Brief Writing Assignment: Reading Discovery In a brief essay or long paragraph (400-700 words), use concepts from the Book of Genesis to frame a reading of Christopher Columbus's "Letter of Discovery.

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS

1451–1506

In Washington Irving’s widely read biography of Christopher Columbus, first published in 1828, the acclaimed American writer described the Eu ro pean adventurer as possessing an “ardent and enthusiastic imagination which threw a magnificence over his whole course of thought.” “In his letters and journals,” Irving observed, “instead of detailing circumstances with the technical precision of a mere navigator, he notices the beauties of nature with the enthusiasm of a poet or a painter.” Pop ular travel narratives by Marco Polo and Sir John Mandev ille prob ably influenced Columbus’s plans for his historic first voyage and shaped his prose style, Irving remarked, and he described as well a “visionary” cast of mind that was evident in every thing Columbus did. Summing up the meaning of the adventurer’s dramatic life, Irving wrestled with the fact that the consequences of this visionary quality were often destructive to himself and those around him— not least due to his role in making slavery a central part of the encounter between Eu rope and the Amer i cas.

Born into a family of wool workers near the Mediterranean port of Genoa, Columbus turned to the sea as a young man, developed a plan to find a commercially viable Atlantic route to Asia, and in 1492 won the support of the Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, for this “enterprise of the Indies.” His unexpected discoveries led to three later voyages intended to establish Spanish power in the West Indies and in South Amer i ca. What seemed an auspicious beginning was followed by a long series of disasters and disappointments. His willingness to enslave the natives, and his lack of interest in indigenous social and cultural forms, had devastating consequences. What had appeared to him to be friendly relations with the Taino Indians on the island of Hispaniola in 1492 turned sour as the settlers demanded gold and sexual partners from their hosts. On Columbus’s return to the island in 1494, none of the Eu ro pe ans remained alive. A new settlement fell into disorder while he was away in Cuba and Jamaica. In 1496, he was forced to return to Spain to clear his name of po liti cally motivated charges made against him by Eu ro pean rivals involved in the colonies. A third voyage, begun in 1498, took him for the first time to the South American mainland. The lushness of nature there made him believe he was near paradise, but when he returned to Hispaniola, he discovered the Spanish settlers on that island in open rebellion against his authority. Able to reach a truce only at the expense of the Taino Indians, who were virtually enslaved by the rebels, Columbus soon found himself under arrest. He was sent in chains to Spain in 1500 to answer yet more charges. His last voyage, intended to restore his tarnished reputation, resulted in a long period of suffering in Panama and shipwreck in Jamaica. During this time, Columbus underwent a virtual breakdown, even suffering delusional periods. Rescued at last, he returned to Eu rope and died not long afterward. His discoveries in the West Indies were left in a state of violent disorder.

The supposed Journal of Columbus’s first voyage is actually a summary prepared by the cleric and reformer Bartolomé de las Casas (also pres ent in this volume). However, several documents regarding the four voyages survive from Columbus’s hand. His letter to Luis de Santangel, a court official who helped secure financing for the first voyage, provides a more au then tic account. This so-called Letter of Discovery served as the basis for the first printed description of Amer i ca, initially issued in 1493 and widely translated and reprinted across Eu rope. Here, Columbus writes of marvels in a manner that becomes entwined with the language of posses-

sion. A memorandum regarding the second voyage, intended by Columbus for the Spanish monarchs (whose responses to each point also survive), offers useful insights into the emerging ambiguities and prob lems of the Hispaniola colony. For the third and fourth voyages, three letters from Columbus, two sent to the Crown and one to a woman of the Spanish court, detail his deepening worldly and spiritual trou bles. His emotional fragility and spiritual despair are effectively conveyed in the excerpt from his letter to Ferdinand and Isabella regarding his fourth voyage that is included here along with the letter to Santangel.

The following texts are from Select Documents Illustrating the Four Voyages of Columbus (1930–33), translated and edited by Cecil Jane.

Letter of Discovery

[At sea, February 15, 1493]

Sir,

As I know that you will be pleased at the great victory with which Our Lord has crowned my voyage, I write this to you, from which you will learn how in thirty- three days, I passed from the Canary Islands to the Indies with the fleet which the most illustrious king and queen our sovereigns gave to me. And there I found very many islands filled with people innumerable, and of them all I have taken possession for their highnesses, by proclamation made and with the royal standard unfurled, and no opposition was offered to me. To the first island which I found I gave the name San Salvador,1 in remembrance of the Divine Majesty, Who has marvelously bestowed all this; the Indians call it “Guanahani.” To the second I gave the name Isla de Santa María de Concepción; to the third, Fernandina; to the fourth, Isabella; to the fifth, Isla Juana,2 and so to each one I gave a new name.

When I reached Juana I followed its coast to the westward, and I found it to be so extensive that I thought that it must be the mainland, the province of Catayo.3 And since there were neither towns nor villages on the seashore, but only small hamlets, with the people of which I could not have speech because they all fled immediately, I went forward on the same course, thinking that I should not fail to find great cities and towns. And at the end of many leagues, 4 seeing that there was no change and that the coast was bearing me northwards, which I wished to avoid since winter was already beginning and I proposed to make from it to the south, and as moreover the wind was carrying me forward, I determined not to wait for a change in the weather and retraced my path as far as a certain harbor known to me. And from that point I sent two men inland to learn if there were a king or great cities. They trav eled three days’ journey and found an infinity of small hamlets and people without number, but nothing of importance. For this reason they returned.

I understood sufficiently from other Indians, whom I had already taken, that this land was nothing but an island. And therefore I followed its coast eastwards for one hundred and seven leagues to the point where it ended.

1. The precise identity of the Bahamian island Columbus named San Salvador is not known today, although many theories have been put forward, most positing that Watling Island is the likeliest site.

2. Of these four islands, only the identity of Juana (Cuba) is today certain.

3. I.e., China (or “Cathay”).

4. Re nais sance units of mea sure ment were inexact. Columbus’s “league” was prob ably about four miles.

1. H R I STO P H E R CO LU M BU S

And from that cape I saw another island distant eigh teen leagues from the former, to the east, to which I at once gave the name “Española.”5 And I went there and followed its northern coast, as I had in the case of Juana, to the eastward for one hundred and eighty- eight great leagues in a straight line. This island and all the others are very fertile to a limitless degree, and this island is extremely so. In it there are many harbors on the coast of the sea, beyond comparison with others which I know in Christendom, and many rivers, good and large, which is marvelous. Its lands are high, and there are in it very many sierras and very lofty mountains, beyond comparison with the island of Tenerife.6 All are most beautiful, of a thousand shapes, and all are accessible and filled with trees of a thousand kinds and tall, and they seem to touch the sky. And I am told that they never lose their foliage, as I can understand, for I saw them as green and as lovely as they are in Spain in May, and some of them were flowering, some bearing fruit, and some in another stage, according to their nature. And the nightingale7 was singing and other birds of a thousand kinds in the month of November there where I went. There are six or eight kinds of palm, which are a won der to behold on account of their beautiful variety, but so are the other trees and fruits and plants. In it are marvelous pine groves, and there are very large tracts of cultivatable lands, and there is honey, and there are birds of many kinds and fruits in great diversity. In the interior are mines of metals, and the population is without number. Española is a marvel.

The sierras and mountains, the plains and arable lands and pastures, are so lovely and rich for planting and sowing, for breeding cattle of every kind, for building towns and villages. The harbours of the sea here are such as cannot be believed to exist unless they have been seen, and so with the riv ers, many and great, and good waters, the majority of which contain gold. In the trees and fruits and plants, there is a great difference from those of Juana. In this island, there are many spices and great mines of gold and of other metals.

The people of this island, and of all the other islands which I have found and of which I have information, all go naked, men and women, as their mothers bore them, although some women cover a single place with the leaf of a plant or with a net of cotton which they make for the purpose. They have no iron or steel or weapons, nor are they fitted to use them, not because they are not well built men and of handsome stature, but because they are very marvel lously timorous. They have no other arms than weapons made of canes, cut in seeding time, to the ends of which they fix a small sharpened stick. And they do not dare to make use of these, for many times it has happened that I have sent ashore two or three men to some town to have speech, and countless people have come out to them, and as soon as they have seen my men approaching they have fled, even a father not waiting for his son. And this, not because ill has been done to anyone; on the contrary, at every point where I have been and have been able to have speech, I have given to them of all that I had, such as cloth and many other things, without receiving anything for it; but so they are, incurably timid. It is true that, after they have been reassured

5. I.e., Hispaniola, where the countries of Haiti the honeybee, presumably the source of the and the Dominican Republic are located. honey mentioned below. The existence of gold in 6. The largest of the Canary Islands. the rivers, also mentioned below, was purely con-

1. Not native to the Western Hemi sphere. Nor is jectural.

and have lost their fear, they are so guileless and so generous with all they possess, that no one would believe it who has not seen it. They never refuse anything which they possess, if it be asked of them; on the contrary, they invite anyone to share it, and display as much love as if they would give their hearts, and whether the thing be of value or whether it be of small price, at once with what ever trifle of what ever kind it may be that is given to them, with that they are content. I forbade that they should be given things so worthless as frag ments of broken crockery and scraps of broken glass, and ends of straps, although when they were able to get them, they fancied that they possessed the best jewel in the world. So it was found that a sailor for a strap received gold to the weight of two and a half castellanos,8 and others much more for other things which were worth much less. As for new blancas, for them they would give every thing which they had, although it might be two or three castellanos’ weight of gold or an arroba9 or two of spun cotton. . . . They took even the pieces of the broken hoops of the wine barrels and, like savages, gave what they had, so that it seemed to me to be wrong and I forbade it. And I gave a thousand handsome good things, which I had brought, in order that they might conceive affection, and more than that, might become Christians and be inclined to the love and ser vice of their highnesses and of the whole Castilian nation, and strive to aid us and to give us of the things which they have in abundance and which are necessary to us. And they do not know any creed and are not idolaters; only they all believe that power and good are in the heavens, and they are very firmly convinced that I, with these ships and men, came from the heavens, and in this belief they everywhere received me, after they had overcome their fear. And this does not come because they are ignorant; on the contrary, they are of a very acute intelligence and are men who navigate all those seas, so that it is amazing how good an account they give of everything, but it is because they have never seen people clothed or ships of such a kind.

And as soon as I arrived in the Indies, in the first island which I found, I took by force some of them, in order that they might learn and give me information of that which there is in those parts, and so it was that they soon understood us, and we them, either by speech or signs, and they have been very ser viceable.1 I still take them with me, and they are always assured that I come from Heaven, for all the intercourse2 which they have had with me; and they were the first to announce this wherever I went, and the others went running from house to house and to the neighbouring towns, with loud cries of, “Come! Come to see the people from Heaven!” So all, men and women alike, when their minds were set at rest concerning us, came, so that not one, great or small, remained behind, and all brought something to eat and drink, which they gave with extraordinary affection. In all the island, they have very many canoes, like rowing fustas,3 some larger, some smaller, and some are larger than a fusta of eigh teen benches. They are not so broad, because they are made of a single log of wood, but a fusta would not keep up with them in rowing, since their speed is a thing incredible. And in these they navigate among all those islands, which are

1. A castellano was a gold coin.

2. A blanca was a copper coin. An arroba was equal to twenty- five pounds.

1. No rec ord exists of how many indigenous people Columbus took captive, but only seven survived the voyage to Spain. On the second voyage, one of these seven acted as interpreter.

2. Communication, exchange.

3. A fusta was a moderate- sized ship, smaller than a galley, with banks of oars and a single mast.

4. C H R I STO P H E R CO LU M BU S innumerable, and carry their goods. One of these canoes I have seen with seventy and eighty men in her, and each one with his oar. In all these islands, I saw no great diversity in the appearance of the people or in their manners and language.4 On the contrary, they all understand one another, which is a very curious thing, on account of which I hope that their highnesses will determine upon their conversion to our holy faith, towards which they are very inclined. I have already said how I have gone one hundred and seven leagues in a straight line from west to east along the seashore of the island Juana, and as a result of that voyage, I can say that this island is larger than Eng land and Scotland together,5 for, beyond these one hundred and seven leagues, there remain to the westward two provinces to which I have not gone. One of these provinces they call “Avan,”6 and there the people are born with tails; and these provinces cannot have a length of less than fifty or sixty leagues, as I could understand from those Indians whom I have and who know all the islands. The other, Española, has a circumference greater than all Spain, from Colibre, by the sea- coast, to Fuenterabia in Vizcaya, since I voyaged along one side one hundred and eighty- eight great leagues in a straight line from west to east.7 It is a land to be desired and, seen, it is never to be left. And in it, although of all I have taken possession for their highnesses and all are more richly endowed than I know how, or am able, to say, and I hold them all for their highnesses, so that they may dispose of them as, and as absolutely as, of the kingdoms of Castile, in this Española, in the situation most con venient and in the best position for the mines of gold and for all intercourse as well with the mainland here as with that there, belonging to the Grand Khan, where will be great trade and gain, I have taken possession of a large town, to which I gave the name Villa de Navidad,8 and in it I have made fortifications and a fort, which now will by this time be entirely finished, and I have left in it sufficient men9 for such a purpose with arms and artillery and provisions for more than a year, and a fusta, and one, a master of all seacraft, to build others, and great friendship with the king of that land, so much so, that he was proud to call me, and to treat me as, a brother. And even if he were to change his attitude to one of hostility towards these men, he and his do not know what arms are and they go naked, as I have already said, and are the most timorous people that there are in the world, so that the men whom I have left there alone would suf fice to destroy all that land, and the island is without danger for their persons, if they know how to govern themselves. In all these islands, it seems to me that all men are content with one woman, and to their chief or king they give as many as twenty. It appears to me that the women work more than the men. And I have not been able to learn if they hold private property; what seemed to me to appear was that, in that which one had, all took a share, especially of eatable things.

   Columbus was mistaken about the single language, as he later discovered. In fact, there was considerable linguistic diversity.

5. Actually, Cuba occupies roughly forty- three thousand square miles, whereas Eng land alone is more than fifty thousand square miles in area. 6. The Natives called one region of the island “Havana,” and “Avan” may be Columbus’s rendering of that name.

1. Again, Columbus overstates his comparison.

The coastline of Spain and Portugal mea sures roughly nineteen hundred miles, whereas that of Española is about fifteen hundred miles. “Colibre”: Collioure, in the Pyrenees; “Fuenterabia:” Hondarribia, a coastal town in northwestern Spain.

1. A site on the modern bay of Caracol, in Haiti. “ Grand Khan”: the Chinese emperor.

2. Columbus left approximately forty men at La Navidad.

1. Now Martinique. “Intercourse”: here, in the sexual sense.

2. The Genoese government. “Chios”: an island, now part of Greece, that had been claimed by Genoa since 1346; Columbus may have visited there in 1474–75. “Mastic”: a natu ral resin produced from the mastic tree, sometimes known as “the tears of Chios.” The trade in mastic was controlled by a com pany that became a tributary to the Ottomans in 1453.

3. In 1452, Pope Nicholas V authorized the Portuguese to reduce any non- Christians to the status of slaves; two years later, he granted Portugal a mono poly of the slave trade with Africa. Spain ignored the mono poly status that Nicholas had granted to Portugal and began trading in African slaves. On arriving in the West Indies, Columbus almost immediately began to take captives, and a bit later he participated in the enslavement of Native people. He eventually developed a plan for a slave trade in indigenous Americans.

4. C H R I STO P H E R CO LU M BU S dad, in order to leave it secured and well established, and in truth, I should have done much more, if the ships had served me, as reason demanded. This is enough . . . 6 and the eternal God, our Lord, Who gives to all those who walk in His way triumph over things which appear to be impossible, and this was notably one; for, although men have talked or have written of these lands, all was conjectural, without suggestion of ocular evidence, but amounted only to this, that those who heard for the most part listened and judged it to be rather a fable than as having any vestige of truth. So that, since Our Redeemer has given this victory to our most illustrious king and queen, and to their renowned kingdoms, in so great a matter, for this all Christendom ought to feel delight and make great feasts and give solemn thanks to the Holy Trinity with many solemn prayers for the great exaltation which they shall have, in the turning of so many peoples to our holy faith, and afterwards for temporal benefits, for not only Spain but all Christians will have hence refreshment and gain. This, in accordance with that which has been accomplished, thus briefly. Done in the caravel, off the Canary Islands,7 on the fifteenth of February, in the year one thousand four hundred and ninety- three. At your orders. El Almirante.8 [Postscript] After having written this, and being in the sea of Castile, there came on me so great a south- south- west wind, that I was obliged to lighten ship. But I ran here to- day into this port of Lisbon,9 which was the greatest marvel in the world, whence I deci ded to write to their highnesses. In all the Indies, I have always found weather like May; where I went in thirty- three days and I had returned in twenty- eight, save for these storms which have detained me for fourteen days, beating about in this sea. Here all the sailors say that never has there been so bad a winter nor so many ships lost. Done on the fourth day of March. 1493 From Letter to Ferdinand and Isabella Regarding the Fourth Voyage1 [Jamaica, July 7, 1503] * * * Of Española, Paria,2 and the other lands, I never think without weeping. I believed that their example would have been to the profit of others; on the

   There is a gap here in the original manuscript.

5. Columbus was in fact off Santa Maria, one of the islands in the Azores. “Caravel”: a fast, light sailing ship, much used by the Portuguese for exploring the African coast. Two of the three ships on Columbus’s first voyage, the Niña and the Pinta, were caravels.

6. The Admiral.

7. Columbus’s decision to go to Lisbon, Portugal, aroused suspicions in Spain, where Portugal was regarded as a major rival.

1. Written on Jamaica in 1503, this letter was hand carried from there to Hispaniola by Diego Mendez.

2. Paria was the mainland region of what is now Venezuela, near the island of Trinidad. Columbus, who had first landed in South Amer i ca (“Terra Firma,” as he terms it later) in 1498, argued that the terrestrial paradise lay nearby.