Christopher Columbus

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TRUE STORIES OF GREAT AMERICANS

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS

BY

MILDRED STAPLEY

Whatever can be known of earth we know,
Sneered Europe's wise men, in their snail shells curled;
No! said one man in Genoa, and that No
Out of the dark created the New World.

--JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I COLUMBUS BEFRIENDED BY ROYALTY

CHAPTER II THE YOUTH OF COLUMBUS

CHAPTER III "LANDS IN THE WEST"

CHAPTER IV THE SOJOURN IN MADEIRA

CHAPTER V A SEASON OF WAITING

CHAPTER VI A RAY OF HOPE

CHAPTER VII ISABELLA DECIDES

CHAPTER VIII OFF AT LAST!

CHAPTER IX "LAND! LAND!"

CHAPTER X NATIVES OF THE NEW LAND

CHAPTER XI THE RETURN IN THE _NINA_

CHAPTER XII DAYS OF TRIUMPH

CHAPTER XIII PREPARING FOR A SECOND VOYAGE

CHAPTER XIV FINDING NEW ISLANDS

CHAPTER XV ON A SEA OF TROUBLES

CHAPTER XVI THE THIRD VOYAGE

CHAPTER XVII A RETURN IN DISGRACE

CHAPTER XVIII PUBLIC SYMPATHY

CHAPTER XIX THE LAST VOYAGE

CHAPTER XX THE COURAGE OF DIEGO MENDEZ

CHAPTER XXI "INTO PORT"

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS

CHAPTER I

COLUMBUS BEFRIENDED BY ROYALTY

Spain, as every one knows, was the country behind the discovery of
America. Few people know, however, what an important part the beautiful
city of Granada played in that famous event. It was in October, 1492,
that Columbus first set foot on the New World and claimed it for Spain.
In January of that same year another territory had been added to that
same crown; for the brave soldier-sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabella,
had conquered the Moorish kingdom of Granada in the south and made it
part of their own country.

Nearly eight hundred years before, the dark-skinned Moors had come over
from Africa and invaded the European peninsula which lies closest to the
Straits of Gibraltar, and the people of that peninsula had been battling
fiercely ever since to drive them back to where they came from. True,
the Moor had brought Arabian art and learning with him, but he had
brought also the Mohammedan religion, and _that_ was intolerable
not only to the Spaniards but to all Europeans. No Christian country
could brook the thought of this Asiatic creed flourishing on her soil,
so Spain soon set to work to get rid of it.

This war between the two religions began in the north near the Bay of
Biscay whither the Christians were finally pushed by the invaders. Each
century saw the Moors driven a little farther south toward the
Mediterranean, until Granada, where the lovely Sierra Nevadas rise, was
the last stronghold left them. Small wonder, then, that when Granada was
finally taken the Spanish nation was supremely happy. Small wonder that
they held a magnificent fete in their newly-won city in the "Snowy
Mountains." The vanquished Moorish king rode down from his mountain
citadel and handed its keys to Ferdinand and Isabella. Bells pealed,
banners waved, and the people cheered wildly as their victorious
sovereigns rode by.

And yet, so we are told by a writer who was present, in the midst of all
this rejoicing one man stood aside, sad and solitary. While all the
others felt that their uttermost desire had been granted in acquiring
the Moorish kingdom, _he_ knew that he could present them with a
far greater territory than Granada if only they would give him the
chance. What were these olive and orange groves beside the tropic
fertility of the shores he longed to reach, and which he would have
reached long ere this, he told himself regretfully, if only they had
helped him! What was the Christianizing of the few Moors who remained in
Spain compared with the Christianizing of all the undiscovered heathen
across the Atlantic!

And so on that eventful January 2, 1492, when a whole city was delirious
with joy,

"There was crying in Granada
when the sun was going down,
Some calling on the Trinity--
some calling on Mahoun.
Here passed away the Koran--there
in the Cross was borne--
And here was heard the Christian bell--
and there the Moorish horn."

On that great day of jubilee one man, a stranger, but as devout a
Christian as any of the conquerors, stood apart downcast, melancholy,
saddened by years of fruitless waiting for a few ships. That man was
Christopher Columbus.

When you know that Columbus was present by special invitation, that a
friend of the queen's had secured him the promise of an interview with
full consideration of his plans just as soon as the city surrendered,
you may think he should have looked happy and hopeful with the rest; but
the fact was, that for nearly seven years the monarchs had been holding
out promises, only to put him off, until his faith in princes had
dwindled to almost nothing.

But, as it happened, they really meant it this time. Moreover, it is
only fair to Ferdinand and Isabella to believe that they had always
meant it, but they had been so preoccupied with the enormous task of
welding poor Spain, long harassed by misrule and war, into a prosperous
nation, that they had neither time nor money for outside ventures.
Certain it is that when Granada was really conquered and they had their
first respite from worry, the man who was known at court as the "mad
Genoese" was summoned to expound his plan of sailing far out into the
west where he was certain of finding new lands.

Where this meeting took place is not known positively, but probably it
was in the palace called the Alhambra, a marvelous monument of Arabian
art which may be visited to-day. Columbus stood long in the exquisite
audience chamber, pleading and arguing fervently; then he came out
dejected, mounted his mule, and rode wearily away from Spain's new city;
for Spain, after listening attentively to his proposals, had most
emphatically refused to aid him. It was surely a sorry reward, you will
say, for his six years' waiting. And yet the man's courage was not
crushed; he started off for France, to try his luck with the French
king.

This is what had happened at the Spanish court. The great navigator
talked clearly and convincingly about the earth being round instead of
flat as most people still supposed; and how, since Europe, Asia, and
Africa covered about six sevenths of the globe's surface, and the
Atlantic Ocean the remaining seventh (here he quoted the prophet
Esdras), [Footnote: "Upon the third day thou didst command that the
waters should be gathered in the seventh part of the earth. Six parts
hast thou dried up and kept them to the intent that of these some being
planted of God and tilled might serve thee.... Upon the fifth day thou
saidst unto the seventh part where the waters were gathered that it
should bring forth living creatures, fowls and fishes, and so it came to
pass." Apocrypha, 2 Esdras vi. 42, 47.] any one by sailing due west must
surely come to land. So clear was his own vision of this land that he
almost saw it as he spoke; and his eloquence made his hearers almost see
it too. One after another they nodded their approval, and approval had
never before been won when he addressed a Spanish audience. But when
Archbishop Talavera, who was spokesman for King Ferdinand, asked the
would-be discoverer what reward he expected in case his voyage was
successful, the answer was so unexpected that nearly every man in the
room was indignant.

This answer is worth looking into carefully if one is to understand why
the Spanish nobility thought that Columbus drove a hard bargain. He
demanded of their Highnesses,

_First_: That he should be made Admiral over all seas and
territories he might discover, the office to continue for life and to
descend to his heirs forever, with all its dignities and salaries.

_Second_: That he should be made Viceroy and Governor-General of
all new territories, and should name the officers under him.

_Third_: That he should have one tenth part of all merchandise,
pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, or spices acquired by trade,
discovery, or any other method.

_Fourth_: That if any controversy or lawsuit should arise over such
goods, he or his officer should be the only judge in the matter.

_Fifth_: That in fitting out all expeditions for trade or discovery
he should be allowed to furnish one eighth of the cost and receive one
eighth of the profit.

On these conditions and no others would Christopher Columbus undertake
his perilous journey into unknown seas; and the grandees of Spain walked
indignantly away from him.

"Lord High Admiral!" murmured one. "An office second only to royalty!
This foreigner demands promotion over us who have been fighting and
draining our veins and our purses for Spain this many a year!"
"Governor-General with power to select his own deputies!" murmured
another. "Why, he would be monarch absolute! What proof has he ever
given that he knows how to govern!" "One tenth of all goods acquired by
trade _or any other method_," protested still another. "What other
method has he in mind?--robbery, piracy, murder, forsooth? And then,
when complaints of his 'other method' are made, he alone is to judge the
case! A sorry state of justice, indeed!"

Now, when you see this from the Spaniards' point of view, can you not
understand their indignation? Yet Columbus, too, had cause for
indignation. True, these soldiers of Spain had risked much, but on land,
and aided by powerful troops. _He_ was offering to go with a few
men on a small ship across a vast unexplored sea; and that seemed to him
a far greater undertaking than a campaign against the Moors. His
position was much like that of the modern inventor who resents having
the greater part of the profits of his invention given to those who
promote it. Columbus's friends, the few men who had encouraged him and
believed in him ever since he came to Spain, begged him to accept less,
but he was inflexible. He was prepared to make the biggest journey man
had ever dreamed of, and not one iota less would he take for it. But no
such rewards would Talavera promise, and thus ended the interview for
which Columbus had waited nearly seven years!

And so he rode away from the lovely Moorish city, weary and dejected,
yet hoping for better treatment when he should lay his plans before the
French king. His ride took him across the fertile Vega (plain) of
Granada and into a narrow mountain pass where the bleak Elvira Range
towers three thousand feet above the road. But smiling plain and
frowning mountain were alike to the brooding traveler. He noticed
neither; nor, when he started across the ancient stone bridge of Pinos,
did he notice that horsemen were galloping after him. They were Queen
Isabella's messengers sent to bid the bold navigator return. They
overtook him in the middle of the bridge, and then and there his trip to
France ended.

The queen, they told him, would accept his terms unconditionally. And
Isabella kept her word. The next time Christopher Columbus rode forth
from Granada it was not with bowed head and heavy heart, but with his
whole soul rejoicing. We may be sure that he turned back for a last
affectionate look at the lovely mountain city; for it had given him what
historians now call "the most important paper that ever sovereign put
pen to, "--a royal order for the long-desired ships and men with which to
discover "lands in the west."

CHAPTER II

THE YOUTH OF COLUMBUS

Having seen how that great event in Spanish history, the fall of
Granada, set the date for the discovery of America, let us see how it
was that a humble Italian sailor came to be present among all those
noble Spanish soldiers and statesmen. Let us see why he had brought to
Spain the idea of a round world, when most Spaniards still believed in a
flat one; and why his round world was perfectly safe to travel over,
even to its farthest point, while their flat one was edged with monsters
so terrible that no man had ever sought their evil acquaintance.

[Illustration: From "The Story of Columbus" by Elizabeth L. Seelys,
courtesy of D. Appleton and Company. THE GENOA HOME]

The amount of really reliable information which we possess concerning
the childhood of Christopher Columbus could be written in a few lines.
We do not know accurately the date of his birth, though it was probably
1451. Sixteen Italian cities have claimed him as a native; and of these
Genoa in northern Italy offers the best proofs. Papers still exist
showing that his father owned a little house there. Men who have studied
the life of Columbus, and who have written much about him, say that he
was born in the province, not the city, of Genoa; but Columbus himself
says in his diary that he was a native of Genoa city; and present-day
Genoese have even identified the very street where he was born and where
he played as a child--the Vico Dritto di Ponticello. In the wall of the
house in which he is believed to have lived is placed an iron tablet
containing an inscription in Latin. It tells us that "no house is more
to be honored than this, in which Christopher Columbus spent his boyhood
and his early youth."

More important than the exact spot of his birth would be a knowledge of
the sort of childhood he passed and of the forces that molded his
character. To learn this we must look into the condition of
civilization, and particularly of Italian civilization, in the middle
sixteenth century.

Columbus was born in a brilliant period known now as the Renaissance--a
French word meaning re-birth--which marks the beginning of modern
history. It followed a long, painful period known to us as the Dark
Ages, or Middle Ages, namely, the period between ancient and modern
times. In the Middle Ages humanity was very ignorant, hampered by all
sorts of evil superstitions; while the daily life of the people was
miserable and without comforts, lacking many things which we consider
necessities. Yet even in those far-away days things were improving,
because man has always felt the desire to make his lot better; and the
constant effort of these people of the Middle Ages led to that beautiful
awakening which we call the Renaissance.

One of the first glimmers of this new life may be said to have come from
the Crusades. The Europeans who had journeyed down into Asia to drive
the Mohammedans, or Saracens, out of the Holy Land, came back impressed
with the fact that these infidel Asiatics had more refinement and
courtesy than Christian Europe knew. The returning Crusaders introduced
some of this refinement into their own countries, and it caused people
to abandon some of their rude ways. Of course there were many more
influences working toward the great awakening, principally the growth of
commerce. All Europe became alive with the desire for progress; many new
things were invented, many old ones perfected; and before the
Renaissance ended it had given us some wonderful discoveries and
achievements--paper and printing; the mariner's compass; an
understanding of the solar system; oil painting, music, and literature;
and lastly, the New World.

Why, then, if it brought all these arts and inventions and discoveries,
do we not call it the birth, instead of the _re_-birth? Because
many of the beautiful elements of the Renaissance, such as art, science,
and poetry, enjoyment of life, freedom to investigate and study nature--
all these had existed in the days of ancient Greece and Rome; but after
the fall of Roman civilization it took the barbarian peoples of other
portions of Europe a long, long time to grow civilized, and to establish
some sort of order out of their jumbled affairs; and while they were
slowly learning lessons of government and nationality, the culture of
the antique world was lost sight of. When it was found again, when young
men wished to learn Latin and Greek so that they could read the long-
neglected books and poetry of the ancients, human life was made much
richer and happier.

This desire came first to the people of Italy. It was very natural, for
ancient Rome, where great learning had last flourished, was in Italy;
furthermore, the Italian peninsula, jutting out into the much-navigated
Mediterranean, was full of seaports, to which came vessels with the
merchandise, the language, and the legends of other countries; and when
we learn of other countries, we broaden our ideas.

Add to Italy's favorable geographical position the fact that her people
were unusually quick of intellect, and were gifted with great
imagination, and you will see how natural it was that the Renaissance
should have started there. Also, you will see why the great discoverer
was a very natural product of Italy and its Renaissance.

* * * * *

Genoa, like other large Italian cities, was teeming with this new spirit
of investigation and adventure when Cristoforo Colombo (in his native
land his name was pronounced Cristof'oro Colom'bo) was born there or
first came there to live. Long before, Genoa had taken an active part in
the Crusades, and every Genoese child knew its story. It had carried on
victorious wars with other Italian seaports. It had an enormous
commerce. It had grown rich, it was so full of marble palaces and
churches, and it had such a glorious history, that its own people loved
to call it _Genova la Superba_ (Superb Genoa).

Although Cristoforo's family were humble people of little or no
education, the lad must have had, or made, many opportunities for
acquiring knowledge. Probably he _made_ them; for, as a boy in
those days generally followed his father's trade, Cristoforo must have
spent a good deal of time in "combing" wool; that is, in making the
tangled raw wool ready for weaving. Perhaps he was sent to school, the
school supported by the "Weavers' Guild." But between working at home
and going to school, he evidently made many little trips down to the
busy wharves.

Was there ever any spot more fascinating than the wharves in olden days
--in that far-off time when there were no books to read, and when a boy's
only chance of hearing about other countries was to go and talk to the
crew of each vessel that came into port? The men to whom our lad talked
had sailed the whole length and breadth of the biggest body of explored
water, the Mediterranean. Some had gone farther east, into the Black
Sea; and still others--bravest of all--had passed beyond the Straits of
Gibraltar and out on to the great unknown ocean. It was to these last,
we may be sure, that the adventurous boy listened most eagerly.

Those hardy sailors were the best possible professors for a boy who
intended to follow the sea. They were, doubtless, practical men who
never talked much about the sea-monsters and other nonsense that many
landsmen believed in; nor did they talk of the world being flat, with a
jumping-off place where the sun set. That belief was probably cherished
by men of book-learning only, who lived in convents and who never risked
their lives on the waves. Good men these monks were, and we are grateful
to them for keeping alive a little spark of learning during those long,
rude Middle Ages; but their ideas about the universe were not to be
compared in accuracy with the ideas of the practical mariners to whom
young Cristoforo talked on the gay, lively wharves of _Genova la
Superba_.

Many years after Columbus's death, his son Fernando wrote that his
father had studied geography (which was then called _cosmogony_) at
the University of Pavia. Columbus himself never referred to Pavia nor to
any other school; nor was it likely that poor parents could afford to
send the eldest of five children to spend a year at a far-off
university. Certain it is that he never went there after his seafaring
life began, for from then on his doings are quite clearly known; so we
must admit that while he may have had some teaching in childhood, what
little knowledge he possessed of geography and science were self-taught
in later years. The belief in a sphere-world was already very ancient,
but people who accepted it were generally pronounced either mad or
wicked. Long before, in the Greek and Roman days, certain teachers had
believed it without being called mad or wicked. As far back as the
fourth century B.C. a philosopher named Pythagoras had written that the
world was round. Later Plato, and next Aristotle, two very learned
Greeks, did the same; and still later, the Romans taught it. But Greece
and Rome fell; and during the Dark Ages, when the Greek and Roman ideas
were lost sight of, most people took it for granted that the world was
flat. After many centuries the "sphere" idea was resurrected and talked
about by a few landsmen, and believed in by many practical seamen; and
it is quite possible that the young Cristoforo had learned of the theory
of a sphere-world from Genoese navigators even before he went to sea.
Wherever the idea originated is insignificant compared with the fact
that, of all the men who held the same belief, Columbus alone had the
superb courage to sail forth and prove it true.

Columbus, writing bits of autobiography later, says that he took to the
sea at fourteen. If true, he did not remain a seafarer constantly, for
in 1472-73 he was again helping his father in the weaving or wool-
combing business in Genoa. Until he started on his famous voyage,
Columbus never kept a journal, and in his journal we find very little
about those early days in Genoa. While mentioning in this journal a trip
made when he was fourteen, Columbus neglects to state that he did not
definitely give up his father's trade to become a sailor until 1475.
Meanwhile he had worked as clerk in a Genoese bookshop. We know he must
have turned this last opportunity to good account. Printing was still a
very young art, but a few books had already found their way to Genoa,
and the young clerk must have pored over them eagerly and tried to
decipher the Latin in which they were printed.

At any rate, it is certain that in 1474 or 1475 Cristoforo hired out as
an ordinary sailor on a Mediterranean ship going to Chios, an island
east of Greece. In 1476 we find him among the sailors on some galleys
bound for England and attacked by pirates off the Portuguese Cape St.
Vincent.

About Columbus's connection with these pirates much romance has been
written,--so much, indeed, that the simple truth appears tame by
comparison. One of these two pirates was named Colombo, a name common
enough in Italy and France. Both pirates were of noble birth, but very
desperate characters, who terrorized the whole Mediterranean, and even
preyed on ships along the Atlantic coast. Columbus's son, Fernando, in
writing about his father, foolishly pretended that the discoverer and
the noble-born corsairs were of the same family; but the truth is, one
of the corsairs was French and the other Greek; they were not Italians
at all. Fernando further says that his father was sailing under them
when the battle off Cape St. Vincent was fought; that when the vessels
caught fire, his father clung to a piece of wreckage and was washed
ashore. Thus does Fernando explain the advent of Columbus into Portugal.
But all this took place years before Fernando was born.

What really appears to have happened is that Columbus was in much more
respectable, though less aristocratic, company. It was not on the side
of the pirates that he was fighting, but on the side of the shipowner
under whom he had hired, and whose merchandise he was bound to protect,
for the Genoese galleys were bound for England for trading purposes.
Some of the galleys were destroyed by the lawless Colombo, but our
Colombo appears to have been on one that escaped and put back into
Cadiz, in southern Spain, from which it later proceeded to England,
stopping first at Lisbon. This is a less picturesque version, perhaps,
than Fernando's, but certainly it shows Columbus in a more favorable
light. Late the next year, 1477, or early in 1478, Cristoforo went back
to Lisbon with a view to making it his home.

Besides this battle with corsairs, Columbus had many and varied
experiences during his sea trips, not gentle experiences either. Even on
the huge, palatial steamships of to-day the details of the common
seaman's life are harsh and rough; and we may be sure that on the tiny,
rudely furnished, poorly equipped sailboats of the fifteenth century it
was a thousand times harsher and rougher. Then, too, the work to be done
in and around the Mediterranean was no occupation for children; it
quickly turned lads into men. Carrying cargo was the least of a
shipowner's business; he was more often hiring out vessels and crews to
warring kings, to Portuguese who carried on a slave trade, or to fight
pirates, the dread of the Mediterranean. Slaves rowed the Mediterranean
galleys, and in the bow stood a man with a long lash to whip the slaves
into subjection. With all these matters did Christopher Columbus become
acquainted in the course of time, for they were everyday matters in the
maritime life of the fifteenth century; but stern though such
experiences were, they must have developed great personal courage in
Christopher, a quality he could have none too much of if he was to lead
unwilling, frightened sailors across the wide unknown sea.

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