Christopher Columbus and How He Received and Imparted the Spirit of Discovery

bscure recor

ntry in the books, "given this day 3,000 maravedis," about $18, "to Cristobal Colomo, a stranger." The events of this period of about fourteen years were those which made possible his later career. The incidents connected with this time have become the shuttle-cocks which have been driven backward and forward in their chronological be

for leavin

ces of our

on the great historical work of Joam de Barros, pertaining to the discoveries of the Portuguese in the East Indies, first published in 1552, and still holding probably the loftiest position in the historical literature of that country; and, finally, on the lives of Jo?o II., then monarch of Portugal, by Ru

make long voyages, inspired by the improvements of the astrolabe as directed by Behaim, that first gave Co

us and

he Azores, and there are some striking correspondences in their careers, if we accept the usual accounts. They were born and died in the same year. Each lived for a while on an Atlantic island, the Nuremberger at Fayal, and the Genoese at Porto Santo; and each married the d

d the king

s which Columbus contended for as emoluments of success, and that a commission, to whom the monarch referred the project, pronounced the views of Columbus simply chimerical. Barros represents that the advances of Columbus were altogether too arrogant and fantastic ever to have gained the con

discourage all attempts at exploration even by the African route, as imperiling the safety of the state, because of the money which was required; and because it kept at too great a distance for an emergency a considerable force in ships and men. In fact the drift of the debate seems to have ignored the main projects as of little moment and as too visionary,

rican voy

s the

E MAPPEMO

original MS. in t

as, possibly, the mariners of the Indian seas may have done. In December he was back in Lisbon with the exhilarating news, and it was probably conveyed to Columbus, who was then in Spain, by his brother Bartholomew, the companion of Diaz in this eventful voyage, as Las Casas discovered by an entry made by Bartholomew himself in a copy of D'Ailly's Imago Mundi. Thirty years before, as we have seen, Fra Mauro had prefigured the Cape in his map, but it was now to be put on the charts as a geographical discovery; and by 1490, or thereabouts, succeeding Portuguese navigators had pushed up the west coast of

missionarie

ds before Da Gama actually effected the passage of the Cape. This confirmation had doubtless come t

, thus inadvertently instigated by Columbus, were m

out an expedition to

nse of a voyage to the Cape de Verde Islands, was now dispatched to search for the Cipango of Marco Polo, in the position which Columbus had given it in his chart. The mercenary craft started out, and buffeted with head seas and angry winds long enough to emasculate what little courage the crew possessed. Without the prop of convictio

eaves Port

reed that in the latter part of 1484 he left Portugal with a secrecy which was supposed to be necessary to escape the vigilance of the government spies. Th

it of Columb

essed with misfortunes at this time, and is said to have declined to entertain his proposals. It may be the applicant was dismissed contemptuously, as is sometimes said. It is not, however, as Harrisse has pointed out, till

visit t

modern writers, with no other citations to sustain it than the recollections of some one who had seen at some time in the archives a memorial to this effect made by Columbus. Some w

th of h

o be un

he left behind him in Portugal, when he fled into Spain, a wife and children. If there is the necessary veracity in the Historie, this wife had died before he abandoned the country. That he had other children at this time than Diego i

t of R

titles against the Crown, the picturesque story of the convent of Rabida, and the appearance at its gate of a forlorn traveler accompanied by a l

n it was restored by the Duke of Montpensier in 1855. A recent traveler has found this restoration "modernized, whitewashed, and forlorn," while the refurnishing of th

PEREZ DE

y Roselly d

Marc

riar was not uninformed in the cosmographical lore of the time, had not been unobservant of the maritime intelligence which had naturally been rife in the neighboring seaport of Palos, and had kept watch of the recent progress in geographical science. He was accordingly able to appreciate the interest which Columbus manifested in such subjects, as he unfolded his own notions of still greater discoveries which might be made at the west. Keeping the wanderer and his little child a few days, Marchena invi

goes to

were at Cordoba, gathering a force to attack the Moors in Granada, that, leaving behind his boy to be instructed in the convent, Columbus started for that city. He went not without confi

t the visit

ailed out of the neighboring harbor of Palos, within eyeshot of the monks of Rabida. Irving, however, as he analyzed the reports of the famous trial already referred to, was quite sure that the events of two visits to Rabida had been unwittingly run into

rebuffed at court, and the words of the witness indicate that it was on that visit when Juan Perez asked Columbus who he was and whence he came; showing, perhaps, that it was the first time Perez had seen Columbus. Accordingly this, as well as the mule story, points to 1491. But that the circumstances of the visit which Garcia Fernandez recounts may have belonged to an earlier visit, i

s the servi

ghnesses' service just seven years. We find almost as a matter of course other statements of his which give somewhat different dates by deduction. Two statements of Columbus agreeing would be a little suspicious. Certain payments on the part of the Crowns of

his name

kin. He argued that the Roman name was Colonus, which readily was transformed to a Spanish equivalent. Inasmuch as the Duke of Medina-Celi, who kept Columbus in his house for two years d

oese in

r of Friar Perez had been sufficient to secure in the busy camp at Cordoba any recognition of this otherwise unheralded and humble suitor. The power of the sovereigns was overtaxed already in the engrossing preparations which the Court and army were making for a vigorous campaign against the Moors. The ex

us in

ing himself, according to Bernaldez, in drafting charts and in selling printed books, which Harrisse suspects may have been publicat

acquai

stile. He attained some terms of friendship with Antonio Geraldini, the papal nuncio, and his brother, Alexander Geraldini, the

e proofs of a

ntic region as his theory demanded; and it seems probable that this task was done during a period of weary waiting in Cordoba. We know nothing, however, of

nd

sovereigns placed in him, was known in Martyr's phrase as "the third king of Spain," and it could but be seen by Columbus that his sympathies were essential to the success of plans so far reaching as his own. The cardinal was gracious in his intercourse, and by no means inaccessible to such a suitor as Columb

of Ferdinand

onstant mentor of the sovereigns was at last brought to prepare the way, so that Columbus could have a royal audience. Thus it was that Columbus finally

f the sovere

eir characters, as he works among the documents of the time, cannot avoid the recognition of qualities little calculated to satisfy demands for nobleness and devotion which the world has learned to associate with royal obligations. It may be possibly too much to say that habitually, but not too much to assert that often, these Spanish monarchs were more ready at perfidy and deceit than even an allowance for the teachings of their time would permit. Often t

bel

nnection with so much that is strikingly evil, all of it done, or rather assented to, upon the highest and purest motives.

thout loyal adulators o

nfluence of personal favor, to read in archives her most secret professions, and to gauge the innermost wishes of a soul which was carefully posed before her contemporaries. It is mirrored to-day in a thousand revealing lenses that we

din

s. The modern student finds him a bigot. His subjects thought him great and glorious, but they did not see his dispatches, nor know his sometimes baleful domination in his cabinet. The French would not trust him. The English watched his ambition. The Moors kn

very conveniently so. We may allow that it is precisely this single mind which makes a conspi

confessions. He said masses, and prayed equally well for God's benediction on evil as on good things. He made promises, and then got the papal dispensation to break them. He juggled in state policy as his mind changed, and he worked his craft very readily. Machiavelli woul

considered by Tal

alam

e meeting was seemingly held in the winter of 1486-87. The Catholic writers accuse Irving, and apparently with right, of an unwarranted assumption of the importance of what he calls the Council at Salamanca, and they find he has no authority for it, except a writer one hundred and twenty years after the event, who mentions the matter but incidentally. This source was Remesal's Historia de Chyapa (Mad

TY OF SA

?a, p

LUMBUS ERECTED

ports, if preserved, could have thrown much light upon the relations which the cosmographical views of its principal character bore to the opinions then prevailing in learned circles of Spain. We know what the Historie, Bernaldez, and Las Casas tell us of Columbus's advocacy, but we must regret the loss of his own language and his own way of explaining himself to these learned m

vor wit

an the scant testimony which has come down to us. It is pleasant to think how it was here that the active interest which Diego de Deza, a Dominican friar, finally took in the cause of Columbus may have had its beginning; but the extent of our positive knowledge regarding the meeting is the deposition of Rodriguez de Maldonado, who s

Court at

urrender

fter the Court in its migrations: sometimes lured by pittances doled out to him by the royal treasurer; sometimes getting pecuniary assistance from his new friend, Diego de Deza; selling now and then a map that he had made, it may be; and accepting hospitality where he could get

N, 1

Ptolemy

f Columbus with

Columbus b

ke, and there is no mention of a wife in all the transactions of the crowning endeavors of his life. As viceroy, at a later day, he constantly appears with no attendant vice-queen. She is absolutely out of sight until Columbus makes a significant reference to her in his last will, when he recommends this Beatrix Enriquez to his lawful son Diego; saying that she is a person to whom the testator had been under great obligations, and that his conscience is burdened respecting her, for a reason which he does not then think fitting to explain. This testamentary behest and acknowledgment, in connection with other manifestations, and the absence of proof to the contrary, has caused the belief to be general among his biographers, early and late, that the fruit of this intimacy, Ferdinand Columbus, was an illegitimate offspring. He was born, as near as can be made out, on the 15th of August, 1488. The mother very likely received for a while some consolation from h

ds his broth

gland to the vi

esterne Planting, tells us that it "made much for the title of the kings of England" to the New World that Henry VII. gave a ready acceptance to the theory of Columbus as set forth somewhat tardily by his br

ots in

lomew, but only at a late day, and after Christopher had effected his conquest of the Spanish Court. Columbus himself is credited with saying that Henry actually wrote him a letter of acceptance. This epistle was very likely a fruition of the new impulses to oceanic discovery which the

e appeared on the conjectural charts of the Atlantic, and very likely they had appeared on the sea-card shown by Bartholomew Columbus to Henry VII. These efforts may perhaps have been in a measure instigated by that fact. At all events, any hazards of further western exploration co

vited back

had received from that monarch an epistle, dated March 20, 1488, in which he was permitted to come back, with the offer of protection against any sui

e Deza which kept Columbus at this time from accepting such royal offers, as the illicit connection which h

mber, 1488, "at Lisbon," he speaks of the return of Diaz from his voyage to the Cape of Good Hope. This proof is indeed subject to the qualification that Las Casas has considered the handwriting of the note to be that of Bartholomew

ubsidies

August. It was very likely subsequent to this last event that Columbus crossed the Spanish frontier into Portugal, if Harrisse's view of his crossi

na-Celi harb

l he had been a guest under the duke's roof in Cogulludo, and it seems to Harrisse probable that this gracious help on the part of the duke was bestowed after the r

bus ordered

ugh to order Columbus to appear there, when they furnished him lodgings. They also, perhaps, at the same time, issued a general order, dated at Cordoba May 12, i

t the sieg

m the Holy

wo friars who had been guardians of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. These priests arrived during the siege, bringing a message from the Grand Soldan of Egypt, in which that potentate threatened to destroy all Christians within his grasp, unless the war against Granada should be stopped. The point of driving the Moors from Spain was too nearly reached for such a threat to be effective, and

enders, Dece

views again

cess Isabella with Don Alonzo, the heir to the crown of Portugal. These engrossing scenes were little suited to give Columbus a chance to press his projects on the Court. He soon found nothing could be done to get the farther attention of the monarchs till some respites occurred in the preparations for their final campaign against the younger Moorish king. It was at this time, as Irving and others have conjectured, that t

impre

la

tor to Prince Juan, and it was not difficult for him to modify the emphatic denial of the judges. It was the pride of those who later erected the tombstone of Deza, in the cathedral at Seville, to inscribe upon it that he was the generous and faithful patron of Columbus. A temporizing policy wa

to Seville; bu

so he hastened to Seville, but only to meet the same chilling repulse from the monarchs themselves. With dashed expectations h

AL OF S

sa and Quadra

AL OF C

sa and Quadra

grandees

onia and M

a-Celi. Columbus found in them, however, the same wariness which he had experienced at the greater court. There was a willingness to listen; they found some lures in the great hopes of Eastern wealth which animated Columbus, but in the end there was the same disappointment. One of them, the Duke of Medina-Celi, at last adroitly parried the importunities of Columbus, by averring that the project deserved the royal patronage rather than his meaner aid. He, however, told the suitor, if a farther application should be made to the Crown at some more opportune moment, he would

us at

convent apparently in October or November, 1491, with the purpose of reclaiming his son Diego, and taking him to Cordoba, where he might be left with Ferdinand in the charge of the latter's mother. Columbus himself intended to pass to France, to see if a letter, whic

encoura

with P

o Rabida to confer with Columbus. It is also made a part of the story that the head of a family of famous navigators in Palos, Martin Alonso Pinzon, was likewise drawn into the little company assembled by the friar

lleged voy

supposed conn

e to the views of Columbus, and for the reason that he knew more than he openly professed. They find in the later intercourse of Columbus and this Pinzon certain evidence of the estimation in which Columbus seemed to hold the practiced judgment, if not the knowledge, of Pinzon. This they think conspicuous in the yielding which Columbus made to Pinzon's opinion during Columbus's first voyage, in changing his course to the southwest, which is taken to have been due to a knowledge of Pinzon's former experience in passing those seas in 1488. They trace to it the confidence of Pinzon in separating from the Admiral on the coast of Cuba,

aids Co

Rabida upon the efficacy of Columbus's arguments. This success of Columbus brought some substantial fru

to Santa Fé, with a

ena f

vites Columb

e?nforced one which she had already received from the Duke of Medina-Celi, who had been faithful to his promise to Columbus, and who, judging from a letter which he wrote at a later day, March 19, 1493, took to himself not a little credit that he had thus been instrumental, as he thought, in preventing Columbus throwing himself into the service of France. The result was that the pilot took back to Rabida an intimation to Marchena that his presence would be welcome at Santa Fé. So mounting his mule, after midnight, fourteen days after Rodriguez had departed, t

es Santa Fé, D

lla and

mbus under his protection. Thus once more buoyed in hope, and suitably arrayed for appearing at Court, Columbus, on his mule, early in December, 1491, rode into the camp at Santa Fé, where he was received and provided with lodgings by the accounta

he younge

rish wa

younger, the last of the Moorish kings, took place, and a long procession of the magnificence of Spain moved forward from the beleaguering camp to receive the keys of the Alhambra. Wars succeeding wars for nearly eigh

a and C

n him at Seville. The war was over, and the time was come. Talavera had by this time gone so far towards an appreciation of Columbus's views that Peter Martyr tells him, at a l

d visit to France, in order that he might by his plans rehabilitate Spain with a new glory, complemental to her marti

ake of C

g its token, repeated the mistake which had driven him an outcast from Portugal. His arrogant spirit led him t

this moment delving into the secrets of nature like a nobleman of the universe. So he stands

reten

ortgage the power of a kingdom. A dramatic instinct has in many minds saved Columbus from the critical estimate of such presumption. Irving and the French canonizers dwell on what strikes them as constancy of purpose and loftiness of spirit. They marvel that poverty, neglect, ridicule, contumely, and disappointment had not dwarfed his spirit. This is the vulgar liking for the hero who is without heroism, and the m

put to the negotiations. Making up his mind to carry his suit to Fra