The Life of Columbus

everything into confusion. The admiral supposed at first that the enmity of Roldan's party was chiefly directed against his brother, the Adelantado, and the admiral hoped that, now he

ain, and that the value of the slaves, for whom there would be a demand to the number of four thousand, as he calculated from certain information, and of the logwood, would amount to forty cuentos (i. e. forty million maravedis). The number of slaves who were sent in these five ships was six hundred, of which two hundred were given to the masters of the vessels in payment of freight. In the course of these letters, throughout which Columbus speaks after the fashion of a practised slave-dealer, he alludes to the intended adoption, on behalf of private individuals, of a system of exchange of slaves for goods wanted from the mother country. The proposed arrangement was as follows:-The masters of vessels were to receive slaves from the colonists, were to carry them to Spain, and to

ION WIT

at the end. The admiral gave repartimientos to those followers of Roldan who chose to stay in the island, which were constituted in the following manner. The admiral placed under such a caciqne so many thousand matas (shoots of the cazabi), or, which came to the same thing, so many thousand montones (small mounds a foot and a half high, and ten or twelve feet round, on each of which a cazabi shoot was planted); and Columbus then ordered that the cacique or his people should till these lands for whomsoever they were assigned to. The repartimiento had now grown to its sec

ER; PARTIAL REL

this proclamation has been frequently alluded to, and no doubt it deserves much praise; but from the latter part it is clear that there were some Indians who could justly, according to Queen Isabella, be made slaves. By this time, therefore, at any rate the question had been solved, whether by the learned in the law, theologians and canonists, I know not, but certainly in practice, that the Indians taken in war could be made slaves. The whole of this transaction is very remarkable, and, in some measure, inexplicable, on the facts before us. There is nothing to show that the slaves given to Roldan's followers were made slaves in a di

h that period must wish that her proclamation could be proved to have gone to the root of the m

ENEMIES WORK

and serve as vassals to the crown of Castile; the royal revenues (always a matter of much concern to Columbus) would, he thought, in three years amount to sixty millions of reals; and now there was time for him to sit down, and meditate upon the rebuilding of the temple of Jerusalem, or the conversion of

s), as men without shame, bought a great quantity of grapes, and sat themselves down in the court of the Alhambra, uttering loud cries, saying, that their Highnesses and the admiral made them live in this poor fashion on account of the bad pay they received, with many other dishonest and unseemly things, which they kept repeating. Such was their effrontery that when the Catholic king came forth they all surrounded him, and got him into the midst of the

DISSATIS

as supported by serious grounds for dissatisfaction in the state and prospects of the colony: and when there is a constant stream of e

US SUP

ffairs of justice in the colony; but if Ferdinand and Isabella began by merely looking out for such an officer, they ended in resolving to send one who should take the civil as well as judicial authority into his own hands. This determination was not, however, acted upon hastily. On the 21st of March, 1499, they authorized Francis de Bobadilla "to ascertain what person

us, our Admiral of the

e Bobadilla, the bearer

ngs which he will tell y

dence, and ac

ing, I t

eir co

PEREZ DE

T OF COLUMBUS

ransacted in the coarse way which Bobadilla adopted. It is a great pity, and a sad instance of mistaken judgment, that they fixed upon him for their agent. I imagine him to have been such a man as may often be met with, who, from his narrowness of mind and distinctness of prejudice, is supposed to be high- principled and direct in his dealings; and

HOME BY BOBADI

, The people told how he had made them work, even sick men, at his fortresses, at his house, at the mills, and other buildings; how he had starved them; how he had condemned men to be whipped for the slightest causes, as, for instance, for stealing a peck of wheat when they were dying of hunger. Considering the difficulties he had to deal with, and the scarcity of provisions, many of these accusations, if rightly examined, would probably have not merely failed in producing anything against Columbus, but would have developed some proofs of his firmness and sagacity as a governor. Then his accusers went on to other grounds, such as his not having baptized Indians "because he desi

s would have to traverse those seas, in bonds much worse than his, with no room allowed them for writing, as was his case,-not even for standing upright; nor did he foresee, I trust, that some of his doings would further all this coming misery. In these chains Columbus is of more interest to us than when in

al at the present time, when there appeared some chance of solidity in his government: though we must honestly admit, that the Catholic Sovereigns,