgment and do everything that those who were to go with me wanted, in order to get the voyage finally under way and find the land. But Our Lord, who is the light and strength of all those who seek to do good and makes them victorious in deeds that seem impossible, wished to ordain that I should find and was to find gold and mines and spicery and innumerable peoples . . . [damaged] I left in it [Española], in possession of the village of La Navidad, the people I brought on the nao and some from the caravels, stocked with provisions to last over a year, [with] much artillery and quite without danger from anyone, but rather with much friendship from the king of that place, who prided himself in calling me and having me for a brother; who [also] appeared to accept everything as the greatest boon in the world, as I said. And the others [feel] just as the king does, so that the people I left there suffice to subjugate the entire island without danger. This island is in a place, as I have said, signaled by the hand of Our Lord, where I hope His Majesty will give Your Highnesses as much gold as you need, spicery of a certain pepper [to fill] as many ships as Your Highnesses may order to be loaded, and as much mastic as you may order to load, which today can be found only on the island of Chios, in Greece, and the government sells it as they see fit, and I believe they get more than 45,000 ducats for it each year. And as much lignum aloe as you may order to be loaded, and as much cotton as you may order to be loaded, and so many slaves that they are innumerable; and they will come from the idolaters. And I believe there are rhubarb and cinnamon. All this I found on this hasty trip, but I have faith in God that upon my return the people I left there will have found a thousand other things of importance, because that is the charge I left them with. And

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I left them a boat and its equipment and [the tools] to make boats and fustas, and masters in all the nautical arts. And above all I consider all the abovementioned islands as belonging to Your Highnesses and you may command them as you do the kingdoms of Castile, and even more completely, especially this one of Española. I conclude here: that through the divine grace of Him who is the origin of all good and virtuous things, who favors and gives victory to all those who walk in His path, in seven years from today I will be able to pay Your Highnesses for five thousand cavalry and fifty thousand foot soldiers for the war and conquest of Jerusalem, for which purpose this enterprise was undertaken. And in another five years another five thousand cavalry and fifty thousand foot soldiers, which will total ten thousand cavalry and one hundred thousand foot soldiers; and all of this with very little investment now on Your Highnesses’ part in this beginning of the taking of the Indies and all that they contain, as I will tell Your Highnesses in person later. And I have reason for this [claim] and do not speak uncertainly, and one should not delay in it, as was the case with the execution of this enterprise, may God forgive whoever has been the cause of it. Most powerful sovereigns: all of Christendom should hold great celebrations, and especially God’s Church, for the finding of such a multitude of such friendly peoples, which with very little effort will be converted to our Holy Faith, and so many lands filled with so many goods very necessary to us in which all Christians will have comfort and profits, all of which was unknown nor did anyone speak of it except in fables. Great rejoicing and celebrations in the churches [damaged] . . . Your Highnesses should order that [many] praises should be given to the Holy Trinity [damaged] your kingdoms and domains, because of the great love [the Holy Trinity?] has shown you, more than to any other prince. Now, most serene sovereigns, remember that I left my woman and children behind and came from my homeland to serve you, in which [service] I spent what I had. And I spent seven years of my time and put up with a thousand indignities and disgrace and I suffered much hardship. I did not wish to deal with other princes who solicited me, although Your Highnesses’ giving of your protection to this voyage has owed more to my importuning [you] than to anything else. And not only has no favor been shown to me, but moreover nothing of what was promised me has been fulfilled. I do not ask favors of Your Highnesses in order to amass treasure, for I have no purpose other than to serve God and Your Highnesses and to bring this business of the Indies to perfection, as time will be my witness.

The Letters of Christopher Columbus Announcing His Discoveries

And therefore I beseech you that honor be bestowed upon me according to [the quality of] my service. The Church of God should also work for this: providing prelates and devout and wise religious; and because the matter is so great and of such a character, there is reason for the Holy Father to provide prelates who are very free of greed for temporal possessions and very true to the service of God and of Your Highnesses. And therefore I beseech you to ask the Church, in the letter you write regarding this victory, for a cardinalate for my son, and that it be granted him although he may not yet be of sufficient age, for there is little difference in his age and that of the son of the Medicis of Florence, to whom a cardinal’s hat was granted without his having served or having had a purpose so honorable to Christianity, and that you give me the letter pertaining to this matter so that I [myself] may solicit it. Furthermore, most serene sovereigns, because the sin of ungratefulness was the first one to be punished, I realize that since I am not guilty of it I must at all times try to gain from Your Highnesses the following [favor], because, without a doubt, were it not for Villacorta, who every time it was necessary persuaded and worked on [the enterprise’s] behalf, because I was already sick of it and everyone who had been and was involved in the matter was tired, [the enterprise would not have succeeded]. Therefore, I beseech Your Highnesses that you do me the favor of making him paymaster of the Indies, for I vouch that he will do it well. Wherefore Your Highnesses should know that the first island of the Indies, closest to Spain, is populated entirely by women, without a single man, and their comportment is not feminine, but rather they use weapons and other masculine practices. They carry bows and arrows and take their adornments from the copper mines, which metal they have in very large quantity. They call this island Matenino, the second Caribo, [blank] leagues out from this one. Here are found those people which all those of the other islands of the Indies fear; they eat human flesh, are great bowmen, have many canoes almost as big as oar-powered fustas in which they travel all over the islands of the Indies, and they are so feared that they have no equal. They go about naked like the others, except that they wear their hair very full, like women. I think the great cowardice . . . [damaged] peoples of the other islands, for which there is no remedy, makes them say that these of Caribe are brave, but I think the same of them as of the rest. And when Your Highnesses give the order for me to send slaves, I hope to bring or send [you] these for the most part; these are the ones who have intercourse with the women of Matenino, who if they bear a female child they keep her with

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them, and if it is a male child, they raise him until he can feed himself and then they send him to Cardo. Between the islands of Cardo and Española there is another island they call Borinque, all of it is a short distance from the other region of the island of Juana that they call Cuba. In the westernmost part [of Cuba], in one of the two provinces I did not cover, which is called Faba, everyone is born with a tail. Beyond this island of Juana, still within sight, there is another that these Indians assured me was larger than Juana, which they call Jamaica, where all the people are bald. On this one there is gold in immeasurable quantities; and now I have Indians with me who have been on these [islands] as well as the others and they know the language and customs. Nothing further, except that may the Holy Trinity guard and make Your Highnesses’ royal estate prosper in Its service. Written in the Sea of Spain, on the fourth day of March in the year fourteen ninety-three. At sea.

5 Testimonies from the Columbian Lawsuits The testimonies that follow were presented during a series of lawsuits in which the Columbus family sought a broad interpretation of the royal contracts made to Columbus in 1492. They argued that all the territory in the Americas discovered by successive voyages fell under the purview of these Columbian contracts. This, of course, meant that the Columbus family should not only retain all of the privileges and offices the Crown had granted to Columbus in 1492, but they should also retain control over all of the Spanish territory in the Americas. The Crown, for its part, tried to demonstrate that the first expedition would have been a failure had it not been for Martín Alonso Pinzón, who, in the Crown’s presentation, was given credit for financing a portion of the voyage, assembling the crew, avoiding a mutiny, and for most of the major discoveries of that voyage. The Crown also hoped to prove that Columbus had promised Martín Alonso Pinzón half of everything he might find or profit from the voyage in return for his valuable service—which Pinzón’s son later relinquished to the Crown.1 The excerpts presented here come from two moments (1512–15 and 1535–36) in the decades-long dispute (1508–56), when over two hundred witnesses reflected on their own experiences and memories of their voyages.2 These voices, filtered through the formal structures of the Spanish legal system, are the only surviving testimonies of men who actually accompanied Columbus on that first voyage or who remembered the stories told by those who had. For that reason, they are invaluable, and they force us to reconsider what we always thought we knew about the first voyage. This, of course, does not mean that we should take these testimonies at face value. The witnesses were subject to leading questions and susceptible to all of the frailties of

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memories now decades old. They were also partisans in the long struggle over the Columbian legacy. For all these reasons, we should tread softly and approach the testimonies with a healthy dose of skepticism. At the same time, however, this alternate version of the first voyage resonates with hints and clues that Columbus left behind in his own accounts, and witnesses separated by many miles and many years corroborate each other—which lend credibility to many aspects of the Pinzón narrative. Inherent in this entire debate is the relationship between Columbus and Martín Alonso Pinzón. In the journal of the first voyage, Columbus referred to Martín Alonso thirty-nine times. Twenty-eight concerned routine entries, two were complementary, and seven were negative; and these occurred in the context of Martín’s separation from Columbus and his discovery of gold.3 Columbus’s opinion of Martín Alonso shifted visibly during the course of the voyage. On August 6, 1492, early in the voyage, Columbus called Martín Alonso a “man of energy and ingenuity.” By January of 1493 he was accusing him of avarice and treachery. Martín Alonso probably was not any more avaricious than Columbus, but we will never know his true motives for leaving Columbus. His claim that he sailed on because the weather prohibited him from sailing back seems weak in the light of the six weeks he spent on Hispañola without apparently trying to find Columbus. The truth in the two tales of the first voyage probably lies somewhere in the middle. Both men made significant contributions to the successful completion of the voyage, though one wonders how successful Columbus would have been without men like Martín Alonso who lent their considerable skill, knowledge, and reputations to the voyage. Despite Columbus’s complaints to the contrary, Martín Alonso did not betray Columbus. Indeed, he returned to Columbus instead of sailing for Spain with the gold, which he could have done. Still, there clearly was tension between the men over the gold discovery, the abandonment of the men at La Navidad (many of whom were relations or friends of Martín Alonso), and the separation of their ships on the return journey. But before we go too far in assuming an irreconcilable antagonism, we should remember that Martín’s brother, Vicente Yáñez, accompanied Columbus on a later voyage.4 After decades of litigation, the king refused to restore the rights the Columbus family sought. He did so not because he was convinced by the testimonies presented in the trials that the Pinzón narrative was the true one, but for reasons of state. The Crown needed to maintain and strengthen its hold over the colonies that were spreading over the Americas like a

Testimonies from the Columbian Lawsuits

plague. Consequently, the titles of Viceroy and Admiral of the Ocean Sea “either [had] been withdrawn or remain[ed] politically honorific, albeit financially remunerative.”5 These testimonies may have been available in Spanish archives since the sixteenth century, but they have rarely been used, and they had not been publicly available until Antonio Muro Orejón published a Spanish transcription of the testimonies in the 1960s and 1980s.6 They had remained inaccessible to an English speaking audience until the year 2000, when they were translated and published by William D. Phillips, Jr.7 The excerpts below include the questions presented to the witness and their responses. I have only included the questions and answers that dealt with the first voyage, and those testimonies that provide commentary or details relevant to what we might call the Pinzón version of events.8

As you read the testimony given decades later either by members of the expedition who witnessed the events of the voyage or by those who listened to their tales, consider the following questions: 1. How does this version of the voyage differ from Columbus’s? 2. Who is the main character in their tale? 3. Why might they present such a stark contrast to Columbus’s own accounts? 4. Do their accounts seem credible? How do you know? 5. Do the witnesses contradict each other? Are there inconsistencies in their reports? If there are, is there a way to reconcile them? 6. How do they explain the success of the voyage? 7. Can you find any evidence in the accounts by Columbus that corroborates the Pinzón family version of events? And finally, after your close reading of all of these documents, consider the following questions: 1. How do all of these change your view of this first successful European voyage across the mid-Atlantic? 2. Do the documents suggest an alternative tale that might be far more complex, interesting, and compelling than the heroic journey that has been fostered off on us for over 500 years? 3. Should we be celebrating Martín Alonso Pinzón Day? Why or why not?

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4. Why is it inaccurate to suggest that Columbus “discovered America”? 5. Are critics justified in accusing Columbus of genocide and laying at his feet the horrors of five centuries of European imperialism and colonization? How do you know? 6. Using all the sources presented in this volume, how would you reconstruct what happened on this first voyage?

Testimonies from the Columbian Lawsuits

Evidence of the Crown Attorney [List of Questions] Seville, 11 August 1515 XI. Also if they know, etc., that when the admiral went to discover those places, Martín Alonso Pinzón, a citizen of Palos, was ready to go there to discover at his expense with two of his ships and he had certain news and writings of the land which he had obtained in Rome from the library of Pope Innocent VIII in that year that he had come from Rome and he had begun to talk of going to discover and he arranged it. XII. Also, if they know, etc., that Martín Alonso Pinzón advised the admiral don Cristóbal Colón of the land and discussed it with him using the abovementioned writing which he said was a maxim of the time of Solomon that said if you will navigate through the Mediterranean to the end of Spain and there toward the setting of the sun between north and south by a tempered path as far as ninety-five degrees of the way you will find a land of Cipangu which is very fertile and abundant and with its greatness will subjugate Africa and Europe. XIII. Also, if they know that, given the writing, the admiral exerted himself greatly and declared he would go to discover the land and that Martín Alonso Pinzón made him come to the court and that he gave him money for the trip in order for don Cristóbal to negotiate it because Martín Alonso had everything necessary in his house. XIV. Also, if they know that after returning from the court, he went to Palos and that he did not find anyone to give him ships nor people to go with him, and that Martín Alonso in order to serve their highnesses gave him his two ships and determined to go with him with his relatives and friends because the admiral promised him half of all the rewards that their highnesses had promised him for finding land and showed him the privileges of it. XV. Also, if they know, etc., that on the voyage Martín Alonso went as principal person as captain of one of his two ships and his brothers of the other two and that they sailed from the island of Hierro to the west eight hundred leagues and that at this time two hundred leagues before the admiral reached land he did not know where to go, and because he saw he was not discovering, he came up to the ship of Martín Alonso and told him that it seemed to him that they had already made two hundred leagues [and] he believed that they had traveled beyond what he had thought and they should already have reached land.

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XVI. Also, if they know that Martín Alonso told him, “Forward, forward, for this is an armada and embassy of such high princes as our lords the monarchs of Spain and until today they have never have come to less and may it please God that they never come to less, for if you, my lord, wish to turn back, I am determined to travel until finding land or never to return to Spain,” and that by his industry and advice they pressed on. XVII. Also, if they know, etc., that the admiral asked him if it seemed to him that they should follow that course, and that Martín Alonso told him no, that many times he had told himself that they were not going properly, that they should turn a quarter to the southwest and that they would reach land more quickly, and that the admiral responded to him, “Well, let’s do it that way,” and later he changed the route by the industry and counsel of Martín Alonso Pinzón, who was at that time the man wisest in the matters of the sea. XVIII. Also, if they know, etc., that having changed the path and course according to what Martín Alonso Pinzón said, within three or four days they reached land in the islands of the Lucayos on the island of Guanahaní. XIX. Also, if they know, etc. that having found the island, one night they separated from one another, and Martín Alonso went in one direction and discovered the island of Española with another seven islands of the shoals of Balbuca and he arrived at the island seven weeks before the admiral and he anchored and was during that time on the river of Martín Alonso seven weeks before the admiral reached the island of Española, he who would not have returned from the island if it were not for the industry of Martín Alonso who sent to call him with canoes and letters that he sent him because the admiral traveled the islands of the Lucayos below the northwest path and when he returned he had already lost the ship he traveled on. XX. Also, if they know, etc., that Martín Alonso in the same seven weeks entered farther into the island of Española, to the principal rulers of the island and later to where they call the Magauana to the home of the Behechio and of Caonabo through which he traveled and found great samples of gold and traded for it before the admiral don Cristóbal Colón arrived on the island. XXI. Also, if they know, etc., that the admiral arrived on the island of Española because of the letters and canoes that Martín Alonso sent to call him, and seeing the riches that Martín Alonso had discovered and found and traded, he later departed for Castile with the sample that Martín Alonso had discovered. XXII. Also, if they know, etc., to be public and well known that but for Martín Alonso Pinzón the admiral would have turned back from the path and not discovered land and that by the industry and knowledge and advice

Testimonies from the Columbian Lawsuits

of Martín Alonso land was discovered and that Martín Alonso discovered the island of Española and the gold of it from the river that is named for Martín Alonso where he arrived and anchored before any other person and put his name on the port and river. XXIII. Also, if they also know it to be public and well known that if Martín Alonso Pinzón had not provided his ships and made the voyage as a companion of the admiral because of the division that the admiral had made with Martín Alonso that he had promised him half of all the concessions that their highnesses had conceded to him for finding land, the admiral would not have found people or ships to go with him and that because Martín Alonso came, everything necessary was found because he had a great deal at that time because he was very wise in the matters of the sea and a great man and of a great heart.

Evidence of the Crown Attorney Lepe, 19 September 1515 Manuel de Valdovinos, a witness . . . said that he is a man about fifty-six years old and that he is not related to nor a servant nor employee of any of these parties, and that he has not been bribed or corrupted or threatened in order to make him say what is contrary to the truth, and that he wanted the party who has justice to win this suit. To the first question, he said that he does not know the crown attorney or the admiral, and that he knew the deceased admiral don Cristóbal and don Juan de Fonseca, bishop of Burgos, and Martín Alonso Pinzón and Vicente Yáñez and Alonso Martín Pinzón and Juan de la Cosa and Alonso de Ojeda, and that he did not know Pero Alonso Niño, and that he knew Cristóbal Guerra and did not know Rodrigo Bastidas, and that he knew Diego de Lepe and knows Juan [Díaz] de Solís. To the fifteenth question, he said that what he knows of this question is that he heard from Vicente Yáñez Pinzón and from other men, citizens of Palos who went with him on the voyage on which this witness sailed with Vicente Yáñez, and they said they had sailed on that voyage for eight hundred leagues westward from Hierro, and that Vicente Yáñez and Martín Alonso joined their ships with that of Colón, and he says that they said,

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“Lord, where are we going? We have already sailed eight hundred leagues and we are not finding land and these people are saying that they will be lost,” and that don Cristóbal responded, “Martín Alonso, do me the pleasure of spending today and tonight with me and if you do not reach land before morning, cut off my head and then you can return. Otherwise, I will tell you when it is time to go back.” And Martín Alonso responded to him and said, “Now, now, lord, never, please God, that an armada of so great a king not only tonight but from now and for a year to come,” and from then they turned a quarter more to the southwest and he said that at sunset Colón told everyone who was there to look for land and they would see it, and, having climbed up into the rigging and on top of the castles, all the people watched until the sun went down, and no one in any of the ships saw land except for Colón himself by the time the sun set, and he said that he said to them, “Don’t you see it? Don’t you see it?” And none of those who were with him saw it and when the first night watch ended, Colón ordered guards to be placed in the bows of the ships, and when they had sailed the other watch, one Juan Bermejo of Seville saw land, and the first land was the island of Guanahaní. To the nineteenth question, he said that he heard it from those listed above on the same voyage, and he referred to what he had already said, and that on the island of Guanahaní some ships were separated from others because he says that they had taken interpreters from the Indians there, who said that there was an island called Hayani where there was much gold, and they directed him to the region where it was, and he heard that this island had been found by Martín Alonso Pinzón before any other man and from there he sent word to the admiral by canoes and letters, and when Colón arrived, Martín Alonso was already on this island.

Evidence of the Crown Attorney Huelva, 25 September 1515 Garcia Fernandez, swearing his oath and being asked the questions of the interrogatory, said to the first question that he did not know the crown attorney mentioned in this question, and that he knew the admiral [don Diego Colón], and he did not know the admiral don Cristóbal, and that he did know the lord don Juan de Fonseca and Martín Alonso Pinzón and Vicente Yáñez Pinzón and he also knew Francisco Martín Pinzón and he did

Testimonies from the Columbian Lawsuits

not know Juan de la Cosa or Alonso de Ojeda, and he heard of Pero Alonso Niño, and that he did not know Cristóbal Guerra or Rodrigo de la Bastida, and that he did know Diego de Lepe and did not know Juan [Díaz] de Solís. He was asked if he is related to any of the parties, and he said that he is in no way related to any of those contained in this question, but Martín Alonso Pinzón was his godfather. To the fourteenth question, he said that what he knows of this question is that Martín Alonso, mentioned in the previous question, came to Palos, and this witness does not know where he was coming from then, and he outfitted two ships and then gave them to the admiral to be put in the service of their majesties, and concerning the rest he does not know it. Asked how he knows what he has said, that he gave him the two ships that were outfitted, he said because he saw it and because he was dispenser on one of these ships, which was called the Pinta, and concerning the rest he does not know it. To the fifteenth question, he said that what he knows of this question is that Martín Alonso went as captain on one of his ships, called the Pinta, on which this witness served as dispenser, and that one of Martín Alonso’s brothers was ship’s master on the Pinta and his other brother, named Vicente Yáñez, was ship’s master on the Niña, and all three ships sailed about four hundred leagues to the west of the island of Hierro. And Martín Alonso went to the admiral and said to him, “My lord, let’s turn our course a quarter to the southwest,” and the admiral told he was welcome to do it, and the admiral was always consoling and encouraging Martín Alonso and all those who sailed in his company, telling them that they were nearing land, and they changed the westerly course and there they found the land called Guanahaní, and the first to see land were those on board the Pinta, where this witness sailed, and Martín Alonso ordered them to fire cannons in celebration, and he ordered them to turn toward where the admiral was sailing because he was sailing behind the Pinta, and as they saw the land Martín Alonso waited for admiral Colón to approach, and when he approached, the admiral said, “My lord Martín Alonso, you have found land,” and then Martín Alonso told him, “My lord, [I hope] my rewards are not lost,” and the admiral then said, “I am giving you a bonus of five thousand maravedis,” and this witness knows it because he saw it. To the twenty-second question, he said that Martín Alonso discovered that island while sailing in the ship Pinta, where this witness served as dispenser, and that he knows that they named the river contained in this question the river of Martín Alonso Pinzón.

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To the twenty-third question, he said that what he knows of this question is that this witness knows, as it is said, that Martín Alonso was an energetic man of great heart, and he knows that if it were not for Martín Alonso giving him the two ships, the admiral would not have gone where he went nor would he have found people and the reason was because no one knew the admiral, and the admiral went on that voyage because of the esteem for Martín Alonso and because of the two ships, and concerning the rest he does not know it. Garcia Fernandez, a physician, citizen of this town, a witness sworn and received in the matter at hand, was asked the general questions and this witness said that he is about fifty-five years old and that he is not related to any of the parties nor does he suffer any defect given in the general questions, and may whoever has justice win this suit. To the thirteenth question, he said that this witness knows that Martín Alonso Pinzón, mentioned in the question, had what he needed in this town, and that he knows that the admiral don Cristóbal Colón, coming to La Rábida on foot with his son don Diego, who is now admiral, arrived at La Rábida, which is a monastery of friars in this town. At the entrance he requested that they give the little boy, who was a child, bread and water to drink, and that, with this witness there, a friar named Brother Juan Pérez, who is now deceased, wanted to talk with don Cristóbal Colón and seeing an indication of another land or foreign kingdom in his manner of speaking, he asked him who he was and from where he was coming, and Cristóbal Colón told him that he came from her highness’s court and he wanted to explain to him something of his mission for which he went to the court and how he came from there, and Cristóbal Colón told the friar Juan Pérez how he had spoken before her highness of discovering and that he had obliged himself to discover the mainland, her highness wishing to help him with ships and the necessary and required things for the voyage, and many of the knights and others who had given in to this reasoning went back on their word and that he was no more welcome than before, when they ridiculed his reckonings, saying that for a long time around here it had been attempted, and ships were sent off to sea on the search, and that it was all just a bit of hot air and that he was not right. At which Cristóbal Colón, seeing himself destroyed by such little understanding of what he offered to do and accomplish himself, left the court and came directly from this town [Palos] to the town of Huelva to speak and visit with his brother-in-law, married

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to his wife’s sister, and who was there at that time and whose name was Mulyar. And seeing his purpose, the friar sent for this witness, with whom he shared much affectionate conversation and because he knew something of the astronomical arts, so that he would speak with Cristóbal Colón and discover the facts about this case of discovering. So then this witness arrived, and all three of them spoke about the matter, and they chose a man to take a letter to the queen doña Isabel, may she be in holy glory, from the friar Juan Pérez, who [previously] was her confessor. The bearer of this letter was Sebastian Rodriguez, a pilot from Lepe, and they kept Cristóbal Colón in the monastery until they learned her majesty’s response to the letter in order to see what would come of it, and it was done, and within fourteen days our lady the queen wrote to the friar Juan Pérez thanking him profusely for his good suggestion and she requested and commanded that when he saw the letter he should appear before her majesty at court and that he should leave Cristóbal Colón in security of hope until her majesty wrote to him. And seeing the letter and its command the friar left the monastery secretly before midnight and rode on a mule and complied with her majesty’s order and appeared in court and there they agreed to give Cristóbal Colón three ships so he could go and discover and fulfill the promise he made, and having conceded this, our lady the queen sent twenty thousand maravedis in florins, which Diego Prieto, citizen of this town, brought and gave to this witness with a letter so that he would give them to Cristóbal Colón so he could dress respectably and buy himself a good mount and appear before her majesty. And Cristóbal Colón received the twenty thousand maravedis and appeared before her majesty as stated above to discuss all of the above, and he came from there provided with a license to take the ships that he considered were appropriate in order to proceed with the voyage, and the agreement and the company that Cristóbal Colón made with Martín Alonso Pinzón and Vicente Yáñez was made at this time, because they were suitable and knowledgeable people concerning matters of the sea that were beyond his knowledge and that of don Cristóbal Colón, and they advised him and taught him in many things that were beneficial for that voyage, and this is what he knows of this. To the fourteenth question, he said that he knows that after Cristóbal Colón arrived in Palos after coming from her majesty’s court, Martín Alonso helped him and gave him his assistance in everything that he needed, and he looked for people to go on the voyage for him, and this witness saw it, but concerning the rest of what is contained in the question, he does not know it.

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To the nineteenth question, he said that what this witness knows of the question is that Martín Alonso came upon a river on this voyage, which he named the port (sic) of Martín Alonso Pinzón and he knows this, and he knows it because this witness has been on this river and he has heard it said, and concerning the rest of what is contained in this question, he does not know it. To the twentieth question, this witness said that he heard what is contained in the question from Martín Alonso and from other people who were on this voyage, that he had gone inland with a number of people and that he and his people arrived at a fresh water spring to drink and while they were there they learned of gold and took out a silver cup with which to drink the water, and an Indian arrived and desired the cup, and he took it, and he did not want to follow him or do him harm, but rather to follow the land and its people, and there he found a sample of gold and they traded for this and this is what he knows of this act, and he heard it as this witness has stated. To the twenty-third question, he said that Martín Alonso discovered it with the admiral and in his company, and he arrived at the river before any other person and gave it his name, as he has said, and that he knows this, and that the river is at a place of the shallows of Babueca, but this witness has been there, as he has said. To the twenty-fourth question, he said that he knows that because Martín Alonso went in the company of the admiral, the admiral found all the equipment and people because Martín Alonso was very highly regarded in this town in matters of the sea and knowledge of them, and of great heart, and this witness does not know the rest of what is contained in this question, and he knows what he has declared in it because he saw it. On Saturday, the sixteenth day in the month of October in the stated year, . . . witness Francisco Garcia Vallejo, citizen of the town of Moguer, . . . To the fourteenth question, this witness said that he knows that if it were not for Martín Alonso Pinzón who staffed [the fleet] with his relatives and friends, the admiral would not have gone to discover nor would anyone have gone with him, and with the friendship and desire he had to serve her majesty and with the desire to serve them, [Martín Alonso] asked his brother and this witness and other people to go with him and with the admiral to discover, and [if] Martín Alonso had [not] made the voyage, the admiral would not have gone to discover. Asked how he knows it, this witness said

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because this witness was present and saw it, and he went with Pinzón and his brother in their company. To the fifteenth question, he said that this witness knows what is contained in the question as is contained in the question. Asked how he knows it, he said that this witness knows that they left the town of Palos and stopped at Gomera and from there they took their course for the voyage from Hierro and traveled west for eight hundred leagues, and that at this time, about two hundred leagues away from land and continuing the voyage, the admiral don Cristóbal spoke with all the captains and with Martín Alonso and he said, “What shall we do,” and that was on the sixth of October of the year [fourteen ninety-] three, and he said, “Captains, what shall we do, my people complain bitterly to me, what, my lords, do you think we should do?” And then Vicente Yáñez said, “My lord, let us go for two thousand leagues more and after that if we do not find what we are seeking there, from there we can turn around,” and then Martín Alonso Pinzón, who sailed as a captain and a principal, responded, “My lord, now, we left the town of Palos and your mercy is growing angry. Forward, my lord. God will give victory so that we will discover land. God would never wish that we return in such shame.” Then the admiral don Cristóbal Colón responded, “May you be fortunate,” and thus because or Martín Alonso Pinzón they went forward, and this is what he knows of this. To the sixteenth question, this witness said that he knows it as is contained in it. Asked how he knows it, he said because he heard what is declared in the question as is declared in it from the captain Martín Alonso Pinzón, and he knows that by his industry and knowledge and judgment they went forward, and this is what he knows of this. To the seventeenth question, this witness said that he knows and saw that on that voyage Martín Alonso said, “My lord, my judgment is and my heart commands that if we turn toward the southwest we will be more likely to find land,” and then the admiral don Cristóbal Colón responded, “Then let it be so, Martín Alonso, let us do it in that way,” and then because of what Martín Alonso said they changed their heading to west-southwest and that he knows that it was by the industry and judgment of Martín Alonso, because he was a very knowledgeable man, that they reached this agreement. Asked how he knows it, this witness said because he was there and he saw it. To the eighteenth question, he said that what he knows is that having reached the decision suggested by captain Martín Alonso Pinzón and

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having changed their course to west-southwest, in the next three days this witness, going on the same course, saw that Martín Alonso saw a number of birds pass overhead, which are called gatiegitillos and parrots, and then captain Martín Alonso said, we are among land’s, because these birds are not passing by for no reason, and in exactly three days they arrived in the islands of the Lucayos on the island of Guanahaní. On Thursday, the tenth of October, Pero Niño spoke and said to the admiral, “My lord, let’s not make any more headway tonight because according to your book I say that I am sixteen leagues away from land, or twenty at the most,” at which the admiral took great pleasure and said that he would tell this information to Cristóbal Garcia Sarmiento, pilot of the Pinta, and he told Cristóbal Garcia and Cristóbal Garcia said, “In my opinion, you should order that we not put up sails tonight nor go forward because I find myself near land,” and Cristóbal Garcia responded and said, “Well, as far as I am concerned, make sail and sail as far as we can,” and at that point Pero Alonso Niño responded, “Do whatever you want, all I want is to go behind you, [and] when I see that you are shouting I will stand clear.” And on that Thursday night the moon came out and as it did, a mariner on Martín Alonso Pinzón’s ship named Juan Rodriguez Bermejo, a youth, a citizen of Molinos in the region of Seville, saw a white head of sand and he looked out and saw land and then he shot off a cannon and gave a shout “Land, land,” and the ships stopped until Friday came, the eleventh of October, and Martín Alonso discovered Guanahaní, the first island, and this is as much as he knows, and he knows it because he saw it with his own eyes. To the nineteenth question, this witness said that one night Martín Alonso took his leave and departed from the admiral and he went to an island that is called Babueca and after he discovered it, he went two hundred leagues to the southwest from there and he discovered the island of Española and he entered into the river that they call Martín Alonso’s river and he gave it his name. After forty-five days he joined up with the admiral on the island of Montecristo, and there Martín Alonso told how he had discovered the island of Española and the gold and he brought nine hundred pesos of gold and gave them to the admiral and the admiral did not want to take them. And while he was there on Montecristo before Pinzón met him there and after his ship had been lost, an Indian came and shouted and he said come back, because Guacanari, who was an Indian king, called him and wanted to give him a diaho, which was a man of gold. Then Vicente Yáñez Pinzón,

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who was there, said, “My lord, do you understand that?” and the admiral said that he understood some of it, and Vicente Yáñez told him, “I understand it, and he says for your grace to come back and he will give you a man of gold, which is called in his language a diaho.” And he said, “Go ahead, my lord, it is worth two hundred million and you will bring a great sample of gold to their majesties,” and the admiral was thinking about whether he would go to him and after a little while, he said, “Let’s leave here and set sail for Castile,” and he took more than enough in order to show their majesties and so they left, and he knows that Martín Alonso Pinzón was the first man to discover Española and the river of Martín Alonso and the gold. Asked how he knows the above, he said because this witness was present and saw it all with his own eyes. To the twenty-second question he said that he knows it as is contained in the question. Asked how he knows it, this witness said because he saw with his own eyes that [at] about one hundred and sixty leagues the admiral wanted to return if Martín Alonso agreed with him and he knows that they went forward because of the good industry and knowledge of Martín Alonso, and he knows that before Martín Alonso arrived at the river of Martín Alonso and discovered the land, no other person had discovered it. Asked how he knows it, he said because he went in the company, and this witness was one of the men who sailed on that voyage and that is why he knows it and he knows it because he saw it. To the twenty-third question, he said that Martín Alonso was a man who was very knowledgeable and of a great heart, and if it were not for him neither the land nor the gold would have been discovered, and he recruited people and found ships for the admiral and this witness saw this with his own eyes, but concerning the rest of what is contained in this question, he does not know it. And following the above, on Tuesday, the ninth day of the month of October of the year stated above, . . . Arias Pérez [Pinzón], citizen of the town of Palos, as a witness, . . . . Arias Pérez, a witness sworn and received in the stated matter, was asked the general questions and said that he is about forty-five years old and that he is not a relative of any of the parties and that he does not suffer from any of the disqualifications in the general questions, and may God assist whoever has justice.

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To the twelfth question, he said that he knows it as is contained in the article. Asked how he knows it, he said because at the time that this witness was in the library of Pope Innocent VIII, he gave him a writing which said what is contained in the article, and his father took it and brought it to Castile from Rome having resolved to go and discover the land, and he got to work on it and many times before this he spoke with this witness, and during that time the admiral came to this town of Palos with the commission to discover these lands, and as his father saw him arrive with this commission that he brought and learned of the commission to discover, he (Cristóbal Colón) judged it well to ask his help and give a part of it to Martín Alonso, who told him that he bore a good commission and that he knew it well, and that if he had not come, he would have gone to discover those lands with two caravels, and learning this, the admiral made himself a great friend of this witness’s father that he made an agreement with him and asked him to go in his company, and this witness knows this about this question because he saw it. To the thirteenth question, this witness said that he knows that it is as the article says. Asked how he knows it, he said because the admiral made an agreement with him that he would receive half of all the benefits that her highness would give to him, and Martín Alonso showed him the writing, which made him even more determined, and they reached an agreement and Martín Alonso gave the admiral money and made him and a friar named Juan Pérez go to the court, and they went, and the witness knows this because he was present for it all. To the fourteenth question, he said that he knows it. Asked how he knows it, this witness said that after the admiral returned from the court he brought a commission from her highness and a payment order to go with three ships to discover those lands and seeing the admiral in Palos had no men who wanted to go in his company, much less give him their ships, saying that he had to go for he would never find land, and this was the situation for more than two months with no end in sight. And seeing that there were neither ships nor people, he started to implore Martín Alonso earnestly, showing him the grants that their highnesses had promised if he should discover land and horizons. And he promised to share half with him, and that he would go in his company, and that he would serve as principal captain of the ships, and that as a man who with his relatives and friends could do it, he prepared himself to serve her highness, and as

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Martín Alonso saw that the admiral had no preparation for the departure, he did it for him, and to serve her highness, he agreed to go with him and he gave him the original writing that he had brought from Rome and also contributed his own ships, and with his relatives and friends he prepared the armada in one month, and he knows this because he saw it and saw them go on the voyage. To the fifteenth question, he said that he knows it as is contained in the question. Asked how he knows it, this witness said because he saw his father Martín Alonso depart from here as principal captain with his brothers as captains of the other ships, and that he knows that they sailed to the west from the island of Hierro, and this witness did not go with them, but after they returned to make port in Galicia, this witness was coming from Flanders and found them all one day in the port of Bayona and there this witness heard those in his father’s ship and the other ships say many times in general what is contained in this article, and he knows it because of what is stated above. To the nineteenth question, he said that he knows it as is contained in the question. Asked how he knows it, he said that this witness heard many times from his father and from the other captains and masters and people that after they arrived at the island of Guanahaní, they left from there to discover other islands and lands. The first night they encountered a great storm and were separated from each other and when morning came they could not see each other, and Martín Alonso, as befits a man of great industry and knowledge, set out in the direction opposite to where the admiral was going and he discovered seven islands and the island of Española, where he entered a river and named it for himself, and he saw such signs of gold in this land that everyone was astonished and greatly pleased about this. He took twelve of his men and went inland to the land of Caonabó, which was next to Behechio and in these lands he found such signs of gold that it was a marvel, and from there he returned to his ship with his twelve men with much pleasure and he entered the land at another place, on a plain that is now said in Española to be thirty leagues inland, and he saw great signs of gold and when he and his companions had seen it, they returned to their ship and from there they made an agreement [by] signs with the Indians and with bribes they sent canoes to the place where the admiral had gone so that the news reached where the admiral was traveling on the island of the Lucayos, and having seen the news he then went to the island of Española

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and when he arrived where Martín Alonso, the witness’s father, was, it had been seven weeks since Martín Alonso had discovered this land and was on it and had discovered the gold, and he knows this because he heard it from Martín Alonso Pinzón, his father, and often from the other captains generally and from the other people who went inland with, and he knows it because of the above.

Evidence of the Crown Attorney Santa María de la Antigua, 30 October 1515 . . . The above-mentioned witness Juan Portuguese, a black man, . . . said and stated the following. To the first question, he said that he knows those contained in the question except for the lord bishop of Burgos and the crown attorney and Martín Alonso Pinzón and Pero Alonso Niño, by sight, speech, and conversation for about twenty-two years, and that he is not a relative nor an enemy of any of the parties, nor a servant nor familiar, except that he was a servant of the old admiral, and that he has not been suborned nor threatened so that he would not tell the truth, and [he wishes] whoever has justice should win. To the twenty-second question, he said that this witness saw how Martín Alonso went as captain of one of his ships and his brothers as principal men in this armada under the admiral, and how after they left the island of Hierro they sailed about six months [sic] without seeing land, and how one day they brought together the ships on which the admiral and Martín Alonso sailed and the admiral spoke to Martín Alonso saying to him how did it seem to him, because the people were telling the admiral that they should turn back, and the admiral responded to them that they would take the advice of Martín Alonso to see what they should do, and that he heard how, when he asked his opinion, the admiral told Martín Alonso what the people were saying, and his opinion was that despite that they should continue the voyage, since they had supplies, and how Martín Alonso replied that his opinion was the same and he should continue the course, so they continued it and within a few days they arrived at a port that the admiral named Old Isabela, and all that

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is described here this witness saw and heard, having sailed on this voyage on the same ship as the admiral.

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To the twenty-sixth question, he said that he knows that Martín Alonso arrived before the admiral at the cape they call Babeque and he does not remember how much earlier and that the admiral went to Isabela where some canoes came out with Indians who said they came from where Martín Alonso was, and he saw how the ship on which the admiral sailed was lost there, and concerning the rest he does not know.

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Figure 5.1  Atlantic Coast of Andalusia.

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Evidence of the Crown Attorney [List of Questions] Madrid, 28 August 1535 The witnesses who are or will be presented on behalf of the crown attorney of their majesties in the lawsuit which he has and treats with don Luis Colón and his associates about the offices of admiral, viceroy, and governor and other things will have to answer the following questions. VIII. Also, if they know, etc., that before the don Cristóbal Colón began to prepare for the discovery of the islands and Indies and before don Cristóbal put anything into practice or preparation, Martín Alonso Pinzón, citizen of Palos, had advice and news of the islands and Indies of the Ocean Sea from a written document that he had brought from Rome from the library of Pope Innocent VIII and by virtue of the document Martín Alonso Pinzón had put in practice and dealt with and fitted out to go to make the discovery of the islands and Indies of the Ocean Sea at his expense with the three ships that he had, that was before Colón had notice of the above or made preparations to go to discover and that this was thus common knowledge among the people who had notice of the above. IX. Also, if they know, etc., that Martín Alonso was a wise man and expert in the art of navigation in the Ocean Sea and had ships and wealth and brothers, relatives, and friends and sufficient equipment to make the discovery of the islands and Indies of the Ocean Sea and much better than Cristóbal Colón, because Colón had no wealth nor equipment nor credit because they did not know him nor would he have found ships or crew or capital to make the discovery if Martín Alonso had not done as he did and that the witnesses know it thus because they knew both of them and if it were anything else the witnesses would know, see, and understand it. X. Also, if they know, etc., that Martín Alonso, with the previously mentioned advice and equipment that he had, joined himself with don Cristóbal Colón and gave him money with which he could go to the court to negotiate with the Catholic monarchs who were in Santa Fe on the plain of Granada in order to negotiate with them about the discovery for Martín Alonso Pinzón and Colón, which Colón [had] left agreed and settled with Martín Alonso Pinzón, giving him half of everything that the Catholic monarchs promised and gave him for the discovery, and that thus everything that he contracted with the Catholic monarchs was common between don

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Cristóbal Colón and Martín Alonso Pinzón and thus it is true and common knowledge. XI. Also, if they know, etc., that during the time that Cristóbal Colón went to the plain of Granada to capitulate with the Catholic monarchs, Martín Alonso Pinzón, as a companion of Colón, outfitted and readied his three ships and [organized] his brothers and relatives and friends in the port of Palos in order to go to make the discovery, in which Pinzón spent a great part of his fortune without Colón putting up anything because he was very poor and very needy and that this is thus true and common knowledge. XII. Also, if they know, etc., that after Colón returned from the court after contracting with the Catholic monarchs about the discovery, Martín Alonso Pinzón determined to go to make the discovery in company with Colón and for it Martín Alonso Pinzón organized his three ships and his brothers and relatives and friends with which was made the first discovery of the Indies islands of the Ocean Sea. XIII. Also, if they know that Martín Alonso Pinzón and his other two brothers were principal persons and captains of the ships that went on the discovery. XIV. Also, if they know, etc., that sailing through the sea [on] the first voyage and having sailed eight hundred leagues through the sea to the west, don Cristóbal Colón lost his bearings and confidence [so] that they did not know where they were going and he wished to go back and said to all that they should turn back and he asked Martín Alonso Pinzón what he should do and Martín Alonso Pinzón bucked up Colón and those who went in the same armada and said, “Onward, onward,” [so] that it was determined to sail until finding land and thus he did and sailed and made the other ships sail until they found land, as they did by the industry of Martín Alonso Pinzón. XV. Also, if they know, etc., that going on the voyage Martín Alonso Pinzón knew that they traveled mistakenly and made them turn their course to west-southwest and that thus it was changed and Martín Alonso got ahead of Colón and found land and first discovered the island that they called Guanahaní, a night and a day before Colón arrived. Martín Alonso later went ashore with those he brought with him and asserted lordship over it and that this is thus truth [and] common knowledge. XVI. Also, if they know, etc., that after having found the land of Guanahaní, the ships separated from one another and Martín Alonso went and discovered the island of Española with another seven islands and anchored and was on the island of Española first, seven weeks before Colón arrived there.

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XVII. Also, if they know, etc., that having anchored on the island of Española, Martín Alonso sent canoes to look for Colón in the islands of the Lucayos below the northwest path and brought him from there to Española. XVIII. Also, if they know, etc., that when Martín Alonso sent canoes to look for Colón and Colón was found, he had lost his ship and was without remedy of being able to come to the island or anywhere else and would have been lost if Martín Alonso had not sent to look for him and bring him as he did to the island of Española. XIX. Also, if they know, etc., that before Colón arrived on Española, in the previous seven weeks Martín Alonso had entered into the island of Española and traveled through it and found large samples of gold and trade and that with the samples of gold and trade goods that Martín Alonso had obtained in the island later he rejoined Cristóbal Colón. They returned to these kingdoms of Castile with the sample of gold that Martín Alonso had, to give an account of it to the Catholic monarchs. XX. Also, if they know, etc., that he who properly discovered the islands and Indies of the Ocean Sea first and he who knew and found and discovered the secrets of them was Martín Alonso Pinzón and that by his industry and hand he made the discovery, and if it were not for Martín Alonso, Colón had no possibility to go where he went. He would have returned without discovering anything of the Indies if Martín Alonso had not done as he did and that the witnesses hold it thus as certain. XXI. Also, if they know, etc., that because of Martín Alonso’s having discovered the island of Española and anchored there, he named a river and port of the island where he anchored the river of Martín Alonso and that thus it is called today the river and port of Martín Alonso because he was the first discoverer of the island. Say what they know. XXII. Also, if they know, etc., that after making the first discovery, Cristóbal Colón and Martín Alonso Pinzón returned to these kingdoms of Castile to give an account to the Catholic monarchs about the discovery and nevertheless Colón quarreled with Pinzón because he wished to disclose to their highnesses the truth, and they returned home straight to the town of Palos to the house of Martín Alonso Pinzón where Colón and Pinzón remained until being ready to depart to give an account to their highnesses, Pinzón suffered from the illness of which he died and that this is thus truth [and] common knowledge. XXIII. Also, if they know, etc., that Martín Alonso Pinzón left as his legitimate and natural son of legitimate marriage and heir Juan Martín Pinzón, a pilot, his son, who is now a citizen of the town of Huelva, and thus

Testimonies from the Columbian Lawsuits

his legitimate and natural son of legitimate matrimony is had and held and commonly reputed [to be] Juan Martín Pinzón, citizen of Huelva and that it is thus truth, common knowledge, and general opinion. . . . Fernando Valiente, citizen of the town of Palos, . . . said the following. . . To the ninth question, he said that what he knows of this question is that this witness held Martín Alonso Pinzón to be a man wise and active in the art of sailing but this witness does not know in what seas he sailed and he was a man who had plenty of everything and a person with strong family connections and he had as his brother Vicente Yáñez who was a very honored person and another who was called Francisco Pinzón and that this witness always knew and saw him to have as his own two ships, which were a caravel and a brigantine, and at times a single ship either a brigantine or caravel and at the time Martín Alonso had more credit than Colón because no one knew him in the town nor knew who he was and Martín Alonso was well known and had strong family connections as he said and that if Martín Alonso had not determined to go on the voyage to make the discovery, don Cristóbal Colón would not have found ships nor persons who would have gone with him but as they saw that Martín Alonso Pinzón was a man so honored and rich and determined to go, all his kin and relatives determined to go and went with him and this witness knows this because he found himself present in this town and saw and knew what he has said and that thus he knows this about this question. To the tenth question, he said that what he knows of this question is that don Cristóbal Colón, before he went to negotiate with the Catholic monarchs about the discovery, came to this town of Palos to seek favor and help in order to make the voyage and he lodged in the monastery of La Rábida and from there he came several times to this town and spoke with one Pedro Vázquez de la Frontera who was a man very wise in the art or the sea and had gone once to make the discovery with the Prince of Portugal and this Pedro Vázquez de la Frontera gave advice to Colón and to Martín Alonso Pinzón and encouraged the people and told them publicly that all who went on the voyage would find a very rich land, and this witness knows this because he saw Colón and he heard Pedro Vázquez de la Frontera say what he has said and he said it publicly in the plazas, and in this period this witness saw that Colón and Martín Alonso walked together talking and negotiating, and of this witness saw that Colón left and it was said that he had gone to court to negotiate with the Catholic monarchs and that they gave him money

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and provisions to put together the armada and he came to this town and it was said that he brought money for the armada and after don Cristóbal Colón came from the court this witness saw that Martín Alonso Pinzón and Vicente Yáñez his brother were in charge of buying and overseeing the things necessary to make the voyage and thus they fitted out the armada and left, and that he knows nothing else of the rest of what is contained in the question. To the fourteenth question, this witness said that at the time that the armada returned to the town of Palos from the first voyage this witness heard it said publicly by people who had gone on the armada that being at sea and having gone eight hundred leagues, don Cristóbal Colón had wanted to turn back because they had not found land and that Martín Alonso had encouraged the people and had said to the admiral that he was determined to go forward [and] that with the help of God he had to find land and that as Martín Alonso Pinzón had determined to continue the voyage Colón could not do anything else but follow after him and that thus they found land and that this was said as a very public and well known thing at the time the people came and that this was the conversation carried on among them. To the nineteenth question, he said that he heard what is contained in this question said publicly in this town of Palos by some of those who came with Martín Alonso from the voyage and they said then that Martín Alonso had caught the illness from which he died from crossing the rivers that he crossed and walking through the land and that of this question he knows nothing else. To the twenty-second question, this witness said that as he has said he saw the armada return to this town from making the first discovery and a few days after Martín Alonso Pinzón landed he died and that of the rest of what is contained in the question he does not know. Fernán Pérez Camacho, citizen of the town of Huelva, . . ., said and deposed the following. . . He was asked the general questions. He said that he is about eighty-five years of age and that he is not a relative of any of the parties nor do any of the general questions touch him and [he wishes] that he who has justice should win. To the eighth question, he said that he knows no more than that he heard Martín Alonso Pinzón say that a friar of Saint Francis who was guardian of the monastery of La Rábida which is next to this town of Palos had

Testimonies from the Columbian Lawsuits

informed him and said to him that he should go to discover the Indies and that it would please God for them to find land and that this friar was a very great astrologer. Asked if when Martín Alonso Pinzón said the above to this witness if it was before don Cristóbal Colón came to the town of Palos wishing to make the voyage or after he came, he said that this witness recalls and it seems to him that it was when Colón was in the town of Palos and intending to make up the armada to go. To the ninth question, this witness said that what he knows of this question is that, as he has said, this witness knew Martín Alonso Pinzón very well and he was considered to be a very wise man and a great pilot and captain and valiant for things of the sea and the land and that he had many very honored brothers and relatives in the town of Palos and this witness knew him always to have a ship of his own and he was a man very popular in the town because he gave a good account of himself wherever he went but that this witness does not know if Martín Alonso Pinzón had sailed in the southern sea and at that time this witness saw and it appeared to him that Martín Alonso Pinzón had much more of what was necessary to make any voyage than don Cristóbal Colón because he had many relatives and friends in the town of Palos and in other places where he had been and that don Cristóbal Colón did not have equipment nor credit then because before don Cristóbal Colón came to be in charge of commanding the voyage this witness saw him in the town of Moguer as a poor man and that he had no favor nor credit to make any voyage and this is what he knows of this question. To the eleventh question, he said that what this witness knows of this question is that from a certain time that this witness saw don Cristóbal Colón in the town of Moguer and saw him in the town of Palos and with Martín Alonso Pinzón and Vicente Yáñez, brother of Martín Alonso Pinzón, those who took charge of making up the armada and securing crew to go make the discovery, and then it was said that don Cristóbal Colón came as principal person and captain general of the armada and that he brought authorizations from the Catholic monarchs and this witness heard said then that they wanted to take certain prisoners out of the jail in the town of Palos to take them on the voyage because they said that Colón brought a writ for it and that at the time that they left this witness did not see them go but he heard it said publicly that don Cristóbal Colón went as captain in the principal ship and Martín Alonso Pinzón went as captain of a ship [sic, for caravel] that they called the Pinta and Vicente Yáñez went as captain of the other small ship and that he knows nothing else about this question.

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To the fourteenth question, this witness said that at the time the armada returned to the town and port of Palos from making the discovery this witness saw them come and went on board the ships and saw that they carried Indians there and signs of the land, such as gold and other things, and one Francisco Garcia Vallejos, a mariner who had gone in it, returned in the armada and said publicly to this witness and to Rodrigo de Vera and Anton Martín Camacho, pilots, and other people who were alive then [and who were] asking them how it had gone for them in the first voyage, that having traveled far out at sea that Colón had already had enough and had told Martín Alonso Pinzón and Vicente Yáñez, “Captains, what do you think we should do? For we have traveled far and not found land,” and that Martín Alonso Pinzón said then to Colón, “My lord, we came here to serve God and the king and we don’t have to turn back until we find land or die,” and that after Colón had seen the will and determination of Martín Alonso Pinzón and Vicente Yáñez he had determined out of good will to continue the voyage and they kept it up until they found land and also Francisco Garcia said that Martín Alonso Pinzón gave Colón great favor and encouraged him and he knows nothing else about this question. To the twenty-second question, he said that what he knows of it is that a few days after Martín Alonso Pinzón returned from the first voyage, he died and it was said publicly that he died from the illness that he brought from the voyage and this witness saw him suffering in the ship but that he knows nothing else about this question. Hernán Yáñez de Montiel, citizen of the town of Huelva . . . said the following. To the first question, he said that he knows neither the crown attorney nor don Luis Colón nor any of those who are now litigating and that he knew don Cristóbal Colón and Martín Alonso Pinzón, citizen of the town of Palos, very well by dealings and conversations that he had with them. He was asked the general questions. He said that he is about eighty years of age and that he is not a relative of any of the parties and that none of the general questions touch him and that [he wishes that] he who has justice should win. To the eighth question, he said that he heard it said that Martín Alonso Pinzón had gone to Rome with a boat that he had loaded with sardines but

Testimonies from the Columbian Lawsuits

he does not know if he brought any writing or if he had notice of the Indies nor did he hear that said before he heard it said that don Cristóbal Colón was the first who had notice of them and that he knows nothing else about this question. To the ninth question, this witness said as he has said that he knew Martín Alonso Pinzón very well and that he was the most valorous man for his person that there was in all this land and with a ship that he had the Portuguese feared him in times past, that the Portuguese had no ship that dared to confront him, and that he was a rich man and very wise in the matters of sailing, and he had for his brother Vicente Yáñez who also was a very special man and he had many kinsmen and relatives and friends and it seems to this witness, and thus he believes, that Martín Alonso Pinzón had much more equipment to make the discovery than Colón because before Colón came to the town of Palos to take charge of making the discovery this witness saw Colón in the town of Moguer and saw him as a plain man who did not have much and was in need and that he was not known nor did he have any favor and as Martín Alonso Pinzón had plenty of everything and his own ship and Vicente Yáñez another and so many relatives and friends it seems to this witness that he had better equipment for the above said than Colón and it seems to this witness that if Martín Alonso Pinzón had not taken charge of going on the voyage, Colón would not have found anyone who wanted to go with him because they did not know him and this witness knows it because as he has said he knew both of them and at that time had much notice of what he has said and he saw it and that he knows this about this question. To the eleventh question, he said that what he knows of this question is that this witness saw Martín Alonso Pinzón and Vicente Yáñez his brother going about very busily preparing ships and providing crew to go make the discovery and that it appears to this witness that then Colón was not in the town of Palos because at that time he missed some days and it was said that he had gone to the plain of Granada but this witness does not know if Martín Alonso Pinzón spent his wealth or not, nor any other thing about this question. To the twelfth question, this witness said that after don Cristóbal Colón returned to the town it was said that he came from the court and he brought a commission from the Catholic monarchs to go to make the discovery and then this witness saw that Martín Alonso Pinzón went about collecting people and he said to them, “Friends, come along, with us on this journey, for you are walking around here being miserable, go on this journey for we

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have to discover land with the help of God for according to report we are going to find houses with golden roof tiles and you will all come home rich and fortunate,” and this witness saw that and he saw that Martín Alonso took such care in collecting the crew and encourage them as if what would he discovered was to be for himself and his sons and that with this and with the confidence shown by Martín Alonso Pinzón many people went with them from the town of Palos and this town of Huelva and from Moguer and later they departed, and at the time they returned it was said that they had discovered land in the Indies and this witness saw that they brought Indians from the land and that he knows this about this question. To the fourteenth question, this witness said that at the time that the armada came from making the discovery that this witness heard many of those who came in the armada and had gone on the voyage say that having gone eight hundred leagues at sea, Colón, as he saw that they had not found land, had wanted to turn back and that Martín Alonso Pinzón said to him “Captain, after so much time and having gone so far we must turn forward, forward, let us go on for three or four days and eight until we find land because it does not suit our honor to turn back without finding land,” and that Colón was angered at this and had quarreled, and Martín Alonso Pinzón and Vicente Yáñez his brother went onward and separated themselves from don Cristóbal Colón, and as Colón saw that they had gone he went after them until at the end of three days they found land and moreover this witness said by the oath that he swore that the people who told him the above said, said it through the squares [of the town] and where they found themselves and they said publicly that they had believed Colón they would have returned without discovering land and that if were not for Martín Alonso Pinzón and Vicente Yáñez his brother they never would have discovered it and that because of them it was discovered and that this is the truth. Asked if he recalls the names of the people whom he heard say it at the time, he said that, as he has said, from those who had gone on the voyage at the time when they returned and that he does not recall their names because he believes none of them is now alive and that he knows this and nothing else of this question. Gonzalo Martín, citizen of the town of Huelva, . . . said the following. . . To the first question, he said that he does not know the crown attorney or the parties that are now litigating but that he knew don Cristóbal Colón and that he did not know Martín Alonso Pinzón.

Testimonies from the Columbian Lawsuits

He was asked the general questions, he said that he is about sixty-two years of age and that this witness believes that he was a relative of Martín Alonso Pinzón but because of that he will not fail to say the truth and that none of the general questions touch him and [he wishes] that he who has justice should win. Asked in what degree he was related to Martín Alonso Pinzón, he said that it was the fourth degree. To the fourteenth question, . . . and being in the gulf of the sea Gil Pérez said publicly to the people who sailed in the fleet and to this witness that at the time that they had made the first voyage having gone more than eight hundred leagues Colón had become discouraged and said to Martín Alonso Pinzón that because they had gone so long and not found land that they should turn back and Martín Alonso said to lord Colón, “The king did not send me here for me to turn back. I carry provisions for a year and I do not have to return, for with the help of God I have to go on. He who brought me will return me to where we started,” and that then Martín Alonso Pinzón and Colón had words and became annoyed with one another and the ships separated from one another and that Martín Alonso had gone onward and that he had found and discovered land and walked about it a certain number of days before Colón and after finding land Martín Alonso had turned back to look for Colón and found that he had lost the ship he traveled in which had run aground on a shoal and Vicente Yáñez, brother of Martín Alonso, had taken him and the people from the other ship on board his ship, and Gil Pérez said that if had not been for Martín Alonso Pinzón that Colón would have gone back and not discovered land and that what he has said he heard from other people whose names he does not recall and that at that time nothing else was talked about among those who sailed but that by the industry and effort of Martín Alonso Pinzón the Indies had been discovered and that this was public knowledge at that time and there was no other report and that this is what he knows of this question . . . To the twenty-first question, he said that this witness has been in the mouth of the river that the question mentions and they called it the river of Martín Alonso and this witness heard it said publicly that because Martín Alonso had discovered the island of Española and had entered in the river they called it the river of Martín Alonso and then they said to this witness that Cristóbal Colón, from annoyance that Martín Alonso had discovered the island and river first, had not wanted to settle there but three leagues farther down [i.e., downwind, or west] at the place now called La Isabela. Asked from whom he heard this said, he said that it was publicly discussed in the

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Indies by most people who were there whose names he does not recall, but that what he has said was held there as a certain and well known thing. Alonso Gallego, citizen of the town of Huelva, . . . said the following. To the first question, he said that he does not know the crown attorney nor any of the parties now litigating and that he knew don Cristóbal Colón and Martín Alonso Pinzón, citizen of the town of Palos, by sight, speech, and conversation. He was asked the general questions. He said that he is about sixty-five years of age and that he is not a relative of any of the parties, and that he is not touched by the general questions put to him, and that he wishes that whoever has justice wins. To the ninth question, he said that he knew Martín Alonso Pinzón very well, that he was the greatest man and the most skilled at sea that there was in these parts in those days and that he was a rich man with important family ties and among the leading men of Palos and that he long had a ship of his own and the equipment to do anything on the sea much better than don Cristóbal Colón because this witness knew the latter and knew him to be desperately poor and needy and without any credit or capital or favor and that if he had had some capital, credit, or equipment he would not have come to Castile to seek favor and assistance to go to make the discovery because he would have gone and made the discovery in the name of the king of Portugal because this witness heard from one Pedro Vázquez de la Frontera, citizen of the town of Palos, at the time that Colón came wanting to make the voyage, Colón came to get information from Pedro Vázquez and seek his advice as one who had been a servant of the king of Portugal and who had knowledge of the land of the Indies, and he also told this witness that Colón had gone to ask the favor and help of the king of Portugal in order to make the discovery and that the king did not want to give it to him, thinking that it was a joke. And after he had seen that there was little else to do in Portugal, he had come to Castile to seek the favor of the Catholic monarchs and it is clear that if Colón had not joined up with Martín Alonso Pinzón and Martín Alonso Pinzón had not decided to go on this voyage himself, Colón would never have made the discovery nor would anyone have dared to go with him because it was an uncertain thing and this is the way it was and it is very well known and public among those who know and knew of this such as this witness because this witness knew both men very well and he knows what he has said.

Testimonies from the Columbian Lawsuits

To the tenth question, he said what he knows of this question is that at the time that don Cristóbal Colón came to the town of Palos to be in charge of attempting to go to make the discovery this witness saw that Colón said to Martín Alonso Pinzón, “My lord Martín Alonso, let us make this voyage and if we go with it and God, we will discover the land for ourselves. I promise you by the royal crown to share with you as with my own brother.” This witness personally heard Colón say that many times and that he knows nothing else about this question. To the fourteenth question, he said that at the time that the armada returned from making the voyage and the first discovery those who were in the ships all said and discussed publicly that having traveled many leagues by sea, they had fired a shot from the ship in which Colón traveled and that Martín Alonso Pinzón, who was traveling ahead with his ship, waited and said to Colón, “My lord, what does you-lordship order?” And Colón said to Martín Alonso Pinzón, “These people who are in this ship are murmuring among themselves and want to turn back and I think the same way, because we have traveled so far and we are not finding land,” and Martín Alonso Pinzón then said to Colón, “My lord, remember that in the house of Pedro de Vázquez de la Frontera, I promised you by the royal crown that neither I nor any of my relatives would return to Palos before discovering land as long as the people were healthy and there were supplies. Well, what is lacking now? The people are healthy and the ships new and we have plenty of supplies. Why should we return? Let whoever wants to return do so; I want to go onward, for I have to discover land or die in the attempt.” And thus they continued on the voyage and after a few days they discovered land and what he has said was recounted publicly by those who had returned from the voyage in that armada and that they talked among themselves about nothing else but that Martín Alonso had discovered the land and that if it were not for him Colón would have turned back and that this was common knowledge back then and this is all he knows of this question. To the nineteenth question, this witness said that at the time that the armada returned from making the first discovery people said in public that those in Martín Alonso’s ship had gone ashore before Colón arrived and they had traveled through the land and had gathered gold and other items and that when Colón arrived and learned that they had explored the land and had found gold, it angered him because they had found it and he ordered that no one touch any of the gold nor the other trade goods and they had even confronted some about this and they then said that Colón did what is

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described so that no one would let the king know of the land’s secrets and Martín Alonso Pinzón and Colón argued about this and were very bitter and that he knows this and nothing else about this question except that when they returned it was said that they brought Indians and gold and samples from the land. To the twenty-second question, this witness said that after the first discovery was made he saw the armada return and it was said then that, as he has said, Martín Alonso Pinzón and Colón were at odds because Colón had insisted that no one trade in nor smuggle anything of the land so that they would not learn its secrets and this witness saw that Martín Alonso Pinzón died a few days after he returned and he does not know anything else about this question.

Evidence Begun by Juan Carrillo, Crown Attorney Santo Domingo, 26 January 1536 Hernan Pérez Mateos, citizen of the city of Santo Domingo, . . . . stated and deposed the following. To the first question, he said that he knows and knew those mentioned in it, admiral Cristóbal Colón since about forty years ago and Martín Alonso Pinzón ever since he was born over sixty years ago. Asked the general questions of the law, he said that he was over eighty years old and that Martín Alonso Pinzón was this witness’s cousin, and that [he wishes] that whoever has justice should win. To the ninth question, he said that Martín Alonso Pinzón was a man of the sea, and, as befits a mariner, expert and learned in the art of navigation in the seas that there used to be from Naples to Italy and Rome and Spain and to other parts that they have traversed now for fifty years, but that he does not know him to have been familiar with the Ocean Sea back then, nor these parts of the mainland, and that it is true that Martín Alonso Pinzón had brothers and relatives and friends, persons of means and knowledgeable of the trajectories that Martín Alonso knew, and he knew him to have had at that time a ship, with which he sailed from Castile to Rome and to Portugal

Testimonies from the Columbian Lawsuits

and to the Canary Islands and that he [the witness] did not know of any other ships that he had, although it is true that he had a reasonable fortune, and the witness does not know anything else about what is contained in this question. To the thirteenth question, he referred to what he said in the eleventh question, and which he affirmed. To the fourteenth question, he said that he knows nothing except what he heard from Martín Alonso Pinzón and his brothers that, on the outbound journey, having sailed many days without finding land, those who were sailing with don Cristóbal Colón wanted to mutiny and rise up against him, saying that they were lost and then don Cristóbal Colón had told Martín Alonso Pinzón what was happening with those people and asked what he thought they should do, and that Martín Alonso had replied, “My lord, hang a half a dozen of them and cast them into the sea, or if you dare not, my brothers and I shall come alongside and do it to them, so that the armada that set sail with the mandate of such great princes should not turn back without good news,” and everyone was encouraged by this and don Cristóbal Colón had said, “Martín Alonso, with these gentlemen let’s be on our way and do another eight days and if in that time we do not find land we shall issue another order about what we should do,” and in this way they sailed another seven days and at night saw fire on a land that they called the Princesses and which is now called the Lucayos, and this is what Martín Alonso said to this witness and told him. To the twenty-second question, he said that he knows nothing except that having returned to Castile, Martín Alonso did not join up with don Cristóbal Colón because, this witness learned, Martín Alonso was afraid of him, for what reason he did not know, except that he heard that if don Cristóbal Colón could capture Martín Alonso, that he would do so, and would take him with him as prisoner before the court and a few days after Martín Alonso arrived in the town of Palos, without entering the town he went to a private estate of his that is on the outskirts of Moguer, where he suffered an illness, and being ill certain of his kinsmen took him to a monastery of Franciscans called La Ravila [sic, for La Rábida] outside Palos, where Martín Alonso left this present life, which this witness saw, being in that area at that time, and he does not know anything else.

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Glossary

Adelantado of Murcia  adelantado means “one who goes before” and was used as a title for the king’s representative who held judicial and administrative authority over a district. The Adelantado of Murcia (a town in southeastern Spain) between 1474 and 1482 was Pedro Fajardo Quesada. When he died, the title passed to his daughter and was exercised by her husband. admiral  the highest ranking naval officer. The term comes from the Arabic amirar-bahr meaning commander of the seas. Columbus negotiated for this title because while at Málaga, Spain, he had seen the high admiral of Castile reinstated after a period of banishment. Because he witnessed the wealth, honor, and status that came with the title, he chose this as his avenue to hereditary nobility that he could pass on to his sons. aje   Taino word for sweet potato. alguacil, alguazil  judge or governor of a town. Alonso de Ojeda  accompanied Columbus on his second voyage and played a role in the early pacification of the island. He later led several voyages to what is now Venezuela. Alonso Gallego  a witness in 1536 who claimed that Martín Alonso discovered the island of Guanahani a day and night before Columbus and that Columbus went to Palos to consult with Pedro Velázquez before going to court. He says he heard this news from those who sailed in the armada. He would have been eleven at the time he heard this information if his given age is accurate. apiary a place for keeping bees. Columbus says he saw an apiary, but this seems unlikely since Europeanized bees and European methods of beekeeping that he would have recognized did not exist in the Americas until the seventeenth century. There were, however, several species of stingless bees that produced honey living in the New World prior to contact. Arawak indigenous ethnic group living in coastal Guiana. The word is also sometimes used to refer to the Taino. Arias Pérez [Pinzón]  the son of Martín Alonso Pinzón. astrolabe  an Arab instrument used for determining latitude by measuring the distance of the sun or the north star over the horizon. Babeque, Babueca, Baneque  the Great Inagua Island in the southern Bahamas. Balbuca  probably refers to islands of the southern Bahamas.

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Glossary Bartolomé de las Casas (c. 1484–1566)  became a Dominican friar after participating in the atrocities associated with the conquest of Hispañola and Cuba. He freed his Indian slaves and became a lifelong advocate for Indian rights. Bayona, Baiona  a port in Northern Galicia. Behechio, Behecchío  chief of Xaragua, a chiefdom in the southwest corner of the island of Hispañola. Black Death apparently began in Northern China and spread over the trade routes into Europe. The first pandemic hit Europe around 1347. The greatest mortality in Europe occurred between 1347 and 1353. But many recurrent waves continued to sweep through Eurasia over the next five hundred years. The epidemic killed many millions of people in Eurasia. blancas  small copper coin worth one maravedí. cacique  a leader or chieftain among the Taino. caniba, cariba, etc.  Columbus varied in how he spelled the word cariba, which refers to the Carib Indians of the Lesser Antilles. cannibalism  the practice of eating human flesh. The Carib ate pieces of human flesh for the purpose of acquiring the enemies’ power or prowess. Caonabo  chief of the Maguana, a chiefdom in southern Hispañola. Cape Bojador, Cabo Bojador  a prominent headland on the coast of western Sahara that served as a landmark for Portuguese sailors of the fifteenth century. It was famous for the dangerous winds that made navigation beyond the cape impassable until 1434, when Gil Eanes discovered a route past it. Cascaes, Cascais  a Portuguese village near the mouth of the Tagus River and the safe harbor at Lisbon. cassava a tropical root plant of two main varieties, bitter and sweet. The bitter variety has to have the juice squeezed out of the pulp to remove the toxins. This was and is a staple food throughout the Caribbean and northern South America. castellano  a gold coin weighing approximately 4.6 grams. Castile the largest kingdom of the Iberian Peninsula in the fifteenth century over which Queen Isabel ruled. Catalans  inhabitants of Catalonia, a region in Northeastern Spain and Southern France with Barcelona as its capital. Fernando reigned as king of this region in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Cathay  the European word for China that filtered into the West through writers like Marco Polo. Anglicized form of the word Catai. cazavi  a bread made from cassava roots. Chaldee  one of the translators Columbus took with him spoke Chaldee, which usually refers to Aramaic. Cintra  the Portuguese town of Sintra, located northwest of Lisbon near a rocky outcrop.

Glossary Cipangu  name for Japan popularized by Marco Polo that may be based on the Chinese name for the Islands. Constantinople capital of the Eastern Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire until it was conquered by the Ottoman Turks in 1453. The Ottomans renamed it Istanbul and made it the capital of their empire. Cristóbal Guerra  Castilian merchant and explorer who came to the Americas after Columbus’s first voyage. He was involved in the traffic in pearls. Diego de Lepe  sailed on his first voyage to America in 1499 and may have landed in what would be called Brazil prior to the landing of Pedro Álvares Cabral, who is usually credited with this “discovery” in 1500. He sailed out of Palos, Spain. dispenser, dispensero steward. Least prestigious officer on a Spanish ship who was assigned to guard and dispense the food to the crew. Dom Henrique  third son of D. João I of Portugal and D. Philippa of Lancaster, of England's house of Plantagenet. Dom Henrique was constantly in debt and needed to provide opportunities for his retainers. He sent them out to attack Muslim interests in Africa until his failed invasion of Tangiers in 1437. Then he sent his retainers to engage in piracy off the coast of Morocco and further down the coast in search of profit and military honors. Dom Henrique was not a navigator, and he never had a school of navigation at Sagres, as is often claimed. Dom João II (1477/1481–95)  the son of King Afonso V of Portugal and Isabella of Coimbra. He took an active interest in the Atlantic trade. He developed a policy of secrecy regarding the Portuguese discoveries in the Atlantic and sent missions out into the Atlantic, Africa, and India to probe for information. When Columbus petitioned him to sail west, D. João already had detailed information about the Atlantic and much of the West African coast. By 1488, he had already known that a water route to India was open by sailing around the tip of Africa. Don Juan of Castile (1478–97)  the only son of Isabel and Fernando to live to adulthood. He died at the age of eighteen leaving the throne to his younger sister, Joanna. Columbus corresponded with his nurse, Maria de Guzman. Columbus also named the island of Cuba Juana in honor of the prince. ducats probably the Venetian ducat, which was a gold or silver coin that circulated freely in Europe in the fifteenth century. Española, Hispañola, Hispaniola the island where Columbus left the first European settlement at La Navidad and the source of all the gold in the first years after contact. Today, it is split into the two countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

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Glossary Felipa Moniz Perestrelo daughter of Bartolomeu Perestrelo, the governor of Porto Santo and a knight of the Order of Christ. She married Columbus around 1479 with whom she had one child named Diego. She died about 1484. Fernán Pérez Camacho an 85-year-old witness in the Columbian trials, who was a close acquaintance of Martín Alonso and who reported what Martín Alonso had said to him and what he had witnessed in the town of Palos, Spain. Fernando Colón, Ferdinand Columbus (1488–1539) son of Christopher Columbus and Beatriz Enriquez de Arana, whom Columbus never married. He served as page to the prince Don Juan until the prince died in 1497. Fernando traveled to the New World with his brother, Diego, but returned to Spain where he amassed a huge library and wrote a biography of his famous father. Fernando Valiente  a witness from the town of Palos who based his testimony on what he had seen in Palos and what the participants in the voyage had told him. Flanders  refers to Dutch-speaking regions of Northern Belgium. Francisco Escobar Father Francisco Escobar accompanied Juan de Oñate’s 1604 expedition to California. He wrote an account of the expedition, in which he mentioned the existence of monstrous races in the region. Francisco Garcia Vallejo  a mariner who sailed on Columbus’s first voyage. He may be the sailor Columbus sent in search of Martín Alonso. fustas  a small galley equipped with oars and sails that was well equipped to maneuver in coastal waters and to travel without wind. Galicia  the far northwestern kingdom of what became Spain. It was linked to the Crown of Castile/Leon and is now an autonomous region. Garcia Fernandez  there are two men named Garcia Fernandez associated with the first voyage. The first was the physician from Palos who may have sailed prior to 1492 with Martín Alonso Pinzón as steward of his ship and who maintained a relationship with the monks of La Rábida. He may have worked with Juan Pérez to help Columbus get an audience at court. The second, and the one most likely referred to in the text, is the mariner and steward on the Pinta who actually sailed on the first voyage. Genoa  a vibrant trading city on the Ligurian Sea that controlled much of the trade of the western Mediterranean. Genoese bankers played important roles in financing Columbus’s first voyage and in the later military expansion of Spain. Gil Pérez  a mariner who sailed on the Pinta. Gomera  is the second smallest of the Canary Islands, which was not finally conquered until 1489. Columbus stopped here for several weeks to resupply and prepare for the push across the Atlantic.

Glossary Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés (1478–1557)  had close connections at court, spent many years on the New World, and wrote La história general y natural de las Índias from his firsthand experiences and reports he collected from the men who traveled there. Gonzalo Martín  a resident of the town of Huelva who reported in his testimony that he heard it publicly discussed in the Indies that Martín Alonso had made the voyage successful. governor  was often interchangeable with viceroy in that they often exercised similar powers to govern a defined territory. Usually this office came with powers to adjudicate civil and criminal cases. Granada  the last Muslim kingdom on the Iberian Peninsula that was conquered by Isabel and Fernando between 1482 and 1492. Great Khan or Gran Khan  refers to the leader of the Mongol Empire forged by Genghis Khan in the thirteenth century. The empire was divided into four Khanates with the largest and wealthiest in China, which was ruled by the Great Khan. Columbus borrowed this information from Marco Polo’s account, but it was dated. The Khanate of the Great Khan collapsed in 1368, and the Mongols were expelled from China. Guanches  native inhabitants of the island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands. The term is now used to refer to all of the inhabitants of the Canary Islands. The islands were conquered between 1402 and 1496, and the native population that survived the wars of conquest was enslaved, died of disease, or absorbed into the conquering population. They disappeared as a people, though some aspects of their culture remain and some people still claim Guanche descent. Guinea  refers to the west coast of sub-Saharan Africa, which was one of the first sub-Saharan regions to trade extensively with Europeans. In Columbus’s day, it was already a leading source of slaves, gold, and ivory. Guisay, Quinsay  modern-day Handgzhou. It was the capital of Song dynasty (960–1279) when Marco Polo visited the region. This probably accounts for Columbus’s belief that he would find the Great Khan there. Hayani  it is uncertain to which island this refers, but it seems clear that it is one of the islands north of Hispañola that Martín Alonso probably visited after he left Columbus. Henry Morton Stanley (1841–1904) a British emigrant to America who worked as a journalist for the New York Herald when he was sent to find Dr. David Livingstone in Africa in 1871. He later worked for the king of Belgium in exploring the Congo basin. He is renowned for his cruelty to the natives. Hernan Pérez Mateos served as one of Oviedo’s primary informants about the first voyage. Las Casas disputed his claim that Columbus never set foot on any of the islands until Cuba. Hernan Pérez was widely reputed to be untrustworthy.

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Glossary Hernán Yáñez de Montiel witness who based his testimony on seeing the departure and arrival of the armada and speaking with many of the crew members, especially those of the Pinta. Hierro, El Hierro the smallest and furthest island to the west of the Canary Islands. Huelva  a port city on the coast of the Gulf of Cadiz; origin of many fifteenth- and sixteenth-century mariners. James Cook (1728–79)  a British explorer who, on three expeditions, explored the Pacific islands, New Zealand, Australia, Antarctica, and the northwest coast of North America. He was killed by Hawaiians. John Mandeville  the fictitious author of the equally fictitious book, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville. The fanciful narratives may be based on some real accounts of travel by real people, but overall the work is little more than exaggerated fiction. Juan [Díaz] de Solís (1470–1516)  began his career sailing for the Portuguese. He sailed on several expeditions to the Yucatán Peninsula and Brazil. He discovered and named the Río de la Plata, where he was killed, and possibly eaten, by the Charrúa Indians in 1516. Juan de Fonseca, bishop of Burgos (1451–1524) played a key role in the exploration, conquest, and extension of royal power over the New World. He sponsored voyages of exploration, including Magellan’s, had Columbus and Cortés removed from office, created the Board of Trade, and dominated the Council of the Indies for years. He became the bishop of Burgos in 1514. Juan de la Cosa (d. 1510)  owner and captain of the Santa María. He is reputed to have allowed a boy to take the helm of the ship when it ran aground off Hispañola. He sailed with Columbus on his first three voyages and made several other voyages to the New World. He used his knowledge to draw his 1500 world map, which was the first to show the New World. He died in a battle with natives in 1510. Juan Pérez served as an accountant to Queen Isabel before retiring to the Franciscan monastery of La Rábida in Andalusia near the port town of Palos. Pérez convinced Columbus to petition Isabel one more time and helped him gain an audience with her. He may also have accompanied Columbus on the second voyage, where he celebrated the first mass in the New World. Juan Portuguese  the only black witness to appear in this group of witnesses. He was a servant to Columbus and sailed on the Santa María with Columbus, though he does not appear on the lists of those who sailed in the armada. He lived with Columbus in Seville and after Columbus died, he appeared in Darien. Juan Rodriguez Bermejo, also Rodrigo de Triana  a sailor on the Pinta, who was possibly the first European to see the “New World” since the Vikings. Columbus claimed the honor of first sighting land and denied Juan Rodriguez both the recognition and the reward.

Glossary King Fernando  Fernando II (1452–1516) of Aragon married Isabel of Castile in 1469. He undertook the conquest of Granada in 1482, Naples in 1504, and Navarre in 1512, thus extending his and Isabel’s kingdoms. He supported Columbus’s first voyage and ruled Castile as regent for his daughter Juana after Isabel’s death in 1504. La Navidad the first European settlement in the New World built from the wreckage of the Santa María. Columbus left thirty-nine men there to continue the search for gold. Instead, they abused the natives, who retaliated by killing them. The sight of this settlement was not rediscovered until 1977. La Rábida  a Franciscan monastery built just outside of the town of Palos. Both Columbus and Martín Alonso stayed here. Columbus’s friend and supporter Juan Pérez was a monk there. Lepe  the home town of Rodrigo de Trianna and other important mariners of the early exploration period. Located near Huelva on the southern Spanish coast. Lucayos  Taino word for the entire Bahamian Archipelago and its inhabitants. Luis de Santángel  served as manager of King Fernando’s personal household. He convinced Queen Isabel that she should back Columbus because the voyage was a cheap gamble with the possibility of great rewards. Besides, he argued, Columbus would go to another monarch who would reap the rewards if the gamble paid off. Columbus wrote him a letter describing the discovery. Madrid  a city in the middle of the Iberian Peninsula where the royal family often stayed on their travels about their kingdom. Magauana Taino chiefdom of the southern part of Hispañola whose chief was Caonabo. Majorca the largest of the islands in the Balearic island archipelago whose inhabitants played a leading role in the early days of exploration. The island was conquered by the Aragonese in 1229 and remained part of the holdings of the Crown of Aragon. mamey, mamey sapote  a tropical fruit with rich salmon-colored flesh. Manuel de Valdovinos  gave testimony on behalf of the Crown based on what he had heard from Vicente Yáñez Pinzón and others who went on the first voyage with him. Manuel sailed with Vicente Yáñez on a subsequent voyage, probably the 1499–1500 voyage, in which Vicente Yáñez sailed on his own account. maravedis  a medieval Spanish coin worth one Venetian gold ducat. Marco Polo (1254–1324) unlike John Mandeville, Marco Polo was a real historical figure who did travel as a merchant from Venice to the East. Whether he lived in China, as he claimed, has been disputed, but many of his details about life in China ring true for the period. His account was written by Rustichello of Pisa who listened to Polo’s accounts while Polo was a prisoner in Genoa from 1298 to 1299. The account was later published as The Travels

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Glossary of Marco Polo. Columbus owned a much used copy of Polo’s account, and this may have been the source of what little Columbus knew about the East. Martín Alonso Pinzón (1441–93) the oldest of the three Pinzón brothers (Francisco Martín, first mate on the Santa María, and Vicente Yáñez, captain of the Niña). Martín Alonso was an experienced sea captain and sometimes a pirate in the wars with the Portuguese. The Pinzón family held a prominent place in the society of Palos, and so their assistance with the voyage proved crucial. The records attest to the importance of Martín Alonso in outfitting the voyage and in discovering land. He died in 1493 shortly after his return. Martin Frobisher (d. 1594) led three expeditions to what is now Eastern Canada, Greenland, and the Hudson Bay. He hauled hundreds of tons of iron pyrite to England thinking it was gold. He also willfully abused the natives, attacking them without provocation and kidnapping them. mastic  is a resin derived from the mastic tree and dried. It was prized for its medicinal and culinary qualities. In Columbus’s day, mastic was worth its weight in gold and Columbus mistakenly identified trees in the Caribbean as mastic. Medicis originally a wealthy banking family from north of Florence, by the fifteenth century the Medici family had seized control of the city of Florence and become one of the wealthiest and most powerful families in Europe. In his letter to the king and queen, Columbus probably referred to Giovanni di Lorenzo de' Medici (1475–1521) who became a cardinal-deacon at age thirteen in 1489. He was not admitted to the College of Cardinals until 1492. He was elected pope in 1513. Moguer  a small municipality near Huelva and a common source of mariners in the age of exploration. Molinos  a small village northwest of Madrid. Mongol  one of several Central-East Asian ethnic groups that coalesced around the charismatic leader Genghis Khan in the early thirteenth century. Over the next fifty years, the Mongol armies conquered all of the territory from Hungary to Manchuria and China to Palestine. They formed the largest land empire in the history of the world, which was ruled as four separate Khanates, with the Great Khan living in China. They facilitated trade and protected merchants, creating what has been called the Pax Mongolica, or Mongol Peace, which allowed merchants like Marco Polo to travel safely between Europe and China. The empire began to fall apart in the mid-fourteenth century with the collapse of the Juan Dynasty in China. The last khanate of the Golden Horde in what is now Russia was not destroyed until the middle of the sixteenth century. Neolithic Revolution a term used to describe the radical transformation in human social, agricultural, political, and economic organization from huntergatherer societies to sedentary farmers with domesticated plants and

Glossary animals. The process began about 10,000 years ago and has produced some of the most profound changes in the history of our species. Ottoman Turks  one of several Turkish groups from northwestern Anatolia that formed an empire under the leadership of Osman I in 1299. They conquered Constantinople in 1453 and eventually spread deep into the Balkans and across North Africa to Morocco. Their destruction of the Byzantine Empire and their invasion of previously Christian lands in the Balkans created an enduring antagonism with the Christian princes of Europe. Under Charles V, then the Holy Roman Emperor and the king of Spain, Spanish armies led the fight against the Ottomans over control of the Mediterranean. The question was finally settled in the Christians’ favor at the great naval battle of Lepanto in 1571. Our Lady of Guadalupe during Columbus’s day, the shrine of the Lady of Guadalupe was the most revered Marian shrine in Castile. It is also one of the few black Madonnas in Spain. Our Lady of Loreto a Marian cult created in the thirteenth century whose basilica is in Loreto, Italy. She was transported there from Nazareth to protect her from the Mameluke invasion of Palestine. Palos founded in the early fourteenth century, Palos became an important center for Atlantic navigation by the fifteenth century. The town joined the war against Portugal over the rights to fishing and commerce on the Atlantic coast of Africa. The war ended with the Treaty of Alcáçovas in 1479 in which Spain conceded Portuguese rights to the trade with Africa in exchange for the Canaries. Some residents of Palos refused to honor the agreement and fished there anyway, which led to the Crown imposing the punishment of outfitting two ships for royal service. These ships, the Niña and the Pinta, were lent to Columbus for his first voyage. Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli (1397–1482)  an Italian map maker from Florence who prepared a theoretical map of the Atlantic, which he sent to the king of Portugal around 1474. He may also have sent a copy of this map to Columbus, though this is disputed by scholars. Pedro Vázquez de la Frontera a native of Palos who apparently served on Portuguese ships and had a reputation as an accomplished navigator and sailor. He sailed with a Portuguese expedition from the Azores to the Sargasso Sea before they turned back. He encouraged Columbus and Martín Alonso to make the voyage and to press through the sea grasses of the Sargasso. Pero Alonso Niño (d. 1502)  served as the pilot on the Santa María on the first voyage and sailed with Columbus on the second voyage. He led an expedition along the northern coast of South America in 1499–1500. pilgrimage a spiritual journey to a sacred location. Columbus promised to perform several pilgrimages in return for the safety of his ship on the return voyage in 1493.

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Glossary Pope Innocent VIII  Giovanni Battista Cybo served as pope from 1484 to 1492. Queen Isabel assumed the thrones of Castile and León in 1474 as Isabel I (1451–1504). She was an energetic ruler who assumed power in a period of intense internal conflict. She successfully consolidated her rule, brought order to the kingdoms, expanded her territory, and made Spain an important international power for the next 250 years. The dark side of her reign included the expulsion of the Jews in 1492 and the establishment of the Inquisition in 1478. Rodrigo Bastidas (1460–1527) sailed with Columbus on his second voyage and then became an independent explorer. He mapped the northern coast of South America and Panama and established the town of Santa Marta in Columbia. He was killed by his men over his unwillingness to share the gold he had acquired on a trip to the interior of Columbia in 1527. Rudyard Kipling (1865–1935)  British writer, poet, and novelist who is widely recognized as an apologist for British imperialism. He is most famous for his novel, The Jungle Book, and his poem, “The White Man’s Burden.” Saltes is an island with a shifting sandbar at the mouth of the Odiel River. Columbus would have sailed down the river Tintos where Palos is located to the Odiel River and between the bar of Saltes and the mainland into the Gulf of Cádiz. Santa Clara Monastery founded in 1337; the abbess, who was the aunt of King Fernando, supported Columbus’s first voyage and apparently maintained a correspondence with him. Columbus and part of his crew went to the monastery in March of 1493 to fulfill the oath they made to spend a night in the monastery and pay for a mass. Santa María de la Antigua  twelfth-century cathedral in Valladolid, Spain. São Jorge da Mina  one of the first and most important fortress and trading post established in the fifteenth century on the Gold Coast of Africa at modern-day Elmina. It became a main source of gold and slaves for Portugal and a weigh station for Atlantic exploration. Sebastian Rodriguez  according to the testimony of Garcia Fernandez, Sebastian Rodriguez served as the courier between Juan Pérez and Queen Isabel. Seven Years’ War, French and Indian War fought between 1754 and 1763. France and England fought for dominance of North America, while the Native Americans were fighting wars of independence from both. Britain prevailed over France, which withdrew from North America. Native Americas were still undefeated and had to fight a long war of independence that did not really end until the 1820s. treacle molasses. Venice ancient Italian city state located at the head of the Adriatic Sea. In Columbus’s day, it was a major maritime power that dominated much of the eastern Mediterranean trade.

Glossary viands  refers to any food item. Vicente Yañez Pinzón  the youngest of the Pinzón brothers, he captained the Niña on the first voyage and sailed with Columbus on his third voyage. He made an independent voyage to South America and is credited with discovering the Amazon River. He disappears from the historic record after 1514. Viceroy means vice king or deputy king. As viceroy, Columbus would be empowered to act in the name of the king and queen as he governed the lands he had discovered. Villacorta  refers to Pedro Villacorta, who accompanied Columbus on the first voyage and seemed to be a favorite of Columbus. In requesting that Pedro be named paymaster of the Indies, Columbus wanted to appear as a patron dispensing favors to his faithful followers. wands  Columbus used this word to refer to the atlatls, or throwing sticks, used to increase the cast of a spear or dart. Washington Irving (1783–1859) American writer most famous for Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hallow, he also served as the US ambassador to Spain between 1842 and 1846. He wrote several books about Spanish history. Though he had access to and used primary sources in his book, The History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, he also allowed his fictional mind free reign as he articulated the most fully developed romantic conquering hero image of Columbus. He is the source of many of our modern misconceptions regarding Columbus and his first voyage. William Dampier (d. 1715) pirate- and privateer-turned explorer, he circumnavigated the world three times. He explored the northern coast of Australia leaving detailed, though racist, descriptions of the aborigines he encountered. His writings proved influential in the development of European racist and imperialistic attitudes toward native peoples the world over. Zemi  Taino word that refers to a deity or the figurine of the deity.

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Notes

Introduction for Instructors 1. For interesting and useful readings on these subjects see, Felipe FernándezArmesto, “The Context of Columbus: Myth, Reality and Self-Perception,” in Columbus and the Consequences of 1492, ed. Anthony Disney (Melbourne: La Trobe University, 1994), 7–19; Thomas J. Schlereth, “Columbia, Columbus, and Columbianism,” The Journal of American History 79, no. 3 (December 1992): 937–68; James Axtell, “The Moral Dimensions of 1492,” The Historian 56, no. 1 (1993): 17–28, republished as “Did Europeans Commit Genocide in the Americas?,” in Major Problems in Atlantic History: Documents and Essays, eds. Adam Rothman and Alison Games (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2008), 471–74; and James W. Loewen, “1493: The True Importance of Christopher Columbus,” in Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong (New York: Touchstone, 2007), 30–69. 2. See, for example, Geoffrey Symcox and Blair Sullivan, eds., Christopher Columbus and the Enterprise of the Indies: A Brief History with Documents (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005).

Chapter 1 1. Mario B. Mignone, ed., Columbus: Meeting of Cultures: Proceedings of the Symposium Held at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, October 16-17, 1992 (New York: Stony Brook, Forum Italicum, 1993); Stephen J. Summerhill and John Alexander Williams, eds., Sinking Columbus: Contested History, Cultural Politics, and Mythmaking during the Quincentenary (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2000). For a very informative presentation of the many legitimate holes punched in the Columbus myth, see James W. Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong (New York: Touchstone, 2007), 31–69. One of the most enthusiastic hole-punchers is Kirkpatrick Sale, The Conquest of Paradise: Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Legacy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991).

Notes

2. For a detailed examination of Columbus’s log of the first voyage and the way it has been used and abused, see David Henige, In Search of Columbus: The Sources for the First Voyage (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1991). 3. Loewen, Lies my Teacher Told Me, 1–9. 4. The following discussion of the various reimaginings of Columbus is taken from Thomas J. Schlereth, “Columbia, Columbus, and Columbianism,” The Journal of American History 79, no. 3 (December 1992): 937–68. 5. Columbus has been the site of many contests over national identity. See, for example, Christopher Schmidt-Nowara, “Columbus’s Remains, Columbus in Chains: Commemoration and Its Discontents in Late Nineteenth-Century Spain and Cuba,” in The Conquest of History: Spanish Colonialism and National Histories in the Nineteenth Century (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006), 53–95. 6. Washington Irving, The History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, 4 vols. (London: John Murray, 1828). 7. Schlereth, “Columbia, Columbus, and Columbianism,” 937–68. 8. Ibid., 956–61. 9. Ibid., 965; David E. Stannard, American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). 10. Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948) defines genocide as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” See also Axtell, “Did Europeans Commit Genocide in the Americas?” 472. 11. See, for example, Ward Churchill, Indians are Us (Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 1994). 12. On the second voyage Columbus gave native women to his men to rape. See, for example, Michele da Cuneo, “News of the Island of the Hesperian Ocean Discovered by Don Christopher Columbus of Genoa,” in Italian Reports on America, 1493-1522: Accounts by Contemporary Observers, eds. Geoffrey Symcox and Luciano Formisano, trans. Theodore J. Cachey, Jr. and John C. McLucas (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2002), 52, 62. 13. On the second voyage in 1495 Columbus rounded up 1,600 natives, selected 550 to take back to Spain for sale as slaves, allowed his men to take whoever they wanted from the remainder, and then released the 400 left over. Many of these were nursing mothers who were so desperate to

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escape that they left their infants behind. See Cuneo, “News of the Island of the Hesperian,” 62. 14. Sauer, The Early Spanish Main, 71–103. 15. Alfred W. Crosby, Jr., Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 70–103. 16. Eric Williams, Documents of West Indian History: From the Spanish Discovery to the British Conquest of Jamaica (Brooklyn: A&B Books, 1963), 57. 17. See, for example, Phillips and Phillips, The Worlds of Christopher Columbus, 207–11 and Laurence Bergreen, Columbus: The Four Voyages, 1492-1504 (New York: Penguin Books, 2011), 274–81. 18. Phillips and Phillips, The Worlds of Christopher Columbus, 13–36. 19. Felipe Fernández-Armesto, Pathfinders: A Global History of Exploration (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2006), 127–28. 20. Fernández-Armesto, Pathfinders, 158–59; A. R. Disney, A History of Portugal and the Portuguese Empire, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 45–110. 21. Phillips and Phillips, The Worlds or Christopher Columbus, 70. 22. Ibid., 69–71. 23. Marco Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo (NY: Penguin Group, Inc., 2004); C. W. R. D. Moseley, trans., The Travels of Sir John Mandeville (New York: Penguin Group, Inc., 2005). 24. Fernández-Armesto, Pathfinders, 135. 25. Phillips and Phillips, The Worlds of Christopher Columbus, 136–37. 26. Ibid., 138–42. 27. Davidson, Columbus then and Now, 213–21. 28. The following discussion is taken from Irving Rouse, The Tainos: Rise and Decline of the People who Greeted Columbus (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 1–25. 29. Giovanni de’ Strozzi, “Faith Superstitions, and customs of the Island of Hispaniola, Sent to Me from Ferrara,” in Italian Reports on America, 1493-1522: Accounts by Contemporary Observers, eds. Geoffrey Symcox and Luciano Formisano, trans. Theodore J. Cachey, Jr. and John C. McLucas (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2002), 63–68. 30. Rouse, The Tainos, 138–72. 31. Alice Beck Kehoe, America Before the European Invasions (London: Longman, 2002), 27–28. 32. Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1999). 33. Andre Gunder Frank, Reorient: Global Economy in the Asian Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998). 34. Roger Schlesinger, In the Wake of Columbus: The Impact of the New World on Europe, 1492-1650, 2nd edn (Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, Inc., 2007).

Notes

35. Alfred W. Crosby, Jr., Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986); Alfred W. Crosby, Jr., The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1972); Robert B. Marks, The Origins of the Modern World: A Global and Environmental Narrative from the Fifteenth to the Twenty-First Century (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015). 36. Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel; David Christian, Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004). 37. Charles C. Mann, 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created (New York: Vintage, 2012). 38. Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy (Princeton: Princeton University Press; revised edition, 2001); J. M. Blaut, The Colonizer’s Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History (New York: The Guilford Press, 1993). 39. For a detailed and scholarly analysis of the Columbus documents and how the discourses that emerged from them have shaped European expansion, see Margarita Zamora, Reading Columbus (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).

Chapter 2 1. This discussion and that which follows are taken from the “General Introduction and the Introduction to Part I: The First Voyage,” in The Book of Privileges Issued to Christopher Columbus by King Fernando and Queen Isabel, eds. Helen Nader and Luciano Formisano, trans. Helen Nader (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2004), 3–29. 2. Carl Ortwin Sauer, The Early Spanish Main (Berkeley: University of California, 1969), 16–17. 3. “General Introduction,” in The Book of Privileges Issued to Christopher Columbus by King Fernando and Queen Isabel, eds. Helen Nader and Luciano Formisano, trans. Helen Nader (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2004), 5–6. 4. Helen Nader and Luciano Formisano, eds., The Book of Privileges Issued to Christopher Columbus by King Fernando and Queen Isabel, trans. Helen Nader (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2004), 63–69. Used by permission of Wipf and Stock Publishers. www.wipfandstock.com.

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Chapter 3 1. Alfonso Ulloa, Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo nelle quali s’ha particolare e vera relazione della vita e de’ fatti dell’ Ammiraglio D. Christoforo Colombo suo padre, etc. (Venice, 1571). 2. Collection of Voyages and Travels: Some Now First Printed from Original Manuscripts . . ., vol. 2 (London: John Churchill, 1732), 501–628. 3. Miles H. Davidson, Columbus Then and Now: A Life Reexamined (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), 101. 4. Julius Olson E. and Edward G. Bourne, eds., The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503: The Voyages of the Northmen; The Voyages of Columbus and of John Cabot (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1906), 87–258. Though more recent transcriptions and translations of Las Casas’s text exist, I have used the 1893 Markham edition because it proved impossible to acquire permission to republish such large sections of the more recent translations. These new editions have corrected minor errors present in earlier editions and read more clearly, but they have not substantially transformed the narrative presented in the 1893 version. See, for example, Oliver Dunn and James E. Kelley, Jr., trans. and eds., The Diario of Christopher Columbus’s First Voyage to America, 1492-1493, Abstracted by Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989) and Francesca Lardicci, ed., A Synoptic Edition of the Log of Columbus’s First Voyage, vol. 6 of Repertorium Columbianum, trans. Cynthia L. Chamberlin and Blair Sullivan (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1999). 5. William D. Phillips, Jr. and Carla Rahn Phillips, The Worlds of Christopher Columbus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 136–81. 6. Sauer, The Early Spanish Main, 22–23. 7. Columbus also argued in the account of his third voyage that gold was more likely to be found south of the “equinoctial line.” See “Narrative of the Third Voyage of Columbus as contained in Las Casas’s History,” in The Northmen, Columbus, and Cabot, 985-1503, ed. Edward Gaylord Bourne (New York: Barnes and Noble, Inc, 1934), 327. The men of his second voyage also apparently believed this. See Cuneo, “News of the Island of the Hesperian Ocean,” 58. 8. Sauer, The Early Spanish Main, 23–26. 9. Ibid., 27. 10. Ibid., 23–29. 11. Fernández-Armesto, Pathfinders, 168. 12. Anthony Pagden, The Fall of Natural Man: The American Indian and the Origins of Comparative Ethnology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 2.

Notes

13. John Block Friedman, The Monstrous Races in Medieval Art and Thought (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2000). 14. Pauline Turner Strong, “Fathoming the Primitive: Australian Aborigines in Four Explorers’ Journals, 1697-1845,” Ethnohistory 33, no. 2 (Spring, 1986): 175–94. 15. Christopher Columbus, “Letter to the Sovereigns of 4 March 1493 Announcing the Discovery,” in New World Encounters, ed. Stephen Greenblatt, trans. Margarita Zamora (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 3–8. 16. “The Second Voyage of Master Martin Frobisher, Made to the West and Northwest Regions, in the Year 1577, with a description of the country, and people,” in Voyages and Discoveries: The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation, ed. Jack Beeching (London: Penguin Books, 1972), 188–94. 17. William Dampier, Dampier’s Voyages: Consisting of a New Voyage Round the World . . ., ed. John Masefield, vol. 1 (London: Grant Richards, 1906), 453–58. 18. Williams, Documents of West Indian History, 36–37. 19. “The Second Voyage of Master Martin Frobisher,” 190–92. 20. James Cook, “The Voyage of the Endeavour, 1768-1771,” in Travel Writing, 1700-1830: An Anthology, eds. Elizabeth A. Bohls and Ian Duncan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 446–48. 21. Kevin Shillington, History of Africa, 2nd ed. (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2005), 298–300; Daniel R. Headrick, The Tools of Empire: Technology and European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), 116–17. 22. Rudyard Kipling, “The White Man’s Burden: The United States and the Philippine Islands,” McClure’s Magazine 12 (February 5, 1899). 23. Williams, Documents of West Indian History, 55–56. 24. Sauer, The Early Spanish Main, 32.

Chapter 4 1. Margarita Zamora, “Christopher Columbus’s ‘Letter to the Sovereigns’: Announcing the Discovery,” in New World Encounters, ed. Stephen Greenblatt, trans. Margarita Zamora (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 1–3. 2. Zamora, “Christopher Columbus’s ‘Letter to the Sovereigns,’ ” 1. 3. Ibid. 4. Zamora, “Christopher Columbus’s ‘Letter to the Sovereigns,’ ” 1–3. 5. Ibid., 1–3.

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6. Miles Davidson has concluded, after exhausting analysis of the available evidence, that Columbus intentionally grounded the ship so as to provide lumber for the creation of a new settlement. He also argued that the protestations found in the journal that he could not carry the thirty-nine men he left behind on the two remaining ships are false and that Columbus concocted the story about the sinking of the ship to justify his decision to colonize the islands. See Davidson, Columbus Then and Now, 237–51. 7. Zamora, “Christopher Columbus’s ‘Letter to the Sovereigns,’ ” 2–3. 8. Phillips and Phillips, The Worlds of Christopher Columbus, 182. 9. Ibid., 187. 10. Matthew Restall, Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 11–18. 11. Christopher Columbus, The Letter of Columbus to Luis de Santángel Announcing His Discovery With Extracts from his Journals, trans. Albert Bushnell Hart and Edward Channing (New York: A. Lovell & Company, 1892), 2–8. 12. “Letter to the Sovereigns of 4 March 1493 Announcing the Discovery,” in New World Encounters, ed. Stephen Greenblatt, trans. Margarita Zamora (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 3–8. 13. Damaged for the next three lines, not enough context to translate.

Chapter 5 1. William D. Phillips, Jr., “Introduction,” in Testimonies from the Columbian Lawsuits, vol. 8, ed. and trans. William D. Phillips, Jr. et al. (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers, 2000), 3–4. 2. I have not included examples of the testimonies in favor of the Columbus family because we have long had his version of what happened on that voyage as presented earlier in this book. 3. Davidson, Columbus Then and Now, 224. 4. Ibid., 441. 5. Ibid., 233. 6. Antonio Muro Orejón et al., eds., Pleitos colombinos, vol. 3: Probanzas del Almirante de las Indias (1512-1515) (Seville: Escuela de Estudios Hispanoamericanos, 1984); vol. 4: Probanzas del Fiscal (1512-1515) (Seville: Escuela de Estudios Hispanoamericanos, 1989); and vol. 8: Rollo del proceso sobre la apelación de la Sentencia de Dueñas (Seville: Escuela de Estudios Hispanoamericanos, 1964). 7. William D. Phillips, Jr. et al., trans. and eds., Testimonies from the Columbian Lawsuits, vol. 8 (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers, 2000). 8. I have taken the following testimonies from pages 173–75, 177–83, 187–91, 200–16, 227–42, 244–46 of Phillips’s translation.

Selected Bibliography and Further Reading

Primary Sources Cohen, J. M., ed. and trans. The Four Voyages of Christopher Columbus. London: Penguin, 1969. Collection of Voyages and Travels: Some Now First Printed from Original Manuscripts. . . . Vol. 2. London: John Churchill, 1732. Cuneo, Michele da. “News of the Island of the Hesperian Ocean Discovered by Don Christopher Columbus of Genoa.” In Italian Reports on America, 1493-1522: Accounts by Contemporary Observers. Edited by Geoffrey Symcox and Luciano Formisano. Translated by Theodore J. Cachey, Jr. and John C. McLucas, 50–63. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2002. Dunn, Oliver and James E. Kelley, Jr., eds. and trans. The Diario of Christopher Columbus’s First Voyage to America, 1492-1493, Abstracted by Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989. Lardicci, Francesca Lardicci, ed. A Synoptic Edition of the Log of Columbus’s First Voyage. Vol. 6 of Repertorium Columbianum. Translated by Cynthia L. Chamberlin and Blair Sullivan. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1999. Las Casas, Bartolomé de. A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies. Edited and translated by Nigel Griffin. London: Penguin, 2004. Mascarenhas, Barreto, “Colombo”Português: Provas Documentais, Vol 2. Lisboa: Nova Arraniada, 1977. Nader, Helen and Luciano Formisano, eds. The Book of Privileges Issued to Christopher Columbus by King Fernando and Queen Isabel. Translated by Helen Nader. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2004. “Narrative of the Third Voyage of Columbus as contained in Las Casas’s History.” In The Northmen, Columbus, and Cabot, 985-1503. Edited by Edward Gaylord Bourne, 317–66. New York: Barnes and Noble, Inc, 1934. Olsen, Julius and Edward G. Bourne, eds. The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503: The Voyages of the Northmen; The Voyages of Columbus and of John Cabot. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1906.

148

Selected Bibliography and Further Reading

Orejón, Antonio Muro et al., eds. Pleitos colombinos. Vol. 8: Rollo del proceso sobre la apelación de la Sentencia de Dueñas. Seville: Escuela de Estudios Hispanoamericanos, 1964. Orejón, Antonio Muro et al., eds. Pleitos colombinos. Vol. 3: Probanzas del Almirante de las Indias (1512-1515). Seville: Escuela de Estudios Hispanoamericanos, 1984. Orejón, Antonio Muro et al., eds. Pleitos colombinos. Vol. 4: Probanzas del Fiscal (1512-1515). Seville: Escuela de Estudios Hispanoamericanos, 1989. Strozzi, Giovanni de’. “Faith Superstitions, and Customs of the Island of Hispaniola, Sent to Me from Ferrara.” In Italian Reports on America, 1493-1522: Accounts by Contemporary Observers. Edited by Geoffrey Symcox and Luciano Formisano. Translated by Theodore J. Cachey, Jr. and John C. McLucas, 63–68. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2002. Symcox, Geoffrey and Blair Sullivan, eds. Christopher Columbus and the Enterprise of the Indies: A Brief History with Documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005. Ulloa, Alfonso. Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo nelle quali s'ha particolare e vera relazione della vita e de' fatti dell' Ammiraglio D. Christoforo Colombo suo padre, etc. Venice, 1571. Williams, Eric. Documents of West Indian History: From the Spanish Discovery to the British Conquest of Jamaica. Brooklyn: A&B Books, 1963.

Secondary Sources Abulafia, David. The Discovery of Mankind: Atlantic Encounters in the Age of Columbus. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008. Axtell, James. “The Moral Dimensions of 1492.” The Historian 56, no. 1 (1993): 17–28. Axtell, James. “Did Europeans Commit Genocide in the Americas?” In Major Problems in Atlantic History: Documents and Essays. Edited by Adam Rothman and Alison Games, 471–74. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2008. Bedini, Silvio A., ed. The Christopher Columbus Encyclopedia, Vol 2. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992. Bergreen, Laurence. Columbus: The Four Voyages, 1492-1504. New York: Penguin Books, 2011. Blaut, J. M. The Colonizer’s Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History. New York: The Guilford Press, 1993. Boyle, David. Toward the Setting Sun: Columbus, Cabot, Vespucci, and the Race for America. New York: Walker, 2008.

Selected Bibliography and Further Reading

Catz, Rebecca. Christopher Columbus and the Portuguese, 1476-1498. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1993. Chiappelli, Fredi, Michael J. B. Allen, and Robert Louis Benson, eds. First Images of America: The Impact of the New World on the Old. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976. Christian, David. Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. Crosby, Alfred W. The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1973. Crosby, Alfred W. Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Davidson, Miles H. Columbus Then and Now: A Life Reexamined. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997. Deagan, Kathleen and José María Cruxent. Columbus’s Outpost among the Taínos: Spain and America at la Isabela, 1493-1498. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002. Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1999. Disney, A. R. A History of Portugal and the Portuguese Empire, Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Fernández-Armesto, Felipe. Before Columbus: Exploration and Colonization from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, 1229-1492. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987. Fernández-Armesto, Felipe. Columbus. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Fernández-Armesto, Felipe. “The Context of Columbus: Myth, Reality and Self-Perception.” In Columbus and the Consequences of 1492. Edited by Anthony Disney, 7–19. Melbourne: La Trobe University, 1994. Fernández-Armesto, Felipe. 1492: The Year the World Began. New York: HarperCollins, 2009. Frank, André Gunder. Reorient: Global Economy in the Asian Age. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Frye, John. Los Otros: Columbus and the Three Who Made His Enterprise of the Indies Succeed. Lewiston, New York: E. Mellan, 1992. Gould, Alice Bache. Nueva lista documentada de los tripulantes de Colón en 1492. Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia, 1984. Greenblatt, Stephen. Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World. New York: The Clarendon Press, 1991. Henige, David. In Search of Columbus: The Sources for the First Voyage. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1991. Hobbs, William Herbert. “The Track of the Columbus Caravels in 1492.” Hispanic American Historical Review 30, no. 1 (February 1950): 63–73.

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Selected Bibliography and Further Reading

Hobson, John M. The Eastern Origins of Western Civilization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Irving, Washington. The History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, Vol 4. London: John Murray, 1828. Keegan, William F. The People who Discovered Columbus: The Preshistory of the Bahamas. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1992. Kehoe, Alice Beck. America Before the European Invasions. London: Longman, 2002. Loewen, James W. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. New York: Touchstone, 2007. Mann, Charles C. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. Mann, Charles C. 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011. Marks, Robert B. The Origins of the Modern World: A Global and Environmental Narrative from the Fifteenth to the Twenty-First Century. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015. Mignone, Mario B., ed. Columbus: Meeting of Cultures: Proceedings of the Symposium Held at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, October 16-17, 1992. New York: Stony Brook, Forum Italicum, 1993. Morison, Samuel E. Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus. New York: Time Inc., 1962. Morison, Samuel E. Christopher Columbus, Mariner. New York: New American Library, 1983. Pérez-Mallaína, Pablo E. Spain’s Men of the Sea. Translated by Carla Rahn Phillips. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. Phillips, Jr., William D. and Carla Rahn Phillips. The Worlds of Christopher Columbus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Phillips, Jr., William D. et al., eds. and trans. Testimonies from the Columbian Lawsuits, Vol. 8. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers, 2000. Pomeranz, Kenneth. The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press; revised edition, 2001. Rouse, Irving. The Tainos: Rise and Decline of the People who Greeted Columbus. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992. Sale, Kirkpatrick. The Conquest of Paradise: Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Legacy. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991. Sauer, Carl Ortwin. The Early Spanish Main. Berkeley: University of California, 1969. Schlereth, Thomas J. “Columbia, Columbus, and Columbianism.” The Journal of American History 79, no. 3 (December 1992): 937–68.

Selected Bibliography and Further Reading

Schlesinger, Roger. In the Wake of Columbus: The Impact of the New World on Europe, 1492-1650, 2nd edn. Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, Inc., 2007. Schmidt-Nowara, Christopher. “Columbus’s Remains, Columbus in Chains: Commemoration and Its Discontents in Late Nineteenth-Century Spain and Cuba.” In The Conquest of History: Spanish Colonialism and National Histories in the Nineteenth Century, 53–95. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006. Stannard, David E. American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. Summerhill, Stephen J. and John Alexander Williams, eds. Sinking Columbus: Contested History, Cultural Politics, and Mythmaking during the Quincentenary. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2000. Thornton, Russel. American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987. Zamora, Margarita. Reading Columbus. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.

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Index

Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations. aborigines of Australia  39 Adelantado of Murcia  53, 129 admiral, title of  25, 29, 31–2, 41, 74, 97, 129 Africa  9, 11, 12–13 ajes (agis)  65, 89, 129 alguazil  63, 68, 129 aloe  37, 56, 87, 91 Andalusia, Atlantic Coast of  113 apiary  60, 129 Aragon 15 Arana, Diego de, of Cordova  63, 68 Arawaks  21, 129 Archipelago 56 Asia 22 astrolabes  13, 129 Atabey 20 Australia 39 Avan 84 Azores  11–12, 15, 17, 18, 42, 73, 80 Babeque (Babueca, Baneque)  55, 58, 69, 106, 108, 113, 129 Balbuca  100, 129 Barcelona  29, 35, 77, 80 Bastida, Rodrigo de la (Rodrigo Bastidas)  101, 102–3, 138 Bayona  111, 130 Behechio  100, 111, 130 Bermejo, Juan Rodriguez (Rodrigo de Triana)  45, 102, 108, 134 Bianchini, Vittorio  5 Black Death  10–11, 130 blancas  48, 130

Bohio/Bosio (island). See Hispañola bohío (dwelling)  86 Book of Privileges (Columbus)  27, 27 Borinque (island)  94 Burgos, bishop of. See Fonseca, Juan de Cabo Bojador  17, 130 Cabo de Campana  58, 59 Cabo de Cuba  57–8 Cabo del Isleo  51 Cabo de Palmas  51 cacique  61, 67, 68, 130 California 10 Camacho, Anton Martín  120 Camacho, Fernán Pérez  118–20, 132 Cami. See Great Khan (Gran Can) Canary Islands Castile’s claim on  11–12, 25 Columbus’s route toward  17–18, 41–2 conquests of  80 exploitation of indigenous people in 9 Japan’s distance from  15 Caniba (Canibales) 130. See also Carib Indians cannibalism  21, 85, 93, 130 Caonabo  100, 111, 130 Cape Bojador  17, 130 Cape Verde Islands  11–12 Capitulations of Santa Fe and Granada 25–33 Capitulations of Granada  31–3 Capitulations of Santa Fe  29–30, 40

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Index Pinzón, Martín Alonso, and  114–15 questions to consider about  28 significance of  25–7, 37 caravels  13–14, 17, 42, 90 Cardo (island)  94 Caribbean description of  18–21 monstrous races reported in  38, 85 route of first voyage through  36 Carib Indians (Caniba)  20–1, 38, 58, 61, 65, 68, 93–4 Caribo (island)  93 Carrillo, Juan  126–7 Cascaes  75–6, 130 cassava  20, 21, 130 Castañeda, Juan de  73–4 castellanos  49, 65, 83, 90, 130 Castile  11, 15, 25, 26, 130 Catalans  11, 130 Cathay  14, 52, 82, 88, 130 Catholic Americans  3, 5–6 Cavila. See Great Khan (Gran Can) cazavi  65, 130 Ceylon 12 Chaldee  53, 130 China ginger from  12 islands off coast of  14–15 Juan Dynasty of  11 Mongol state in  14 Chios (island)  56, 87, 91 Christians and Christianity as enemies of Muslims  15, 41 in the Mediterranean  11 mission to convert indigenous peoples  47, 49, 55, 59–60, 62, 77, 84, 87, 92 probanzas and  80–1 Cibao 65 cinnamon  12, 53–4, 87, 91 Cintra  75, 130 Cipangu  14, 44, 48, 50–1, 65, 99, 131 Civil War  3

coat of arms  27 Coloma, Juan de  27, 29, 30, 33 Colón, Cristóbal. See Columbus, Christopher Colón, Diego  102, 104 Colón, Fernando. See Columbus, Ferdinand Colón, Luis  114, 120 Columbia 3, 4 Columbian Exchange  23 Columbus, Bartolomé  15 Columbus, Christopher birth and early life of  11 character of  26 first voyage of (see first voyage of Columbus) legacy of  23 letters of (see letters of Columbus) marriage of  11, 26 myths about  1–2, 3–4, 10, 22 second voyage of  7, 141–2 n.13 titles of  25 Columbus, Ferdinand  2, 35, 132 Columbus Day  3–8, 7, 8 Columbus Memorial at Union Station (Washington, DC)  6 Columbus Takes Possession of the New World (Bianchini)  5 Constantinople  11, 131 contextual timeline  xi–xii Continental Core of America  21 Cook, James  39, 134 copper  65, 86, 93 Cosa, Juan de la  101, 102–3, 134 cotton  56, 87, 91 crops of Taino people  20, 21 Cuba  9, 38, 51, 52, 94. See also Juana (island) Dama, Alvaro  76 Dampier, William  39, 139 Davidson, Miles  146 n.6 dehumanization of native peoples  39

Index democratic societies  23 Dias, Bartolomeu  13, 15, 25, 76 Discoverers Day  5 dispenser  103, 131 ducats  91, 131 Enlightenment 23 Enriquez, Alfonso  29, 30 equinoctial line  85, 144 n.7 Escobar, Francisco  38, 132 Escovedo, Rodrigo  46, 68 Española. See Hispañola ethnographies 38–9 Europe Black Death effects on  10–11 competition with Asia  22 identity crisis  22–3

questions to consider about  40 route of  36 search for wealth on  37, 49–50, 51, 53–4, 55–8 ship lost during  63–4, 66, 80 testimonies from lawsuits (see testimonies from lawsuits) Flanders  111, 132 flat earth theory  1, 17, 18 Fonseca, Juan de  101, 102, 112, 134 Fox people of Wisconsin  10 French and Indian War. See Seven Years’ War Frobisher, Martin  39, 136 Frontera, Pedro Vázquez de la  117, 124, 125, 137 fustas  92, 93, 132

Faba 94 Fernandez, Garcia (dispenser)  102–4, 132 Fernandez, Garcia (physician)  104–6, 132 Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, Gonzalo  2, 133 Fernandina (island)  48, 82, 88 Fernando, King  15, 17, 96, 135. See also Spanish Crown first voyage of Columbus discoveries of  18–21, 50 embarkation on  17–18, 41–2 ethnographies of natives and  38–9 flag from  46 historical background to  10–13 importance of  1–2, 22–3 journal of  35, 41–77 landing on Lucayos  45–7 land sighted in  45 maritime technological revolution and 13–14 outcome of  21–3 path of  19 plans for  14–17

Galicia  111, 132 Gallego, Alonso  124–6, 129 Genoa  11, 132 genocide  7–9, 10, 141 n.10 geography, knowledge and misconceptions  13, 14–15, 16, 22 gold in Africa  11, 12 Columbus’s obsession with  14, 29, 37, 40, 47–52, 54–6, 58, 60–2, 64–9, 71, 76, 83, 85, 87, 90–1, 94, 96, 100–2, 106, 108–9, 111–12, 116, 120, 122, 125–6, 135–6, 138, 144 n.7 equinoctial line and  144 n.7 indigenous people and  9, 47–8, 49–51, 52, 54, 55–6 leaf 61 man of (diaho)  108–9 Pinzón’s search and discovery of  58, 96, 100, 109, 111, 116, 125–6 reports of  83, 85, 87, 90, 91, 94, 102, 106 Santa Fe Capitulations and  29

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Index trading for  61–2, 64–5, 67, 68, 69–70, 83–4, 90 Gomera  42, 132 governor, title of  25, 29, 31–2, 41, 133 Granada  17, 25, 26, 41, 114–15, 121, 133 Granada Confirmation  25–6 Great Khan (Gran Can)  14, 41, 51, 52–3, 56, 58, 85, 133 Guacanagari, King (Guacanari)  68, 69, 108–9 Guanahani. See also San Salvador (island) Indians from, traveling with Columbus  52, 53 sighting of, and arrival at  45–7, 82, 102, 108, 111, 115 testimonies from lawsuits and  100, 102, 108, 111, 115 Guanches  12, 38, 133 Guerra, Cristóbal  101, 102–3, 131 Guinea  52, 56, 59, 85, 133 Guisay  51, 133 Gutierrez, Pero  45, 63, 68 Hayani (island)  102, 133 Henrique, Dom  12, 131 Hierro  42, 134 Hispañola (Hispaniola, Española, Bohio/Bosio) Caniba people on  58 Columbus’s description of  51, 82–3, 84–5, 89, 90 Columbus’s effect on  7–9, 10, 22, 39 defined 131 gold on  37, 54, 65, 69–70 people and supplies left on  68, 91–2 Pinzón’s death and  2 Pinzón’s discovery and time spent on  37, 69–71, 96, 100–1, 108–9, 111–12, 115–16, 123 The History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Irving) 3

Holy Land  67, 80, 92 Huelva  104–5, 134 Iberian maritime expansion  12 India Europe’s competition with  22 pepper from  12 Portugal and  15, 17 trade with  13 Indies Columbus’s enterprise of  26 quest for wealth in  4–5, 9, 37–8 as term  14 indigenous peoples Caribs  20–1, 38, 58, 61, 65, 68, 93–4 Columbus Day protests by  4–5 Columbus’s descriptions of  38–9, 46–8, 49, 53, 55, 60–1, 64, 83–4, 85–7, 89–90 depicted in art  5, 6 enslavement of  9, 10, 21, 22 European attitude toward  9–10, 38–9 European competition with  21–2 European identity crisis and  22–3 genocidal campaigns against  10 imperialistic designs on lands of  3, 6, 9 population decline  23 reaction to Columbus  1, 2, 20, 60, 84, 90 Taino  7–9, 18–21, 38, 57, 86 Indigenous Peoples’ Day  5–6 Indonesia 12 industrial revolution  23 infantilization of native peoples  39 Innocent VIII, Pope  99, 110, 114, 138 Irving, Washington  3, 139 Isabel, Queen  1, 15–17, 105, 138. See also Spanish Crown Isabella (Saomete, island)  49, 50–1, 82, 88 Italian Americans  3, 5–6

Index Jamaica 94 Japan  14, 15. See also Cipangu Jerez, Rodrigo de  53 Jerusalem  67, 92 Jews 17 João II, Dom  15, 131 Juana (island)  82, 83, 84, 88–9, 90, 94. See also Cuba Juan Dynasty of China  11 Juan of Castile, Don  32, 39, 131 Kipling, Rudyard  39, 138 Knights of Columbus  5 La Isabela  112–13, 123 La Navidad construction of  38, 85, 87 defined 135 men and supplies left at  85, 89, 91, 96 Pinzón’s arrival near  69 La Rábida  104, 117, 118–19, 127, 135 Las Casas, Bartolomé de  2, 35, 130, 144 n.4 lawsuits. See testimonies from lawsuits Lepe  105, 135 Lepe, Diego de  101, 102–3, 131 letters of Columbus  79–94 questions to consider about  81 to Santángel-Sánchez  79–80, 82–7 to Sovereigns  79, 80–1, 88–94 Libro Copiador (Columbus)  79 Lisbon, Portugal  75–6, 87 Lucayos (islands)  45, 100, 108, 111, 127, 135 Madeira Islands  11–12, 42 Madrid  114–26, 135 Magauana  100, 135 maize  20, 21 Majorca and Majorcans  11, 135 mamey  21, 135

Mandeville, John  14, 134 map of the Atlantic, theoretical (1474)  16 map of the Caribbean  36 map of the world (c. 1490)  13 maravedis  45, 103, 105, 135 maritime expansion, Iberian  12 maritime technological revolution  13–14 Markham, Clements R.  35, 144 n.4 Martín, Gonzalo  122–4, 133 mastic  56, 87, 91, 136 Matenino 93–4 Mateos, Hernan Pérez  126–7, 133 Medicis of Florence  80, 93, 136 Medinaceli, Duke of  26 Mediterranean trade  11, 12 Moguer  72, 136 Molinos  108, 136 Mongol state in China  14, 136 monstrous races  38, 85, 132 Montecristo (island)  108 Montiel, Hernán Yáñez de  120–2, 134 Morrison, Samuel Elliot  36 Muro Orejón, Antonio  97 Muslims Christian mission to convert  41 military alliances against  15 persecution and campaign against 17 traders and pirates  11, 12 Nader, Helen  27 nao  14, 17, 89, 91 Natchez people of Mississippi  10 nation states  23 Native American Day  5 Native Americans. See indigenous peoples Navidad, city of. See La Navidad Nazi genocide  7, 9 Neolithic Revolution  23, 136–7 New Zealand  39

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Index Niña as best sailer  44, 71 Columbus’s chartering of  14, 17 evidence of the Crown attorney, Huelva 103 indigenous king’s visit to  64–5 Isabella island and  50 Pinzón’s visit to  69 search for land and  43, 44, 45 Niño, Pero Alonso  101, 102–3, 108, 112, 137 Ojeda, Alonso de  101, 102–3, 129 Old Isabela. See La Isabela Ottoman Turks  11, 137 Our Lady of Guadalupe  72, 137 Our Lady of Loreto  72, 137 Palos  17, 41–2, 66, 137 peanuts 21 pearls  29, 51, 54, 56 peasant revolts  11 Pequot people of Connecticut  10 Peraza, Guillen  42 Peraza, Ines  42 Perestrelo, Felipa Moniz  11, 132 Pérez, Gil  123, 132 Pérez, Juan  26–7, 104, 105, 110, 134 Philippines, US invasion of  39 Phillips, William D. Jr.  97 pilgrimages  72, 137 Pinta Columbus’s chartering of  14, 17 Cuba and  51–2 evidence of the Crown attorney, Huelva 103 Isabella island and  50 Pinzón’s excursion with  58, 67, 68–71 search for land and  42, 43, 45 shipworm damage to  71 during wind storm  71–2 Pinzón, Alonso Martín  101 Pinzón, Arias Pérez  109–12, 129

Pinzón, Francisco Martin  102, 117 Pinzón, Juan Martin  116–17 Pinzón, Martín Alonso about 136 advice to Columbus  49 agreement with Columbus  17, 110–11, 114–15, 117–18, 125 cinnamon reported by  53 conflict with Columbus  37, 80, 96, 125–6, 127 credit given to  95 (see also testimonies from lawsuits) death of  2, 118, 120, 126, 127 evidence of the Crown attorney Huelva 102–12 Lepe 101–2 Madrid 114–26 Santa Maria de la Antigua  112–13 Santo Domingo  126–7 Seville 99–101 excursion with Pinta  58, 67, 68–71, 96 gold discovered by  58, 96, 100, 109, 111–12, 116, 125–6 Hispañola discovered by  96, 100–1, 108–9, 111–12 river of  103, 106, 108, 109, 111, 116, 123 search for land and  42, 43, 44, 45 version of events of  97 wind storm and  71–2 Pinzón, Vicente Yáñez about 139 agreement with Columbus  17 arrival at Lucayos  45 conflict with Columbus  70, 96 evidence of the Crown attorney Huelva  103, 105, 107, 108–9 Lepe 101–2 Madrid  117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123 Pliny 56 Polo, Marco  14, 37, 38, 135–6 Polynesian explorers  18

Index Portugal expeditions in Atlantic and Africa  11–13, 15, 17, 18 exploitation of indigenous populations 9 king of  76, 79, 124 Spanish competition with  17, 25 Portuguese, Juan  112–13, 134 Prieto, Diego  105 probanzas de mérito  80–1 Puerto Rico  9 Punta Santa  62–3 quincentennial celebrations  1 Reconquista  17, 80 rhubarb  87, 91 Rio de Gracia  70 Rio del Sol  55 Rio de Mares  55, 59 Rodriguez, Sebastian  105, 138 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano  4 Rumeu de Armas, Antonio  79 Saltes  42, 76, 138 Samoet (Saomete). See Isabella (Saomete, island) Sánchez, Luis  79 Sanchez, Rodrigo, of Segovia  45, 46 San Miguel (island)  74–5 San Salvador (island)  20, 36, 48, 82, 88. See also Guanahani Santa Clara Monastery  72, 138 Santa María de la Antigua  138 Santa María (island)  20, 48, 73–5, 82, 88 Santa María (ship)  14, 17, 63–4, 66, 80, 146 n.6 Santángel, Luis de  2, 79, 80, 135 Santo Domingo  126–7 São Jorge da Mina  12, 138 Saomete (Samoet). See Isabella (Saomete, island) Sarmiento, Cristóbal Garcia  108

savages 38 ethnography of  39, 46–7, 49, 53, 55, 59–60, 84, 90, 92, 94 scientific revolution  23 Seven Years’ War  3, 138 sex slaves  39 shipworms 71 silver  9, 22, 29, 52, 106 slavery of Africans  11 of Caribs  21 Columbus’s role in  7, 10, 22, 38–9, 87, 91, 141–2 n.13 sex slaves  39 of Taino people  7, 9, 10 Solís, Juan [Díaz] de  101, 102–3, 134 Spain Columbus’s move to  15 exploitation of indigenous populations 9 Portuguese competition with  17, 25 reconquest from Muslims  17 Spanish Crown. See also Fernando, King; Isabel, Queen Capitulations and  29–33, 40 Columbus’s letters to  39, 79, 80–1, 88–94 Columbus’s relationship with  22, 25–7 Columbus’s requests of  80, 93 contracts with Columbus  14, 95, 114–15 indigenous people and  9 reign over colonies in America  14, 95 spices cinnamon  12, 53–4, 87, 91 Columbus’s reports of  56, 83, 85, 87, 91 misidentification of  37 as motive for maritime expansion 12 Santa Fe capitulations and  29 search for  14, 51, 53–4, 67

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Index Stanley, Henry Morton  39, 133 Statue of Liberty  3, 4 sugar 12 sweet potatoes  20, 21 Taino people  7–9, 18–21, 38, 57, 86 testimonies from lawsuits  95–127, 146 n.2 evidence of the Crown attorney Huelva 102–12 Lepe 101–2 Madrid 114–26 Santa Maria de la Antigua  112–13 Santo Domingo  126–7 Seville 99–101 lists of questions  99–101, 114–17 questions to consider about  97–8 theoretical map of the Atlantic (1474)  16 Tlascalans of Mexico  22 Torres, Luis de  53 Tortuga (island)  61 Toscanelli, Paolo dal Pozzo  15, 16, 137

treacle  48, 49, 138 Triana, Rodrigo de. See Bermejo, Juan Rodriguez Valdovinos, Manuel de  101–2, 135 Valiente, Fernando  117–18, 132 Vallejo, Francisco Garcia  106–9, 120, 132 Venice  11, 138 Vera, Rodrigo de  120 viands  65, 139 viceroy, title of  25, 29, 31–2, 41, 74, 97, 139 Villa, Pedro de  72 Villacorta, Pedro  93, 139 Villa de Navidad  69 wands  60, 139 Yúcahu 20 Zamora, Margaret  79 zemis  20, 139