Columbus and the Labyrinth of History

Every generation creates the Columbus it needs. As the Quincentenary of his 1492 voyage approaches, observers are torn between celebrating a brave visionary and condemning the first representative of an age of imperial exploitation. Here Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Noble Wilford explores the various Columbus legends and discovers, beneath them, a very human figure and an adventure unprecedented in boldness.

by John Noble Wilford

istory has not been the lumbus. Such, it seems, is the fate of histori- same since Christopher cal figures whose deeds reverberate Columbus. Neither has through time. he been the same The Columbus story surely confirms the throughout history. axiom that all works of history are interim

During- the five cen- reports. What people did in the past is not tunesH since his epochal voyage of 1492, Co- preserved in amber, a moment captured lumbus has been many things to many peo- and immutable through the ages. Each gen- ple: the protean symbol of the adventuring eration looks back and, drawing from its human spirit, the lone hero defying both own experiences, presumes to find patterns the odds and entrenched thinking to that illuminate both past and present. This change the world; the first modem man or is natural and proper. A succeeding genera- a lucky adventurer blinded by medieval tion can ask questions of the past that those mysticism; an icon of Western faith in in the past never asked themselves. Colum- progress or an object of scorn for his bus could not know that he had ushered in failings of leadership and intellect; a man what we call the Age of Discovery, with all virtually deified at one time and roundly its implications, any more than we can vilified today for his part in the initiation of know what two world wars, nuclear weap- an international slave trade and European ons, the collapse of colonial empires, the imperialism. We hardly know the real Co- end of the Cold War, and the beginning of

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space travel will mean for people centuries Quincentennial, he has fallen victim to a from now. Perceptions change, and so does more self-critical society, one prone to our understanding of the past. hero-bashing and historical pessimism. Accordingly, the image of Columbus has As recently as 1974, Samuel Eliot Mori- changed through the years, sometimes as a son, the biographer of Columbus, con- result of new information, more often be- cluded one of his books with a paean to cause of changes in the lenses through European influence on America: "To the which we view him. Once a beneficiary of people of the New World, pagans expecting this phenomenon, Columbus in times of short and brutish lives, void of hope for any reigning optimism has been exalted as a future, had come the Christian vision of a mythic hero. Now, with the approach of the merciful God and a glorious heaven." It is

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hard to conceive of those words being writ- creasingly expansionist Europe in the 15th ten today. In a forward to the 1983 edition century. The Portuguese had sought a route of Morison's Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A around the tip of Africa. Some Florentine Life of Christopher Columbus, British histo- cosmographers had pondered the prospect rian David Beers Quinn criticizes Morison of a westward sea route. But Columbus was for ignoring or dismissing Columbus's apparently the first with the stubborn cour- failings. Columbus, Quinn writes, "cannot age to stake his life on the execution of be detached from the imperialist exploita- such a daring scheme. tion of his discoveries and must be made to After years pleading his case before the take some share of responsibility for the courts of Portugal and Spain, dismissed as a brutal exploitation of the islands and main- hopeless visionary or a tiresomely boastful lands he found." nuisance, Columbus finally won the reluc- By and large, this new perspective has tant support of Ferdinand and Isabella. At produced a more realistic, demythologized the little Andalusian port of Palos de la version of the Columbus story. The tempta- Frontera, he raised a fleet of three ships tion, though, is to swing too far in the other and enlisted some 90 seamen. Whatever direction, rewriting history as we wish it the sailors' trepidations or their opinion of would have been or judging people wholly Columbus when he arrived at Palos, their by anachronistic political standards. This destiny was to share with him a voyage "by has happened all too often regarding Co- which route," Columbus wrote in the pro- lumbus, producing myth and propaganda logue to his journal, "we do not know for in the guise of history. certain anyone previously has passed." All the more reason for us to sift Columbus was never more in command through the romantic inventions and en- of himself and his destiny than on that day, during misconceptions that have clouded August 3, 1492, when he weighed anchor at the real Columbus and to recognize that so Palos. He was a consummate mariner, as much of the man we celebrate or condemn all his contemporaries agreed and histori- is our own creation. He is the embodiment ans have not contradicted, and here he was of our running dialogue about the human doing what he did best and so sure of his potential for good and evil. success. Of course, he never made it to the Indies, as head-shaking savants had pre- dicted, then or on any of his three subse- quent voyages. His landfall came half a ome of the facts about Columbus- world short of them, on an unprepossess- who he was and what he did-are be- ing island inhabited by naked people with yond serious dispute. This mariner of no knowledge whatsoever of Marco Polo's humble and obscure origins was possessed Great Khan. of an idea that became an obsession. He On the morning of October 12, Colum- proposed to sail west across the uncharted bus and his captains, together with their ocean to the fabled shores of the Indies, the most trusted functionaries, clambered into lands of gold and spices celebrated in the armed launches and headed for the sandy tales of Marco Polo and the goal of an in- beach and green trees. They carried the

John Noble Wilford has been a science correspondent for the New York Times since 1965. Twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Wilford is the author of The Mapmakers (1981), The Riddle of the Dinosaur (1985), and Mars Beckons (1990). His Mysterious History of Columbus is being published this October by Alfred A. Knopf. Copyright @ 1991 by John Noble Wilford.

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flags of the Christian monarchs of Spain. A ment white men entered their lives. solemn Columbus, without so much as a Columbus made certain by his words thought that it was anything but his to take, and actions that his discovery would not be proclaimed possession of the island for the lost to history. On the homeward voyage, king and for the queen. Columbus and his after visiting a string of other islands and officers then dropped to their knees in more people, he composed a letter to the prayer. court of Ferdinand and Isabella in which It did not escape Columbus that these he announced his discovery. He had made islanders "go around as naked as their good his boast to one and all. He may have mothers bore them; and the women also." harbored some disappointment in not This was not prurience but culture shock. reaching the Asian mainland, but he had Columbus was generally admiring in his sailed across the Ocean Sea and found initial descriptions of the people. They were lands and peoples unknown to Europeans. "guileless and generous." Bringing cotton, And he wanted the court to read about it in parrots, and javelins to trade, they paddled his own words, especially since this justi- out to Columbus's ships in their dugouts, fied his own claim to the titles and wealth each made from a single tree and so long due him pursuant to the deal he had struck that they held 40 men; the West Indian with the court. term for these dugouts was canoa-and The letter Columbus wrote was also his thus a New-World word entered European bid for a place in history. He understood speech. Columbus was pleased to note that that the achievement would go for naught they had no firearms. When he had shown unless the news got back to others. To ex- them some swords, "they took them by the plore (the word, in one version of its ety- edge and through ignorance cut them- mology, comes from the Latin "to cry out") selves." "They should be good and intelli- is to search out and exclaim discovery. Sim- gent servants," he concluded, "for I see ply reaching a new land does not in itself that they say very quickly everything that is constitute a discovery. It must be an- said to them; and I believed they would be- nounced and then recorded in history so come Christians very easily, for it seemed to that the discovery can be acted upon. me that they had no religion." Columbus Others besides the indigenous people the anthropologist had his priorities. preceded Columbus in finding parts of Unfortunately, we have no record of the America. This is no longer an issue of con- first impressions that the people Columbus suming dispute in Columbian studies. Al- called Indians had of the Europeans. What most certainly the Norse under Leif Eric- did they think of these white men with son landed at some northern islands and beards? Their sailing ships and their weap- established a short-lived settlement at New- ons that belched smoke? Their Christian foundland. Ericson and others may have God and their inordinate interest in gold reached America, but they failed to dis- and a place beyond the horizon called the cover it. For nothing came of their deeds. Indies? We will never know. They could not Columbus, in writing the letter, was making put their feelings into writing; they had no sure his deeds would have consequences writing. And the encounter itself doomed and his achievement would enter history. them. Within a generation or two, they be- The letter eventually reached the court came extinct, mainly through exposure to in Barcelona and had the desired effect. European diseases, and so could not pass The king and queen received Columbus on by word of mouth stories about the mo- with pomp and listened to his story with

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'GARDENS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL I EVER SAW'

The following account of October 10-13, 1492, is taken from Columbus's Diario, as abstracted by Bartolorn6 de las Casas and adapted by William Carlos Williams.

Wednesday, 59 leagues, W.S.W., but hours past midnight, the moon having risen counted no more than 44. Here the veovle. . at eleven o'clock and then shining brightly could endure no longer. All now com- in the sky, being in its third quarter, a sailor plained about the length of the voyage. But I named Rodrigo de Triana sighted the land at cheered them as best I could, giving them a distance of about two leagues. At once I good hopes of the advantages they might ordered them to shorten sail and we lay un- gain by it. Roused to madness by their fear, der the mainsail without the bonnets, hove the captains declared they were going back to waiting for daylight. but I told them then, that however much On Friday, the 12th of October, we an- they might complain, I had to go to the In- chored before the land and made ready to dies and they along with me, and that I go on shore. Presently we saw naked people would go until I found them, with the help on the beach. I went ashore in the armed of our Lord. And so for a time it vassed but boat and took the royal standard, and Martin now all was in great danger from the men. Alonzo and Vincent Yafiez, his brother, who Thursday, 1lth of October. The course was captain of the Nina. And we saw the was W.S.W. More sea [spilling over the trees very green, and much water and fruits deck] than there had been during the whole of diverse kinds. Presently many of the in- of the voyage. Sandpipers and a green reed habitants assembled. I gave to some red near the ship. And for this I gave thanks to caps and glass beads to put round their God as it was a sure sign of land. Those of necks, and many other things of little value. the Pinta saw a cane and a pole, and they They came to the ship's boats afterward, took up another small pole which appeared where we were, swimming and bringing us to be worked with iron; also another bit of parrots, cotton threads in skeins, darts-

cane. a land nlant.L r and a small board. The what they had, with good will. As naked as crew of the caravel Nina also saw signs of their mothers bore them, and so the women, land, and a small plant covered with berries. though I did not see more than one young . . . .I admonished the men to keep a girl. All I saw were youths, well made with good lookout on the forecastle and to watch very handsome bodies and very good well for land and to him who should first cry countenances. Their hair short and coarse, out that he had seen land I would give a silk almost like the hairs of a horse's tail. They doublet besides the other rewards promised paint themselves some black, some white, by the Sovereigns which were 10,000 ma- others red and others of what color they can vedis to him who should first see it. Two find. Some paint the faces and others paint

genuine interest and pleasure. They in- laid to rest through historical research. structed him to return to the new-found Columbus did not, for example, have to lands with a larger fleet including soldiers prove that the world was round: All edu- and settlers. America had entered world cated people in Europe at the time ac- history, though Columbus insisted to his dy- cepted this as a given. Isabella did not have ing day that he had reached the Indies. to pawn her jewels to raise money for the expedition; though the Crown, following its wars against the Moors, was strapped for cash, the financial adviser Luis de Santan- his familiar story of Columbus has gel arranged a loan from the ample coffers been embellished to create an en- of the state police and from some Italian during popular legend. Some of the merchant bankers. And Columbus did not tales (though not all of them) have been set sail with a crew of hardened criminals.

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the whole body, some only round the eyes their bodies a small piece of cotton cloth. I and others only on the nose. They are them- saw many trees very unlike those of our selves neither black nor white. country. Branches growing in different ways On Saturday, as dawn broke, many of and all from one trunk; one twig is one form these people came and another is a dif- to the beach, all ferent shape and so youths. Their legs unlike that it is the are very straight, all greatest wonder of in one line, and no the world to see the belly. They came to diversity; thus one the ship in canoes, branch has leaves made out of the like those of a cane, trunk of a tree, all in and others like those one piece, and won- of a mastic tree; and derfully worked, on a single tree propelled with a there are five differ- paddle like a baker's ent kinds. The fish shovel, and go at so unlike ours that it marvelous speed. is wonderful. Some Bright green are the shape of do- trees, the whole land ries and of the finest so green that it is a colors, so bright that pleasure to look on there is not a man it. Gardens of the who would not be most beautiful trees astounded, and I ever saw. Later I would not take great came upon one man delight in seeing in a canoe going them. There are also from one island to whales. I saw no another. He had a beasts on land save little of their bread, parrots and lizards. about the size of a On shore I sent fist, a calabash of the people for water, water, a piece of some with arms. and brown earth, powdered then kneaded, and others with casks; and as it was some 'little some dried leaves which must be a thing distance I waited two hours for them. highly valued by them for they bartered with During that time I walked among the it at San Salvador. He also had with him a trees, which was the most beautiful thing native basket. The women wore in front of which I had ever seen.. , .

Only four men, accused of murdering a mainland he was seeking, but which island? town crier, took advantage of a promised No fewer than nine different possible is- amnesty, and even they were seasoned mar- lands have been identified from the few iners and acquitted themselves well on the ambiguous clues in Columbus's journal. voyage. The site favored by most experts is the Ba- More troublesome for historians have hamian island once called Watling's but re- been certain other mysteries and con- named San Salvador in 1924 to help solid- troversies. ify its claim. Where, for example, did the first landfall Did Columbus really come from Genoa? occur? We know it was a small island the Nearly every European nation has at one inhabitants called Guanahani and Colum- time or another laid some claim to him. bus christened San Salvador. It was in the Was he Jewish? Such conjecture originated Bahamas or thereabouts, far from the Asian in the 19th century and was promoted in

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1940 in Salvadore de Madriaga's vivid biog- feel sure we truly know the man. raphy, Christopher Columbus. But the evi- dence is circumstantial. Records in Genoa indicate that, whatever his more remote an- cestry, Columbus's family had been Chris- othing better illustrates history's tian for several generations. changing images of Columbus When and how in the mists of his root- N than the succession of portraits of less life did Columbus conceive of his auda- him that have appeared over the centuries. cious plan? Was it sheer inspiration bol- They show a man of many faces-hand- stered by rational research? Or did he some and stalwart, heavy and stolid, shad- come into some secret knowledge? Was he owed and vaguely sinister. Artistic interpre- really seeking the Indies? How was he fi- tation, like history, changes with the times. nally able to win royal backing? What were Yet, there should be little confusion his ships like?-no caravel wreck from that over the man's physical appearance. His period has ever been recovered. Scholars son Hemando, who should have known, and amateur sleuths have spent lifetimes said he was "a well-built man of more than trying to resolve these questions, usually average stature, the face long, the cheeks without notable success. somewhat high, his body neither fat nor Part of the problem lies with the passage lean. He had an aquiline nose and light col- of time. Although the record of Columbus ored eyes; his complexion too was light and by contemporaries is more substantial than tending to be red. In youth his hair was that of any other 15th-century explorer, sur- blond, but when he reached the age of 30 it viving accounts are often difficult to assess all turned white." from this distance. Whose version is to be The son went on to describe his father's trusted? The letters of Peter Martyr, the character: "In eating and drinking, and in courtier in Spain who never ventured to the adornment of his person, he was very the New World? The biography by Hernan- moderate and modest," Hemando wrote. do Columbus, the devoted son protective of "He was affable in conversation with his father's fame? The history of the New strangers and very pleasant to the members World by Bartolome de las Casas (1474- of his household, though with a certain 1566), the Dominican friar and champion gravity. He was so strict in matters of reli- of the Indians who never missed a chance gion that for fasting and saying prayers he to condemn the brutality of the early ex- might have been taken for a member of a plorers and colonists? Even the few extant religious order." writings of Columbus himself, who could Hernando may be guilty of some exag- be vague, contradictory and self-serving? geration. Columbus could not be too gentle Hero worship has further distorted his- and modest if he were to promote his vi- tory. We want-or used to want-our he- sion before skeptical courts and if he could roes to be larger than life. The result can be control a crew of rough seamen who sus- a caricature, a plaster saint inviting icono- pected they might be headed to their clasts to step forward with their own im- deaths. He could be harsh in meting out ages, which can also ignore the complexity punishment to seamen and in ordering pu- of human reality. nitive raids against Indian villages. Like oth- We are left, therefore, with enough ma- ers of that time, and to this day, he presum- terial to mold the Columbus we choose to ably saw no contradiction between his extol or excoriate, but not enough ever to behavior and his religious beliefs. By all ac-

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counts Columbus was a demonstrably pi- blockage of regular trade routes to the ous man. Late in life, his writings portrayed spices of the East, and the parlous times for a mind filled with mysticism and a belief in Christianity. Priests and popes were calling his divine mission to carry Christianity to for a new crusade to recapture Constan- all people and prepare them for the im- tinople and Jerusalem. All of this could pending end of the world. have nourished the dreams of a great ad- Of this mysticism, Hernando has noth- venture in an ambitious young man with ing to say. He is also frustratingly reticent nautical experience. or misleading about the genesis of his fa- The most significant mystery about Co- ther's consuming dream and even about lumbus concerns how he came up with his his origins. Columbus himself chose to re- idea for sailing west to the Indies. As in ev- veal very little about his early life. erything else, Columbus's own words on Every verifiable historical document, the subject obfuscate more than elucidate. however, indicates that Columbus was born It was his practice, writes the Italian histo- in Genoa, which was an independent city- rian Paolo Emilio Taviani, "never to tell ev- state (the lesser rival to Venice) whose ships erything to everyone, to say one thing to traded throughout the entire Mediterra- one man, something else to another, to re- nean world. He was probably born in 145 1, veal only portions of his arguments, clues, and both his father Domenico and his fa- and evidence accumulated over the years ther's father were wool weavers; his in his mind." Perhaps Columbus told so mother, Susanna Fontanarossa, was a many partial stories in so many different weaver's daughter. Christopher was proba- versions that, as Morison suspects, he him- bly their eldest child. Bartholomew, the self could no longer remember the origins chart-maker who would share many of Co- of his idea. lumbus's adventures, was a year or two In all probability he formulated the idea younger. The other children who grew to in Portugal sometime between 1476 and adulthood were a sister named Bianchetta 1481. Columbus had come to Portugal and a brother Giacomo, better known by quite literally by accident. When the Geno- the Spanish equivalent, Diego, who joined ese fleet he had shipped with was attacked Christopher on the second voyage. All in and destroyed in the summer of 1476, Co- all, the Columbuses of Genoa were fruitful lumbus was washed ashore at the Portu- and humble tradespeople-and nothing for guese town of Lagos. He made his way to a young man to be ashamed of. Lisbon, where the talk of seagoing explora- At a "tender age," as Columbus once tion was everywhere. He heard stories of wrote, he cast his lot with those who go to westering seamen who found islands tar sea. At first, he probably made short voy- out in the ocean and saw maps sprinkled ages as a crewman, and then longer ones with mythical islands. On voyages north on trading ships to the Genoese colony of perhaps as far as Iceland and south along Chios in the Aegean Sea. But even more the coast of Africa, he gained a taste for At- crucial to Columbus's development than lantic sailing. There may even be some- his ancestry or his birthplace was the tim- thing to the story of the unknown pilot ing of his birth. He was born two years be- from whom Columbus supposedly ob- fore the fall of Constantinople, Christen- tained secret knowledge of lands across the dom's eastern capital, to the Ottoman Turks ocean. But as far as anyone can be sure- in 1453. Young Columbus was to grow up and volumes have been written on the sub- hearing about the scourge of Islam, the ject-there was no sudden revelation, no

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blinding flash of inspiration. culations to deceive those he looked to for Nor did Columbus derive his plan from support? All that can be said with assurance a careful reading of scholars. He was not is that Columbus was by then a man con- then, and never became, a man who read sumed by an enthusiasm that willed away to learn; he read to gather support for what obstacles and brooked no doubt. he already thought to be true. His familiar- His marriage in Portugal may have indi- ity with the travel accounts of Marco Polo rectly contributed to his growing convic- and the Travels of Sir John Mandeville, a tion. In 1479, he wed Felipa Perestrello de 14th-century collection of travelers' tales Moniz, a daughter of lesser nobility. Her from around the world, did not so much widowed mother showed Columbus the inform his concept as inflame a mind al- journals and maps left by her husband, who ready stoked with the dry tinder of desire. had sailed for Prince Henry the Navigator. From other sources-from a recent Latin From the papers of Bartolomeo Perestrello translation of Claudius Ptolemy's second- and other Portuguese seamen, Columbus century Geography, which described many concluded, his son Hernando wrote, "for Southeast Asian spice islands, to Pierre certain that there were many lands West of dlAilly's Imago Mundi, a compendium of the Canary Islands and Cape Verde, and contemporary knowledge about the world that it was possible to sail to, and discover which argued that the Western Sea was not them." The social position of his wife's fam- very wide-Columbus made some calcula- ily also smoothed the way for Columbus's tions of global distances. Like d'Ailly, he introduction to the court of Portugal's King conveniently managed to constrict the un- John 11. known he proposed to challenge, grossly When Columbus finally laid out his plan underestimating the distance from Europe before John 11, probably in 1483 or 1484, to Japan. Had he unwittingly deceived him- the court cosmographers, a Portuguese his- self? Or had he deliberately contrived cal- torian wrote, "considered the words of Christovae Colom as vain, simply founded on imagina- tion, or things like that Isle Cypango of Marco Polo." Columbus refused to ac- cept rejection. By this time, his wife had died, and in 1485 he took their son, Diego, and left Portugal for Palos, across the border in Spain. Tradition has it that Columbus and little Diego, penniless and hungry, got off the ship and trudged along a dusty road to the Franciscan monastery of La Rabida. He knocked at the portal to beg Columbus triumphant, 1493. To Ferdinand and Isabella, Colwn- for water and bread. If the bus presented not only trophies and treasures froin his voyage but legend is true, the father a bold scheme for colonizizing the new-found lands. may have been taking the

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son there to be a boarding student, freeing just after the Moorish capital of Granada himself to pursue his dream. fell to the Christian forces. He had been led Though a secretive man and often por- to believe that, after the burden of the pro- trayed as a loner, Columbus must not have longed war was lifted, the queen especially been without charm, even charisma. He might be disposed to give her approval. had insinuated himself into the influential Some writers have let themselves imagine society of Lisbon and would do so again in that Isabella saw more in Columbus than Spain. "Columbus's ability to thrust himself an insistent supplicant. Such speculation of into the circles of the great was one of the a sexual relationship between the two, most remarkable things about him," writes Taviani says, is "a sheer fairy-tale, rejected Harvard historian John H. Parry. It was also by all historians." in his character that he seldom acknowl- Nothing seemed to change with the fall edged the help of others. of Granada. Columbus was turned away, At La Rabida, Columbus won the fnend- this time with an air of finality. Behind the ship and confidence of a Franciscan official scenes, however, Luis de Santangel, the knowledgeable in cosmography and chief financial adviser, interceded with as- through him gained introductions to surances to the queen that financing the ex- wealthy patrons and eventually his first au- pedition need not be an insurmountable dience with Ferdinand and Isabella. They obstacle. No one knows why the king and referred his proposal to a commission of queen finally relented. They might have learned men at the University of Sala- been persuaded by the argument that they manca. Washington Irving, in his fanciful had little to lose and much to gain if this biography, has the commissioners saying importunate foreigner just happened to be that the "rotundity of the earth was as yet a on to something. matter of mere speculation." Many of them no doubt deserved Irving's condemnation as a "mass of inert bigotry," but they were right (and Columbus wrong) in their judg- fter his first voyage, when he was ment that Asia could not be reached by the toast of Barcelona, Columbus ships sailing west. They recommended that A supposedly faced down his first the monarchs reject the venture. critics. At a banquet, some noblemen in- Columbus was nothing if not persistent. sisted that if Columbus had not undertaken With a modest retainer from the court, he the enterprise, someone else, a Spaniard continued to solicit support from influen- and not a foreigner, would have made the tial courtiers. While in Cordoba, waiting for same discovery. At this, Columbus called some sign of royal encouragement, he met for an egg and had it placed on the table. Beatriz Enriquez de Arana, a peasant "Gentlemen," he was reported to have said, woman, and they became lovers. In August pointing to the egg, "you make it stand 1488 she gave birth to an illegitimate son, here, not with crumbs, salt, etc. (for anyone Hernando. (They never married, and some- knows how to do it with meal or sand), but time after his first voyage, they drifted naked and without anything at all, as I will, apart. He likely felt a peasant woman was who was the first to discover the Indies." beneath his station.) When it was Columbus's turn, he crushed Through another fnar at La Rabida, Co- one end of the egg and had no trouble mak- lumbus gained other audiences with the ing it stand up on the table. monarchs in 149 1 and again in early 1492, The anecdote has proved irresistible to

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historians and storytellers to illustrate the dians to be sold as slaves in Spain. The best singular role of Columbus in history. But it that can be said in defense of Columbus is never happened-one more Columbian that he was now a desperate man. His myth. The story was not only apocryphal, power to rule La Isabela was waning. His Morison points out, but it "had already visions of wealth were fading. He feared done duty in several Italian biographies of that his influence back in Spain would be other characters." irreparably diminished by critical reports In reality, Columbus would not so easily from recalcitrant officers who had returned put down the critics who dogged him the to Spain. And he had failed again to find a rest of his life-and through history. If only mainland. His desperation was such that he he had stopped with the first voyage, the forced all his crew to sign a declaration echo of those fanfares in that, at Cuba, they had in- Barcelona might not deed reached the main- have faded so fast. land of Cathay. Sick A fleet of 17 and discouraged, he ships, carrying sailed home in some 1,200 people, 1496. left Cadiz in the au- The third voy- tumn of 1493 with age did nothing to instructions to es- restore his reputa- tablish a perma- tion. Departing nent settlement from Seville in on the island of May 1498, he Hispaniola. There, steered a south- near the present erly course and city of Puerto Plata reached an island in the Dominican off the northeastern Republic, Colum- coast of South Amer- bus built a fort, ica, which he named church, and houses Trinidad, for the Holy for what would be his Trinity. A few days colonial capital, La later, he saw a coast- Col~~~nb~tsdisgraced, 1500. Charged with mal- Isabela. The expen- feasance as governor of Hispaniola, Col~trnbus line to the south. Co- ment was disastrous. returned to Svain a prisoner in chains. lumbus recognized The site had no real that the tremendous harbor, insufficient rainfall, and little vege- volume of fresh water flowing from the Ori- tation. Sickness and dissension brought noco River was evidence of a large land, work to a standstill and the colony to the but he failed to appreciate that this might point of starvation. Expeditions into the be a continent or to pursue his investiga- mountains failed to find any rich lodes of tions. Instead, his mind drifted into specu- gold. As Las Casas wrote, they "spread ter- lation that the river must originate in the ror among the Indians in order to show Earthly Paradise. Bound to medieval think- them how strong and powerful the Chris- ing, the man who showed the way across tians were." Bloody warfare ensued. the ocean lost his chance to have the New With little gold to show for his efforts, World bear his name. The honor would Columbus ordered a shipment of Taino In- soon go to a man with a more open-minded

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perspective, Amerigo Vespucci, who on his move me hence, you will aid me to go to second voyage of exploration (150 1-2) con- Rome and on other pilgrimages." cluded that the South American landmass was not Asia but a new continent. Columbus turned his back on South America and sailed to Santo Domingo to olumbus in his last years was a attend to the colony there. He found that dispirited man who felt himself to his brothers, Bartholomew and Diego, had be misunderstood and unappreci-.. lost control. Some of the colonists had ated. He sought to define himself in a re- mutinied, and the crown had dispatched a markable manuscript now known as Libro new governor empowered to do anything de las profecias, or The Book of Prophecies. necessary to restore order. It was then that Between the third and fourth voyages, Co- Columbus was arrested, stripped of his ti- lumbus collected passages of biblical scrip- tles, and sent back in irons to Spain in Oc- tures and the words of a wide range of clas- tober 1500. sical and medieval authors. According to It was an ignominious end to Colum- his own description, this was a notebook bus's authority and to his fame in his life- "of sources, statements, opinions and time. The crown eventually restored his ti- prophecies on the subject of the recovery of tles, but never again was he allowed to God's Holy City and Mount Zion, and on serve as viceroy. The monarchs now were the discovery and evangelization of the is- under no illusions about Columbus. He had lands of the Indies and of all other peoples failed as a colonial administrator, and they and nations." had strong doubts about the validity of his The document reveals the depth and claims to have reached the Indies. passion of Columbus's belief that he had a Columbus was given permission for one special relationship with God and was act- final voyage, which lasted from 1502 to ing as the agent of God's scheme for his- 1504. He was specifically barred from re- tory. He marshaled evidence from the turning to Santo Domingo. Instead, he ex- prophecies of the Bible to show that his re- plored the coast of Central America and at- cent discoveries were only the prelude to tempted without success to establish a the realization of a greater destiny. It was as settlement in Panama. if he saw his role as being not unlike John Historians cite the last voyage as one of the Baptist's in relation to Christ. The his many "missed opportunities." With luck wealth from his voyages and discoveries and more persistence, Columbus might had given the king and queen of Spain the have stumbled upon the Maya civilization means to recover the Holy Land for Chris- or the Pacific Ocean. As it was, he barely tendom, and thereby he had set the stage made it back to Spain. He was marooned a for the grandiose climax of Christian his- year on Jamaica, where he wrote a pathetic tory, the salvation of all the world's peoples letter to the monarchs. "I implore Your and their gathering at Zion on the eve of Highnesses' pardon," he wrote. "I am the end of time. ruined as I have said. Hitherto I have wept Most historians who studied the docu- for others; now have pity upon me, Heaven, ment have tended to dismiss it as the prod- and weep for me, earth! I came to Your uct of his troubled and possibly senile Highnesses with honest purpose and sin- mind. His other writings at the time some- cere zeal, and I do not lie. I humbly beg times betrayed a mind verging on paranoia. Your Highnesses that, if it please God to re- Delno C. West, a historian who has recently

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COLUMBUS'S MYSTERIOUS SIGNATURE

In 1498, Columbus instructed all of his heirs bined religious and nautical symbolism. The to continue to "sign with my signature unifying idea is the medieval association of which I now employ which is an X with an S the Virgin Mary with Stella Maris, the indis- over it and an M with a Roman A over it and pensable navigational star also known as Po- over them an S and then a Greek Y with an S laris, or the North Star. The first cross bar over it, preserving the relation of the lines stands for StellA MariS. The vertical "mast" and the points." At the top, thus, is the letter stands for "Stella Ave Mans," after the ves- S between two dots. On the palindromic sec- per hymn "Ave, stella twaris." By design, the ond row are the letter S A S, also preceded, structure represents both a Christian cross separated, and ended with dots. The third and a ship's mast. The line X M Y may have row has the letters X M and a Greek Y, with- one meaning, "Jesus cum Maris sit nobis in out dots. Below that is the final signature, via" (an invocation with which Columbus Xpo Ferens, a Greco-Latin form of his given opened much of his writing), with the Y name. representing the fork in the road and the To this day no one can decipher the symbolism for his having chosen the hard meaning Columbus had in mind, but it al- way to destiny's fulfillment. Fleming sug- most certainly bears on his religious out- vests a double meaning. The X and Y at ei- look. The sirnolest ex- therend of the bottom planations hold that the line could also stand for letters stand for seven "Christophorus," his words. It has been sug- name and destiny, and gested that the four letters "Jacobus," for "St. stand for "Servus Sum James," whose feast day Altissimi Salvatoris," for and Christopher's are the "Servant I Am of the Most same and who is, not inci- High Savior." The three dentally, the patron saint letters of the third line of Spain, Santiago-Sant could be an invocation to 1 Yaeo." Christ Jesus and Marv. or Fleming's crypto- to Christ, Mary, andJ~oseph.Another pro- graphic skills have uncovered other clues in posed solution is that the seven letters are the signature to Columbus's "religious the initials for "Spiritus Sanctus Altissimi imagination." But, for understanding Co- Salvator Xristus Maria Yesus." lumbus the mystical discoverer, Fleming John Fleming, a medievalist at Princeton draws insight from his associations with University, believes he has cracked the code, Mary, Christopher, and Santiago. He writes: finding it to be an "acrostic of considerable "In Columbus's heavenly city, the Virgin complexity committed to a more or less Mary stands ever firm between her two learned and hermetic mystical theology." Christ-bearing guards, Christophorus on the Columbus, he concludes, was borrowing one hand, San Yago the Moorslayer on the from two medieval traditions in formal sig- other. And in the larger meaning of these natures, that of the church worthies, like St. two saints, both celebrated by the Roman Francis, who devised intricate crucigrams, church on a single day, which was of course and that of the church mariners who often Columbus's name-day, we may see adum- included in their craft marks anchors, masts, brated much of the glory, and much of the fishhooks, and so forth. For his signature, tragedy, of the European encounter with the Fleming says, Columbus seems to have com- New World." From The Mysterious History of Columbus, copyrighf @ 1991 by Alfred A. Knopi. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

translated the Book of Prophecies, suspects 1492, it undermines the popular image of that historians were "reluctant to admit Columbus as a man of the modern age who that the first American hero was influenced applied reason in conceiving his venture. It by prophetic ideas." If the book indeed re- exposes him as a person thoroughly mired fleets Columbus's thinking even before in the medieval world, obsessed with escha-

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tology, and driven by a supposed call from Contrary to legend, he was neither desti- God to cany out a mission of apocalyptic tute nor alone at the end. His two sons dimensions. were with him, in a comfortable home. We West contends that this spirituality, cannot be sure of the traditional story, that which fed Columbus's apocalyptic view of he died believing he had reached the In- history, lay at the heart of the man and dies. He never gave explicit expression to shaped his actions. Rather than some map any recognition that he had found some- or unknown pilot's tale, this may have been thing other than Asia. All the evidence, the "secret knowledge" that inspired Co- though, suggests that he died unsatisfied. lumbus. Certainly, without his unwavering His death went unheralded. There was belief in himself and his destiny, Columbus no public ceremony of mourning and no might not have sustained the single-minded recorded expressions of grief at the royal persistence it took to win support for the court. The man who rose from obscurity enterprise and to see it through. "The Lord died in obscurity. His remains have been purposed that there should be something moved so many times over the centuries, clearly miraculous in this matter of the voy- from Spain to the New World and presum- age to the Indies," Columbus wrote in the ably back again, that no one is sure of his Prophecies, "so as to encourage me and final resting place. others in the. . . Household of God." Begin- In the first century after his voyages, Co- ning in 1493, he began signing nearly all of lumbus languished in the backwaters of his- his letters and documents Christoferens, a tory. His reputation suffered from his many Latinization of his given name that means failures as a colonial governor. The 15 19- "Christ-bearer." 1522 Magellan circumnavigation left no New attention to the spiritual side of Co- doubt about the magnitude of Columbus's lumbus does not, however, necessarily error in thinking he had reached the Indies. bring this complex man into focus. Images Conquering explorers such as Cortes and of a superstitious spiritualist and the mod- Pizarro won greater immediate fame by ern explorer must be superimposed to pro- their dazzling exploits against the Aztecs duce a stereoscopic picture of Columbus, and Incas. Cartographers saw fit to name revealing the depth and heights of the men- the New World after Vespucci, not Colum- tal terrain through which he traveled as he bus. Books of general history scarcely men- found America and then lost his way in fail- tioned Columbus or ignored him alto- ure, self-pity, and a fog of mysticism. gether. Within 50 years of Columbus's death, Bartolome de las Casas, the Dominican bishop who extolled and defended the Indi- olumbus was probably no more ans, produced the first revisionist history. than 55 years old when he died on In his History of the Indies, Las Casas wrote May 20, 1506, in Valladolid, Spain. eloquently of the atrocities committed But he was much older in body and in tor- against the Indians. To sail to the islands mented mind. His last voyages had left him Columbus had discovered, Las Casas wrote, crippled with arthritis and weak from fever. one needed only to follow the floating He was reduced to a sad figure, spending corpses of Indians that marked the way. His his last years in disgrace while stubbornly accounts of torture and killings docu- pressing his claims for the restoration of ti- mented the so-called Black Legend of tles and the wealth due him. Spanish cruelty that was seized upon by the

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English, Dutch, and French to fan the fires most exalted hero. In him the new nation of national rivalries and religious hatreds. without its own history and mythology As the Age of Discovery flourished dur- found a hero from the distant past, one ing the late 16th century, Columbus began seemingly free of association with the Euro- to be rescued from oblivion. He was cele- pean colonial powers and Old-world tyr- brated in poetry and plays, especially in It- anny. Americans invoked Columbus, the aly and later in Spain. A glimmer of histo- solitary individual who had challenged the ry's future hero could be seen in a popular unknown, as they contemplated the dan- play by Lope de Vega in 1614. In The New gers and promise of their own wilderness World Discovered by Christopher Columbus, frontier. "Instead of ravaging the newly he portrayed Columbus as a dreamer up found countries," Washington Irving wrote against the establishment, a man of singular in his 1828 biography, Columbus "sought to purpose who triumphed, the embodiment colonize and cultivate them, to civilize the of that spirit driving humans to explore and natives." discover. This would be the Columbus Americans It was in the New World, though, that knew and honored throughout the 19th Columbus would be transformed almost and into the present century. With the in- beyond human recognition into an icon. flux of millions of immigrants after the Civil By the late 17th century, people in the War, he was even made to assume the role British colonies of North America were be- of ethnic hero. In response to adverse Prot- ginning to think of themselves as Ameri- estant attitudes and to affirm their own cans and sought to define themselves in Americanism, Irish Catholic immigrants or- their own terms and symbols. Samuel Sew- ganized the Knights of Columbus in 1882. ell, a Boston judge, suggested that the new The fraternity's literature described Colum- lands should rightfully be named for Co- bus as "a prophet and a seer" and an inspi- lumbus, "the magnanimous hero. . . who ration to each knight to become "a better was manifestly appointed by God to be the Catholic and a better citizen." Catholics in Finder out of these lands." The idea took both America and Europe launched a cam- root. In time, writers and orators used the paign to canonize Columbus on the name "Columbia" as a poetic name for grounds that he had brought the "Christian America. Joel Barlow's poem The Vision of faith to half the world." The movement Columbus, appearing in 1787, has an aged failed not because of Columbus's brutal Columbus lamenting his fate until he is vis- treatment of Indians but mainly because of ited by an angel who transports him to the the son he had sired out of wedlock. New World to see what his discovery had Columbus's reputation was never brought to pass. There he could glimpse higher than on the 400th anniversary of his the "fruits of his cares and children of his first voyage. There were parades and fire- toil." works, the naming of streets and dedicating Indeed, the young republic was busy of monuments. The World's Columbian Ex- planning the 300th anniversary of the land- position in Chicago, with its lavish displays fall, in October 1792, when it named its of modern technology, was less a com- new national capital the District of Colum- memoration of the past than the self-confi- bia-perhaps to appease those who de- dent celebration of a future that Americans manded that the entire country be desig- were eager to shape and enjoy. Americans nated Columbia. Next to George ascribed to Columbus all the human virtues Washington, Columbus was the nation's that were most prized in that time of geo-

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graphic and industrial expansion, heady op- ing explorers looked upon the islands and timism, and unquestioning belief in mainland as an inconvenience, the barrier progress. A century before, Columbus had standing in their way to Asia that must be been the symbol of American promise; now breached or circumnavigated. he was the symbol of American success. As early as Peter Martyr, Europeans The 20th century has dispelled much of tried to assimilate the new lands into what that. We have a new Columbus for a new they already knew or thought, rejecting the age. He is the creation of generations that utter newness of the discovery. This was, have known devastating world wars, the after all, during the Renaissance, a period struggle against imperialism, and economic of rediscovering the past while reaching expansion that ravages nature without nec- out to new horizons. And so the peoples of essarily satisfying basic human needs. In the New World were described in terms of this view, the Age of Discovery initiated by the Renaissance-ancient image of the "no- Columbus was not the bright dawning of a ble savage," living in what classical writers glorious epoch but an invasion, a conquest, had described as the innocent "Golden and Columbus himself less a symbol of Age." The inhabitants of the New World, progress than of oppression. Martyr wrote, "seem to live in that golden Columbus scholarship has changed. world of which old writers speak so much, 8 - More historians are writing books from the wherein men lived simply and innocently standpoint of the Indians. They are examin- without enforcement of laws, without quar- ing the consequences-the exchange of reling, judges and libels, content only to plants and animals between continents, the satisfy nature, without further vexation for spread of deadly diseases, the swift decline knowledge of things to come." of the indigenous Americans in the face of The innocence of the indigenous Ameri- European inroads. The Quincentennial cans was more imagined than real. To one happens to come at a time of bitter debate degree or another, they knew warfare, bru- among Americans over racism, sexism, im- tality, slavery, human sacrifice, and canni- perialism, Eurocentrism, and other "isms." balism. Columbus did not, as charged, "in- Kirkpatrick Sale's 1990 book about Colum- troduce" slavery to the New World; the bus said it all in its title, The Conquest of practice existed there before his arrival, Paradise. though his shipments of Tainos to Spain presaged a transoceanic traffic in slaves un- precedented in history. This idealized image of people living in as Columbus a great man, or nature persisted until it was too late to merely an agent of a great learn who the Americans really were and, accomplishment, or perhaps not accepting them for what they were, to find a very admirableman at all? His standing a way to live and let live. Disease and con- in history has varied whenever posterity re- quest wiped out the people and their cul- evaluated the consequences of Europe's tures. In their place Europeans had begun discovery of America. Ultimately, Colum- to "invent" America, as the Mexican histo- bus's reputation in history is judged in rela- rian Edmundo O'Gorman contends, in tion to the place that is accorded America their own image and for their own pur- in history. poses. They had set upon a course, writes Europeans took a long time appreciat- historian Alfred W. Crosby, of creating ing their discovery. Columbus and succeed- "Neo-Europes." This was the America that

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1992: CEREBRATION, NOT CELEBRATION

It was in 1982 that I first became aware that sles, tuberculosis, the plague-to which the the 500th anniversary of Columbus's 1492 native peoples had no immunities. Rec- Voyage of Discovery was a minefield, where ognizing the dimensions of that calamity, the prudent celebrant stepped lightly and many Westerners acknowledge that there is guardedly. little to celebrate. In Spain, where a 500th To my long-time friend Ramon, in an in- Year World's Fair will open in Seville, many stitute attached to the foreign ministry in of that country's intellectuals are decrying Madrid, I said on the telephone one day that what they call a 15th- and 16th-century year, "Ramon, here at Florida we're begin- genocidio. ning to get interested in the Columbus Dis- In the margins of the debate, native de- covery Quincentenary." scendants and their advocates are publiciz- "Why do you say Columbus?" he re- ing a long list of grievances against the Cau- sponded. "He was an Italian mercenary. It casians who abused their liberties, was Spain that discovered America, not Co- expropriated their lands, and despoiled an lumbus." environmental paradise. On July 17-21, "But, Ramon," I protested, "we can't cel- 1990, some 400 Indian people, including a ebrate 1492 in the United States without delegation from the United States, met in mentioning Columbus." Quito, Ecuador, to plan public protests "In your country," he lectured me, "Co- against 500 years of European "invasion" lumbus Day is an Italian holiday. But the and "oppression." Even before that, the first ships, the crews, the money were all Span- sign of reaction in the United States had al- ish. Columbus was a hired hand." ready come when, in December 1989, repre- "But-" sentatives of the American Indian Move- "So when Cape Canaveral space center ment, supported by a group of university holds its 100th anniversary, are you going to students, began picketing the "First Encoun- call it the Werner von Braun celebration?" ters" archaeology exhibition mounted by the I was grateful to Ramon for alerting me, Florida Museum of Natural History as it trav- in his way, to the sensitive character of this elled from Gainesville to Tampa, Atlanta, anniversary. Soon afterwards I learned that and Dallas. (In Tampa, their presence was "Discovery," too, is a term freighted with welcomed because it boosted paid atten- ethnic and cultural contentions, as many de- dance.) In 1992, a loose confederation of scendants of the native peoples in the Ameri- North American Indian groups will picket in cas argue against its Eurocentric and pa- all U.S. cities where the Columbus replica ternalistic coloring. "We were already ships will dock. They seek, one of their lead- here," they remind me. And they were here ers told me, "not confrontation but media so long ago, 10 to 25,000 years the an- attention to present-day Native American thropologists say. I was left to wonder, problems." which was the Old World and which was the African Americans also remind their fel- New? low citizens that the events of 1492 and af- As the past ten years have shown, the terwards gave rise to the slave trade. And Spanish-Italian tension has softened, but the Jews appropriately notice that 1492 was the European-Native American disjunction has year when they were forcibly expelled from hardened, as historians, epidemiologists, their Spanish homeland. In a counter-coun- moralists, romanticists, and native spokes- teraction in all this Quincentenary skirmish- persons have clashed over the benefits, if ing, however, the National Endowment for any, that European entrance onto the Ameri- the Humanities decided not to fund a pro- can stage brought the societies of both posed television documentary about the worlds, particularly this one. early contact period because, reportedly, it Certainly huge numbers of indigenous was too biased against the Europeans. people died as the result of the collision: (Spain, by contrast, is acting uncommonly some, it is true, from the sword, but by far large-minded: It has agreed to fund the the majority from the Europeans' unwitting Smithsonian-Carlos Fuentes television pro- introduction of pathogens-smallpox, mea- duction, "The Buried Mirror," a show that is

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highly critical of Spain's colonial practices.) third now being stripped of its funds. It is this "politically correct" dynamic But now the good news: In anticipation that, most likely, will keep 1992 from being of the 500th anniversary an enormous quite the exuberant and careless celebration amount of intellectual activity has occurred, that the Bicentennial was in 1976. in the form of archival discoveries, archaeo- Anglo-Saxon and Celtic Americans felt logical excavations, museum and library ex- comfortable with the Bicentennial because hibitions, conferences, and publications. it reinforced their ethnic and cultural givens Some 30 new and upcoming adult titles (Plymouth Rock, Virginia, Washington, Jef- have been enumerated by Publishers ferson, the English language, Northern Eu- Weekly. Over 100 exhibitions and confer- ropean immigration, etc.). Today, nervous ences have been counted by the National about what is happening to "their" country Endowment for the Humanities. This re- and learning that citizens of Hispanic origins markable efflorescence of original research are projected soon be the largest U.S. minor- and scholarship will leave a lasting legacy of ity, the old-line white majority may not be understanding and good. On the twin princi- enthusiastic about celebrating the 500th coming of the Hispanics-espe- cially since they sense no continuing need for Columbus as a unifying princi- ple or symbol. What is likely to happen in 1992? Oc- casional public cele- brations and obser- vances will be produced by civic, ethnic, and cultural bodies. Reproduc- tions of Columbus's ships will arrive in various ports from Spain. Tall ships may parade in New York harbor. Fire- works will explode Father of a country he never knew. This 1893 painting establishes Co- here and there. Peo- l~~inb~~swith Lincoln and W(~.s/~ingtonas America's "holy trinity." ple will view two television mini-series and read countless pies that cerebration is more valuable than ambivalent newspaper stories. celebration and that correcting one para- The Federal Quincentenary Jubilee Com- graph in our children's schoolbooks is mission that was appointed to superintend worth more than a half-million dollars our exultations is in disarray, its chairman worth of fireworks exploded over Biscayne forced out on a charge of mishandling Bay, 1992 should be the best 1492 anniver- funds, its coffers empty of federal dollars, its sary ever. principal private donor, Texaco, pulling the -Michael Gannon plug. Some states, and numerous individual cities (especially those named after Colum- bus, 63 at last count), have plans for obser- vances, large or small. Florida which has the best reasons, geographically and temporally, Michael Cannon is Director of the Institute to do something, has no state-wide plans, for Early Contact Period Studies at the Uni- two commissions having collapsed and a versity of Florida.

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took its place in world history. America and its original conqueror. Colum- In the 18th century, however, European bus, Johnson said, had to travel "from intellectuals did engage in a searching re- court to court, scorned and repulsed as a appraisal. A scientific movement, encour- wild projector, an idle promiser of king- aged by the French naturalist Georges- doms in the clouds: nor has any part of the Louis Leclerc de Buffon (1707-1788), world had reason to rejoice that he found at spread the idea that America was somehow last reception and employment.'' inferior to the Old World. As evidence, Buf- The French philosopher Abbe Guil- fon offered denigrating comparisons be- laume-Thomas Raynal (17 13-1 796) chal- tween the "ridiculous" tapir and the ele- lenged others to consider the following phant, the llama and the camel, and the questions: Has the discovery of America "cowardly" puma and the noble lion. been useful or harmful to mankind? If use- Moreover, Old-world animals introduced ful, how can its usefulness be magnified? If there fared poorly, declining in health and harmful, how can the harm be amelio- size, with the sole exception of the pig. It rated? He offered a prize for the essay that was Buffon's thesis that America suffered would best answer those questions. an arrested development because of a hu- The respondents whose essays have sur- mid climate, which he attributed to its rela- vived were evenly divided between opti- tively late emergence from the waters of mists and pessimists. Although "Europe is the Biblical flood. indebted to the New World for a few conve- Buffon's ideas enjoyed a vogue through- niences, and a few luxuries," Raynal him- out the 18th century and inspired more ex- self observed, these were "so cruelly ob- treme arguments about "America's weak- tained, so unequally distributed, and so ness." Not only were the animals inferior, obstinately disputed" that they may not jus- so were the Americans, and even Europe- tify the costs. In conclusion, the abbe ans who settled there soon degenerated. asked, if we had it to do over again, would Unlike the proud patriots in colonial we still want to discover the way to Amer- and post-Revolutionary North America, Eu- ica and India? "Is it to be imagined," ropean intellectuals began expressing Raynal speculated, "that there exists a be- strong reservations about the benefits of the ing infernal enough to answer this question American discovery. There was no gainsay- in the affirmative?" ing its importance. Few disputed the opin- Pangs of guilt and expressions of moral ion of Adam Smith: "The discovery of outrage were futile, however; nothing America, and that of a passage to the East stayed the momentum of European expan- Indies by the Cape of Good Hope, are the sion in America. Most of the immigrants two greatest and most important events re- had never heard of the "American weak- corded in the history of mankind." ness" or read the intellectuals who ideal- But there were negative assessments, ized or despised the Indians or deplored not unlike today's. The anti-imperialist Europe's bloodstained seizure of the lands. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) wrote: "The By the millions-particularly after the in- Europeans have scarcely visited any coast troduction of the steamship and on through but to gratify avarice, and extend corrup- World War I-immigrants flocked to a tion; to arrogate dominion without rights, promised land where people could make and practice cruelty without incentive." He something of themselves and prepare a bet- was also one of the first to make an unflat- ter life for their children. There had been tering connection between the conquest of nothing quite like this in history. This was

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reflected in the image of Columbia. Little America has become controversial. wonder that Columbus's standing in history And perhaps the greatest controversy of was never higher than it was when the all is whether or not to celebrate the achievements and promise of America Quincentennial. The critics who advocate seemed so bright and were extravagantly not celebrating it are correct, if to celebrate proclaimed at home and abroad. perpetuates a view of the encounter that ig- The "primary factor behind our [cur- nores the terrible toll. This must be ac- rent] reassessment of the encounter," knowledged and memorialized in the hope Crosby writes,"is a general reassessment of that nothing like it is ever repeated. Even the role of rapid change, even catastrophe, so, it would be unhistorical to ignore the in human history, and even the history of more salutary consequences. The New the earth and of the universe." The earlier World, for example, changed Europe faith in progress was founded on a Western through new ideas, new resources, and belief that change came gradually and al- new models of political and social life that most invariably for the better. In 19th-cen- would spread through the world. William tury science, the uniformitarian geology of H. McNeill is one of many historians who Charles Lye11 and the evolutionary theory of believe this led to the Enlightenment of the Charles Darwin were widely accepted be- 18th century and thus to the philosophical, cause they seemed to confirm the idea of political, and scientific foundations of mod- progress: The present world and its inhabi- ern Western civilization. It should not be tants were the products not of global disas- overlooked that this is the kind of society ters and multiple creations but of slow and that encourages and tolerates the revision- steady change. ists who condemn its many unforgivable By contrast, Crosby observes, the 20th transgressions in the New World. century has experienced the two worst Of course, attributing so much to any wars in history, genocide, the invention of one historical development makes some more ominous means of destruction, revo- historians uneasy. In cautioning against the lutions and the collapse of empires, ram- "presentism" in much historical interpreta- pant population growth, and the threat of tion, Herbert Butterfield recalled "the ecological disaster. Catastrophism, not schoolboy who, writing on the results of steady progress, is the modern paradigm. Columbus's discovery of America, enumer- Even the universe was born, many scien- ated amongst other things the execution of tists now believe, in one explosive mo- Charles I, the war of the Spanish Succes- ment-the Big Bang. sion and the French Revolution." No one "The rapidity and magnitude of change will ever know what the world and subse- in our century," Crosby concludes, "has quent events would have been like if the prepared us to ask different questions about discovery had not been made, or if it had the encounter than the older schools of sci- not occurred until much later. But the im- entists and scholars asked." pact of that discovery can hardly be under- estimated. And it did start with Christopher Columbus. That brings up another issue central to f Abbe Raynal held his essay contest to- the Quincentenary debates: Columbus's day, the pessimists might outnumber responsibility for all that followed. It must the optimists. Indeed, almost every- be remembered who he was-not who we thing about Columbus and the discovery of wish he had been. He was a European

WQ AUTUMN 1991 85 COLUMBUS

Christian of the 15th century sailing for the whereas the great majority managed to crown of Spain. There can be no expiation, have only a negative share of the con- only understanding. His single-mindedness quest. . . . One of our worst defects, our and boldness, as well as the magnitude of best fictions, is to believe that our miseries his achievement, give him heroic standing. have been imposed on us from abroad, that Others did not have Columbus's bold idea others, for example, the conquistadores, to sail across the unknown ocean, or if they have always been responsible for our prob- did, they never acted upon it. Columbus lems. . . . Did they really do it? We did it; we did. In so many other respects, he failed to are the conquistadores." rise above his milieu and set a more worthy example, and so ended up a tragic figure. But he does not deserve to bear alone the blame for the consequences of his auda- eople have choices, but they do not cious act. always choose well. One wishes Co- We must resist the temptation to shift P lumbus had acquitted himself more blame for our behavior to someone dead nobly, in the full knowledge that, even if he and gone. Mario Vargas Llosa, the Peruvian had, others who came after would have al- novelist, finds little to admire in the early most surely squandered the opportunity Spanish conquerors but recognizes the presented to them to make a truly fresh dangers inherent in transferring to them an start in human history-a new world in inordinate share of the blame for modem more than the geographic sense. But America. wishes, yesterday's self-congratulation or "Why have the post-colonial republics today's self-flagellation, are not history. of the Americas-republics that might have Columbus's failings, as well as his ambi- been expected to have deeper and broader tions and courage, are beyond historical notions of liberty, equality, and fraternity- doubt-and are all too human. The mythic failed so miserably to improve the lives of Columbus of our creation is something their Indian citizens?" Vargas Llosa asks. else. His destiny, it seems, is to serve as a "Immense opportunities brought by the barometer of our self-confidence, our civilization that discovered and conquered hopes and aspirations, our faith in progress, America have been beneficial only to a mi- and the capacity of humans to create a nority, sometimes a very small one; more just society.

WQ AUTUMN 1991 86 BACKGROUND BOOKS

COLUMBUS AND THE LABYRINTH OF HISTORY

istorians treat it as axiomatic that each From European scholars, however, a differ- H new generation, by building on past ent, more plausible Columbus has emerged. scholarship, knows more than those that went From Jacques Heers's Christophe Colomb before. By this logic, we must know more about (Hachette, 1981), which showed a typical mer- Columbus than scholars did in 1892 during the chant mariner of his time looking for profitable fourth Centenary. Unfortunately, that is not the opportunities wherever fortune took him, to case (or at least it was not 10 years ago). Alain Milhou's Colon y su mentalidad Popularly, much lore that was common cur- mesianic en el ambiente franciscanista espa- rency about Columbus a century ago has been iiol (Casa-Museo de Colon, 1983), which de- lost, and, in scholarship, few American histori- picted a mystic who believed he was helping ans now specialize in the sorts of topics-navi- spread the Christian message to all the world, a gation, shipbuilding, exploration, mariners and more complex Columbus has taken shape. Two merchants, etc.-that once constituted our current biographies in English embody this knowledge of the "Age of Discovery." Instead new understanding. Oxford historian Felipe there is an increasingly acrimonious debate Femandez-Armesto reveals a Columbus (Ox- about Columbus-and, by extension, about Eu- ford, 1991) who was "the socially ambitious, so- ropean world dominance. The current vilifica- cially awkward parvenu; the autodidact, intel- tion of Columbus, however, is not necessarily lectually aggressive but easily cowed; the more accurate than the uncritical praise of a embittered escapee from distressing realities; century ago. the adventurer inhibited by fear." And John No- Washington Irving's three-volume Life and ble Wilford's The Mysterious History of Co- Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1828) set lumbus (Knopf, 1991) is, arguably, the most the tone for the 19th century. Irving aimed to thorough and up-to-date narrative about Co- spin a good yam and also to promote Colum- lumbus available in English today. bus as a role model for the nation. His Colum- A second new direction in Columbus stud- bus displayed the virtues which citizens of the ies came from those earlier works that placed new nation should have: piety, high morals, a him within the larger history of global conquest scientific spirit, perseverance, rugged individ- and empire-building. Yale historian J. H. El- ualism, and so on. The immense popularity of liott's The Old World and the New (Cam- Irving's biography influenced, well into the bridge, 1970) focused on the Europeans who 20th century, virtually every American history had to assimilate the unexpected reality of an- textbook. Indeed, as recently as 50 years ago, other world suddenly looming into existence. the Harvard historian Samuel Eliot Morison, in "The discovery of America," Elliott wrote, "had effect, rewrote Irving's Columbus for the 20th important intellectual consequences, in that it century. In his magisterial Admiral of the brought Europeans into contact with new lands Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus and peoples, and in so doing chal- (Little, Brown, 1942), Morison, an admiral him- lenged. . . traditional European assumptions self, literally went "to sea in quest of light and about geography, theology, history, and the na- truth." He retraced Columbus's voyages and, ture of man." by focusing on his maritime achievements, University of Texas historian Alfred W. Cros- skirted Columbus's more controversial career by's Columbian Exchange: Biological and on land. "We are right in so honoring him," Cultural Consequences of 1492 (Greenwood, Morison wrote, "because no other sailor had 1972) traced the migrations of plants, animals,

the persistence, the knowledge and the sheer and, most disastrously,-. microbes and diseases guts to sail thousands of miles into the un- across the ocean. In Plagues and Peoples known ocean until he found land." (Doubleday, 1976), William H. McNeill of the

WQ AUTUMN 199 1 87 COLUMBUS

THE COLUMBIAN EXCHANGE

There is an old American folk song which tells of a "Sweet Betsy from Pike" (Pike County, Missouri) who traveled out westward "with her lover Ike, with two yoke of oxen, a large yellow dog, a tall Shanghai rooster and one spotted hog." Not only Betsy but practically her whole caravan of animals were in a sense "immigrants," descendants of Columbus and other two- and four-legged adventurers who had crossed the Atlantic from Europe. They were part of what historian Al- fred Crosby describes as "a grunting, lowing, neighing, crow- ing, chirping, snarling, buzzing, self-replicating and world- altering avalanche." Today, writes Crosby, a "botanist can easily find whole meadows [in America] in which he is hard put to find a species that grew in American pre-Columbian times." In his The Columbian Exchange (1972) and Ecologi- cal Imperialism (1986), Crosby describes the plants and ani- mals and diseases that crossed the Atlantic in both directions in the wake of Columbus's voyages, thus recreating ecologically the Old World in the New and the New World in the Old. Here are listed some of the immigrants and transplants. Plants

From the Old World to the Americas: From the Americas to the Old World:

Bananas Pomegranates Avocadoes Peanuts Barley Radishes Beans Pineapples Cabbage Rice Chile Peppers Potatoes Cauliflower Sugar Cane Cocoa Pumpkins Daisies Tumbleweed Coffee Squash European Melons Wheat Maize Sweet Potatoes Figs Wild Oats Papaya Tobacco Kentucky Bluegrass Wine Grapes Tomatoes Lemons Lettuce Mangoes Olives Oranges Peaches

WQ AUTUMN 1991 88 COLUMBUS

Diseases From the Old World to the Americas: From the Americas to the Old World:

Amoebic Dysentery Malaria While European diseases ravaged indigenous Bubonic Plague Measles American populations, only one disease, Trap- Chicken Pox Meningitis onema pallidurn (syphilis), is believed to have Cholera Mumps been brought back from the Old World. No Diphtheria Smallpox Old-world human fossils from pre-1490 show German Measles Tonsillitis signs of syphilitic damage. Influenza Trachoma Jaundice Typhus Whooping Cough

Animals From the Old World to the Americas: From the Americas to the Old World:

Anopheles Mosquitoes American Gray Squirrels Cattle American Vine Aphids Chickens Chiggers Domestic Cats Guinea Pigs Donkeys Muscovey Ducks Goats Muskrats Hessian Flies Turkeys Honeybees Horses Larger, fiercer European dogs Pigs Rats Sheep Sheep Sparrows Starlings

WQ AUTUMN 1991 89 COLUMBUS

University of Chicago described "the world's gist Kathleen Deagan has established, by biosphere. . . as still reverberating to the series excavating Columbus's first colony La Isabela, of shocks inaugurated by the new permeability the astonishing alacrity with which the Span- of ocean barriers. . . after 1492." McNeill esti- iards adapted their diet, clothing, and dwellings mated there were 25 to 30 million Native to the New World environment. Eugene Lyon, American Indians in Mexico in 1492; by 1620, at the Center for Historical Research in St. Au- after exposure to European disease, there were gustine, has uncovered the first manifest for 1.6 million. In his Conquest of Paradise any of Columbus's ships-for the Nina's third (Knopf, 1990), writer and ecological activist voyage-which describes its rigging, cargo, Kirkpatrick Sale penned the most extreme in- crew, and even the medicine aboard ship. The dictment of all: Columbus's legacy of unbroken mining equipment on the 1495 Spanish ships environmental despoliation has left us no bound for La Isabela shows us, Lyon reports, choice but to start over again. "There is only how early the Spaniards planned a permanent one way to live in America," Sale writes, "and mining industry in the Americas. Deagan's dis- that is as Americans-the original Americans- coveries about La Isabela and Lyon's about Co- for that is what the earth of America demands. lumbus will be presented in an upcoming issue We resist it further only at risk of the imperil- of National Geographic (January 1992). First ment-worse, the likely destruction-of the Encounters: Spanish Explorations in the earth." Caribbean and the United States, 1492-1570 It might be thought, at this late date, that (Univ. of Fla., 1989), edited by Jerald Milanich there is nothing left to learn about Columbus or and Susan Milbrath, describes the past decade's his voyages. All the original documents by Co- most significant archaeological and historical lumbus are now in print: The Diario of Chris- breakthroughs in understanding the Hispanic topher Columbus's First Voyage to America, penetration of the Caribbean and the South- 1492-1493 (Univ. of Okla., 1989), translated by east. And it would be almost impossible to com- Oliver Dunn and James Kelly; Cristobal Colon: pile a more complete reference work than The textos y documentos completos (Alianza, Columbus Encyclopedia, edited by Silvio A. 1982), edited by Consuelo Varela; and the mys- Bedini, to be published by Simon and Schuster tical Libro de las Profecias of Christopher next year. Such publications, and the scholar- Columbus (Univ. of Fla., 1991), translated and ship they represent, recapture-and, indeed, edited by Delno C. West. substantially advance-the knowledge about The most exciting scholarship inspired by Columbus and his voyages that was current a the Quincentenary, however, refutes the as- century ago. After 500 years, we are still discov- sumption that everything about Columbus is ei- ering Columbus. ther known or unknowable. Florida archaeolo- -Carla Rahn Phillips

Carla Rakn Phillips is professor of history at the University of Minnesota. She is coauthor, with William Phillips, of The Worlds of Christopher Columbus, which will be published by Cambridge next year.

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