Columbus Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  PART ONE - Discovery

  CHAPTER 1 - Thirty-three Days

  CHAPTER 2 - Son of Genoa

  CHAPTER 3 - Shipwreck

  CHAPTER 4 - “The People from the Sky”

  PART TWO - Conquest

  CHAPTER 5 - River of Blood

  CHAPTER 6 - Rebellion

  CHAPTER 7 - Among the Taínos

  INTERLUDE - The Columbian Exchange

  PART THREE - Decadence

  CHAPTER 8 - “A Great Roaring”

  CHAPTER 9 - Roldán’s Revolt

  CHAPTER 10 - “Send Me Back in Chains”

  PART FOUR - Recovery

  CHAPTER 11 - El Alto Viaje

  CHAPTER 12 - Castaways in Paradise

  CHAPTER 13 - February 29, 1504

  EPILOGUE

  Acknowledgements

  NOTES ON SOURCES

  SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

  INDEX

  ILLUSTRATION CREDITS

  ALSO BY LAURENCE BERGREEN

  ALSO BY LAURENCE BERGREEN

  Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu

  Over the Edge of the World: Magellan’s Terrifying

  Circumnavigation of the Globe

  Voyage to Mars: NASA’s Search for Life Beyond Earth

  Louis Armstrong: An Extravagant Life

  Capone: The Man and the Era

  As Thousands Cheer: The Life of Irving Berlin

  James Agee: A Life

  Look Now, Pay Later: The Rise of Network Broadcasting

  VIKING

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R oRL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi–110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa • Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R oRL, England

  First published in 2011 by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Copyright © Laurence Bergreen, 2011

  All rights reserved

  Illustration credits begin on page 421.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Bergreen, Laurence.

  Columbus : the four voyages / Laurence Bergreen.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN : 978-1-101-54432-7

  E118.B47 2011

  970.01’5092—dc22 2011013900

  Maps by Jeffery L. Ward

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication maybe reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

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  TO MY MOTHER

  and

  IN MEMORY OF MY FATHER AND BROTHER

  A BATTER’D, wreck’d old man,

  Thrown on this savage shore, far, far from home,

  Pent by the sea, and dark rebellious brows, twelve dreary months,

  Sore, stiff with many toils, sicken’d, and nigh to death,

  I take my way along the island’s edge,

  Venting a heavy heart. . . .

  Steersman unseen! henceforth the helms are Thine;

  Take Thou command—(what to my petty skill Thy navigation?)

  My hands, my limbs grow nerveless;

  My brain feels rack’d, bewilder’d; Let the old timbers part—I will not

  part!

  I will cling fast to Thee, O God, though the waves buffet me;

  Thee, Thee, at least, I know.

  Is it the prophet’s thought I speak, or am I raving?

  What do I know of life? what of myself?

  I know not even my own work, past or present;

  Dim, ever-shifting guesses of it spread before me,

  Of newer, better worlds, their mighty parturition,

  Mocking, perplexing me.

  And these things I see suddenly—what mean they?

  As if some miracle, some hand divine unseal’d my eyes,

  Shadowy, vast shapes, smile through the air and sky,

  And on the distant waves sail countless ships,

  And anthems in new tongues I hear saluting me.

  —from “Prayer of Columbus,” Walt Whitman, 1871

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  Christopher Columbus, Admiral of the Ocean Sea

  Bartholomew Columbus, his brother, the Adelantado (“Advancer”)

  Diego Columbus, his brother

  Felipa Moñiz, his wife

  Diego Columbus, his son with Felipa Moñiz

  Ferdinand Columbus, his son with Beatriz de Arana

  Ferdinand II of Aragon, king of Castile

  Isabella I of Castile

  Juan Rodríguez de Fonseca, bishop and chaplain to Isabella

  João II of Portugal, the “Perfect Prince”

  Manuel I of Portugal

  Vicente Yáñez Pinzón, sailor of Palos, Spain

  Martín Alonso Pinzón, brother of Vicente

  Francisco Martín Pinzón, brother of Vicente

  Diego Alvarez Chanca, physician, friend of Columbus

  Juan de la Cosa, cartographer

  Father Ramon Pané, priest, emissary to the Taínos

  Antonio de Torres, associate of Columbus

  Luis de Torres, translator on the first voyage

  Guacanagarí, Taíno cacique

  Guarionex, cacique

  Caonabó, Carib cacique

  Anacaona, Caonabó’s wife, executed by the Spanish

  The Quibián, cacique

  Alonso de Ojeda, Columbus’s lieutenant and rival

  Amerigo Vespucci, Florentine bureaucrat and explorer

  Francisco Roldán, mutineer on the third voyage

  Francisco de Bobadilla, judicial investigator

  Nicolás de Ovando, governor of Hispaniola

  Francisco Porras, mutineer on the fourth voyage

  Diego Méndez, leader of rescue mission on the fourth voyage

  Bartolomé de Las Casas, soldier, friar, chronicler

  PROLOGUE

  October 1492

  “I sailed to the West southwest, and we took more water aboard than at any other time on the voyage,” wrote Christopher Columbus in his logbook on Thursday, October 11, 1492, on the verge of the defining moment of discovery. It occurred not a moment too soon, because the fearful and unruly crews of his three ships were about to mutiny. Overcome with doubt himself, he had tried to remind the rebels of their sworn duty, “telling them that, for better or worse, they must complete the enterprise on which the Catholic Sovereigns”—Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon, who j
ointly ruled Spain—“had sent them.” He could not risk offending his royal patrons, whom he lobbied for ten years to obtain this commission, and so he insisted, “I started out to find the Indies and will continue until I have accomplished that mission, with the help of Our Lord.” And they had better follow his lead or risk a cruel punishment.

  Suddenly it seemed as if his prayers had been answered: “I saw several things that were indications of land.” For one thing, “A large flock of sea birds flew overhead.” And for another, a slender reed floated past his flagship, Santa María, and it was green, indicating it had grown nearby. Pinta’s crew noticed the same thing, as well as a “manmade” plank, carved by an unknown hand, perhaps with an “iron tool.” Those aboard Niña spotted a stick, equally indicative that they were approaching land. He encouraged the crew to give thanks rather than mutiny at this critical moment, doubled the number of lookouts, and promised a generous reward to the first sailor to spot terra firma.

  And then, for hours, nothing.

  Around ten o’clock that night, Columbus anxiously patrolled the highest deck, the stern castle. In the gloom, he thought he saw something resembling “a little wax candle bobbing up and down.” Perhaps it was a torch belonging to fishermen abroad at night, or perhaps it belonged to someone on land, “going from house to house.” Perhaps it was nothing more than a phantom sighting, common at sea, even for expert eyes. He summoned a couple of officers; one agreed with his assessment, the other scoffed. No one else saw anything, and Columbus did not trust his own instincts. As he knew from experience, life at sea often presented stark choices. If he succeeded in his quest to discover the basis of a Spanish empire thousands of miles from home, he would be on his way to fulfilling his pledge to his royal sponsors and attaining heroic status and unimaginable wealth. After all the doubts and trials he had endured, his accomplishment would be vindication of the headiest sort. But if he failed, he would face mutiny by his obstreperous crew, permanent disgrace, and the prospect of death in a lonely patch of ocean far from home.

  Throughout the first voyage, Columbus kept a detailed record of his thoughts and actions, in which he sought to justify himself to his Sovereigns, to his Lord, and to himself. He believed that history would be listening. In his record, he began by explaining the premise of the voyage in terms of Reconquista, the reclaiming of the Iberian Peninsula from Muslims who had occupied it for centuries. For Columbus, the success of this military campaign made his voyage possible, and, given his mystical bent, inevitable.

  Addressing the “most Christian and very Exalted, Excellent and mighty Princes, King and Queen of the Spains and of the Islands of the Sea, our Lord and Lady, in the present year 1492”—his Sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabella, in other words—he reminisced about their war against the Moors (Muslims), especially their memorable retaking of the “the very great City of Granada”—the former Moorish stronghold. Columbus was there, or so he claimed. He “saw the Royal Standards of Your Highnesses” appear on the “towers of Alhambra,” the former seat of Moorish rule. He even saw “the Moorish King come forth to the gates of the city and kiss the Royal Hands of Your Highnesses.” Even then, Columbus reminded them, he was thinking of his grand design to establish trade with the fabled “Grand Khan” in the east, the “King of Kings.” And it so happened, according to his epic recitation of events, that the Sovereigns, avowed enemies of “all idolatries and heresies,” resolved to send him—Christopher Columbus—to India in order to convert those in distant lands to “our Holy Faith”—the only faith. Recasting events slightly to flatter Ferdinand and Isabella, he claimed that they “ordained that I should not go by land”—why, as a mariner, would he?—but “by the route of the Occident,” in other words, by water.

  In reciting this very recent history, Columbus made sure to incorporate the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, accomplished by a royal decree dated March 31, 1492, which he welcomed as the final impetus for his voyage. “After all the Jews had been exiled from your realms and dominions in the same month of January Your Highnesses commanded me that with a sufficient fleet I should go to India, and for this granted me many graces.” And what graces they were. They “ennobled me so that henceforth I might call myself ‘Don’ and be ‘Grand Admiral of the Ocean Sea and Viceroy and Perpetual Governor’ of all the islands and mainland that I should discover and win.” Not only that, “My eldest son should succeed me, and thus from rank to rank for ever.” His preening revealed that hereditary titles and wealth had inspired him to go as much as anything else.

  Thereafter, his tone became more practical and objective.

  “I departed from the city of Granada on the 12th day of the month of May of the same year 1492, on a Saturday, and came to the town of Palos, which is a seaport, where I fitted for the sea three vessels”—Niña, Pinta, and his flagship, Santa María—“well suited for such an enterprise, and I departed well furnished with very many provisions and many seamen on the third day of the month of August on a Friday, at half an hour before sunrise, and took the route for the Canary Islands of Your Highnesses . . . that I might thence take my course and sail until I should reach the Indies, and give the letters of Your Highnesses to those princes, and thus comply with what you had commanded.”

  That was the plan, in all its grandeur and simplicity.

  His journal was to form an important part of the enterprise, and he explained his purpose: “I thought to write down upon this voyage in great detail from day to day all that I should do and see, and encounter.” Like all such journals, it had its share of unconscious distortions, intentional omissions, which occurred whenever he deemed it necessary to conceal his route from rivals, or when the reality of his exploration strayed from his expectations. For all its lacunae, it remains the best guide to both his deeds and deceptions. With it, he planned to “make a new chart of navigation, upon which I shall place the whole sea and lands of the Ocean Sea in their proper positions under their bearings, and, further, to compose a book, and set down everything as in a real picture.” He knew that keeping this record, in addition to all his other duties, would tax his energy to the hilt. “Above all it is very important that I forget sleep,” he reminded himself, “and labor much at navigation, because it is necessary, and which will be a great task.”

  As he embarked on this task, something happened on that October night, something unexpected, appearing sooner than anticipated: the light, if it was a light, from a distant shore, telling him that he had arrived.

  The moon rose shortly before midnight, and the little fleet sailed on, making about nine knots. About two o’clock in the morning, a cannon’s roar shattered the calm, startling one and all. It came from Pinta, the fastest of the three ships, and thus in the lead. Columbus instantly knew what it meant: land. “I learned that the first man to sight land was Rodrigo de Triana.” It lay just six miles to the west.

  As Columbus passed a sleepless night, the fleet coasted close enough to the shore for his disgruntled men to spy “naked people” rather than the sophisticated and handsomely garbed Chinese that he had expected to meet. Based on his naive reading of Marco Polo’s Travels, the navigator believed he had arrived at the eastern shore of China just as he had promised Ferdinand and Isabella he would.

  He would spend the rest of his life—and three subsequent voyages—attempting to make good on that pledge. Many in Europe were inclined to dismiss Polo’s account, by turns fantastic and commercial, as a beguiling fantasy, while others, Columbus especially, regarded it as the pragmatic travel guide that Polo intended. His attempt to find a maritime equivalent to Marco Polo’s journey to Asia bridged the gap between the medieval world of magic and might, and the stark universe of predator and prey of the Renaissance. Although Marco Polo had completed his journey two hundred years earlier, Columbus nevertheless expected to find the Mongol empire intact, and Kublai Khan, or another Grand Khan like him, alive and well and ready to do business. But Kublai was long gone, and his empire in ruins.

  Prot
ected by his delusion, Columbus conveniently concluded that he had reached an island or peninsula on the outskirts of China, a leap made possible only by omitting the Americas and the Pacific Ocean from his skewed geography. And as for the promised reward, which should have gone to the humble seaman, Rodrigo de Triana, who had first sighted land, Columbus decided that his own vision of the glowing candle took precedence, and so he kept the proceeds for himself.

  Does it matter anymore? As an explorer, the Admiral of the Ocean Sea is widely seen as an opportunist who made his great discovery without ever acknowledging it for what it was, and proceeded to enslave the populace he found, encourage genocide, and pollute relations between peoples who were previously unknown to each other. He was even assumed to have carried syphilis back to Europe with him to torment Europe for centuries thereafter. He excused his behavior, and his legacy, by saying that he merely acted as God’s instrument, even as he beseeched his Sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, to enrich him and his family. Historians have long argued that Columbus merely rediscovered the Americas, that the Vikings, the Celts, and American Indians arrived in the “New World” long before his cautious landfall. But Columbus’s voyages to the New World differed from all the earlier events in the scope of its human drama and ecological impact. Before him, the Old World and the New remained separate and distinct continents, ecosystems, and societies; ever since, their fates have been bound together, for better or worse.