From Al-Andalus to Monte Sacro

Copyright 2014 Dolores Luna Guinot.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4907-1158-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-1157-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-1156-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014900988

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CONTENTS

FOREWORD

CHAPTER I   FIRST VOYAGES

CHAPTER II   SPAIN

CHAPTER III   ANDALUSIAN VOYAGES

CHAPTER IV   HAUSE OF AUSTRIA BEGINNING

CHAPTER V   GERMAN COLONIZATION OF AMERICA

CHAPTER VI   EL DORADO

CHAPTER VII   THE ABDICATION OF THE EMPEROR OF SPAIN AND GERMANY

CHAPTER VIII   THE ALPUJARRAS REBELLION

CHAPTER IX   CATALAN WAR OF SECESSION (1640-1652)

CHAPTER X   END OF THE HOUSE OF AUSTRIA THE WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION (1701-1714)

CHAPTER XI   SECOND REIGN OF PHILIP V

CHAPTER XII   CONSEQUENCES OF THE WAR OF THE SPANISH    SUCCESSION IN AMERICA

CHAPTER XIII   STORMING OF THE BASTILLE. (JULY 14TH, 1789)

CHAPTER XIV   THE WAR OF ROSELLÓN (APRIL 17TH, 1793)

CHAPTER XV   THE DIRECTORY. (1795-1799)

CHAPTER XVI   OATH AT MONTE SACRO (SACRED MOUNTAIN)

CHAPTER XVII   NUEVA GRANADA MANIFEST OF CARTAGENA

FOREWORD

T IME WOULD TAKE TRUTH BY the hand so that History might record it in writing and in this way not to blot out the memory of men’s actions, and so, the great undertakings made will not fall into oblivion.

There is History because the past is somewhat interesting depending on the present, and any approach will be a significant discovery and therefore an enriching one for understanding the human nature through what was once called ancient wisdom and teacher of life.

Historian cannot lie and has to present proven and irrefutable facts, although he may sometimes need to exaggerate a little bit by putting emphasis on the facts which can bring us more benefit or delight, but always by adjusting it to the truth, otherwise it can happen what the French writer and critic Rémy de Gourmont (1858-1915) said: When a mistake is introduced in the public domain, it does not leave thereof any longer; opinions are transmitted by inheritance and in the end it becomes History and we would therefore be believing and commemorating false events.

Considering English historian G.P. Gooch’s work, regarding Leopold Ranque’s method (1795-1885), considered being father of the German scholarship, and he said his concept of history:

<< I discovered by comparison that the truth was more interesting and beautiful than fiction, I strayed from this and I decided to avoid any invention and imagination in my works and be subjected to facts>>.

<> Tucídides

Over 2500 years, the Greeks refused to accept (as they were told to believe) that losing a war or becoming infected with a disease was a punishment from gods, they then created two sciences which have the Man himself as their object of study: History and Medicine.

The intention of Heródotus and Tucídides when they invented History as a Science was to avoid the collective misfortune belief and that their leaders were able to gain experience in the decision making. So when every time analyzes its past in terms of present concerns and to the extent that we approach to the truth of the past we will know best what we must change now to improve our community living and our quality of life. Almost at the same time, Hipócrates’ intention when he invented the Science of Medicine was that mankind acquired experience in healing the sick and not to think that it was due to punishment from gods.

Historical reality demonstrates that during three centuries—similar period to that of Imperial Rome dominance over Western Europe—religion, language, culture and the social and political institutions from Castile, that was leading the civilization, were transplanted to a New World much greater than the area in the entire Europe; i.e., the same thing that Rome did with Spain, this latter did in turn with America, bringing to the New Continent the courage of its warrior, the ardor of its explorers, the faith of its priests, the culture of its wise men and law. The main source for the study of the civilizing work of Spain in América is not in the Works of writers, or even, although more important, in the annals of the colonization, but in the so-called Indian laws granted by the Spanish monarchs for the undertaking of the colonization, evangelization, organization and government of the American territories.

The objective of the work of this book is only to show what actually happened, and that all this period of History of the Conquest stay remembered as <> of which emerged positively the union of two continents: Europe and America, the Spanish language and a mix of races and cultures, where its inhabitants, Indians, half-breed, creoles and Spaniards became accustomed to live together and love each other as fellow citizens, and this was the most significant implications of the Conquest.

CHAPTER I

FIRST VOYAGES

C ONSTANTINOPLE IN THE MIDDLE AGES was the largest and wealthiest city in Europe, located between the Golden Horn and the Marmara Sea, just at the point where Europe meets Asia.

Exchanges between Europe and India were intensified at this time, but trade was interrupted by the assault on the city of Trebizond by the Turks commanded by sultan Mohammed II since April 7th, to May 29th, 1453 taking over and laying siege to Constantinople, which was renamed Istanbul and became the Ottoman capital, being the end of the Middle Ages and the Byzantine Empire, thereby beginning the Modern Age.

Not only the Arabs occupied Constantinople, but huge territories in the Southeast Europe where their advances reached the gates of Vienna and also in North África, leaving Europe without the Mediterranean Sea trade route they used for obtaining spices, metals, the much needed sugar, this caused the Europeans to seek a new trade route by taking advantage of the inventions that were produced in the beginnings of the Modern Age, facilitating the search for the desired routes to countries of the spices—China and India. These inventions were essential for the discovering enterprises: the compass, which was attributed to the Chinese, which allowed the navigators to be guided through the magnetized guide pointing to the north and the astrolabe, an instrument to measure the height and the position of the celestial bodies, very useful to determine latitude (geographic coordinate systems that define the distance of a point of land to the Equator in angular grades) and longitude (it defines the distance of a point of land to the so called reference meridian, currently Greenwich)before each country used a different one for its maps. The use of the vertical helm placed in the stern and joined to the technical innovations opened new trade routes for the European man, hence the role of paramount importance that it played in 1492 for the discovery and conquest of America.

Taking advantage of these inventions made possible the maritime explorations which were led by Portuguese and the Spaniards.

Thanks to the work of Enrique the Navigator and the fortune inherited from the Templar´s in 1440, the Portuguese had already hired all kinds of scholars, astronomers, cartographers, navigators and sailors from all nationalities in the Segre’s headland Castle, near Cape of Saint Vincent

They began building the best instruments for navigation and made the most accurate and detailed maps that time. The shipyard at the Port of Lagos produced new experimental vessels such as the caravel, which was copied by all the European countries and kingdoms to dominate almost all the rest of the world. Fifty years later, Columbus used her when crossing the Atlantic in 1942.

The Portuguese were the pioneers of the ocean navigation by discovering and colonizing the Madeira and Azores islands. They had also explored the coast of África to Gulf of Guinea reaching Cape of Storms later called Cape of Good Hope.

Discovery of America

Christopher Columbus was born in Genoa in the year 1446. Accompanied by his father Domenico Salvago (formerly Scotto) and his mother Mariola Salvago, he arrived in Lisbon with only five years old, being then called Pietro Salvago. In 1453, at just seven years, Pietro was sent to study in Genoa in the convent of the Dominican Fathers of Santa María di Castello, learning to read and write, from there he went to continue studying in Pavia where he learned Latin, astrology and geometry. When his mother died, Pietro had already reached the age of thirteen, he returned to the convent of Genoa with the Dominican Fathers. He continued his studies—geography, cosmography and astrology—and ended his staying in the convent in 1461.

Pietro will soon afterwards become Cristóforo Colombo, a nickname he took at the age of 14 when he set sail acting firstly as a pirate with Vincenzo Colombo (who ended up on the scaffold in 1492), and later he served as privateer in the service of Rene d’Anjou, Count of Provence.

In 1463 he already had the simple name of Colombo and acted as a privateer under the command of Catalan Pere Ramon Sacosta, a sworn enemy of King Juan II, father of Fernando the Catholic.

In the late 1470 Colombo got a job as commercial agent of the house of the Genoese merchants Luigi Centurione who acted as promoter and Paolo di Negri as intermediary in the deal, transporting sugar from Madeira and Genoa and all kind of goods including slaves from Guinea in Portuguese vessels on behalf of the Genoese, calling in Lisbon and Cádiz and at various times in Valencia, where he had the opportunity to meet merchants from Valencia and Alicante, as well as Genoese bankers who later settled in Seville.

This participation in the purchase of sugar had given Colombo the opportunity to travel through the islands of the Atlantic between Lisbon, Porto Santo, the Canaries, Azores and Madeira, these three archipelagos were joined by a wind system and trade routes extending towards the western coast of África to the Gulf of Guinea and northwards to England and beyond, creating an Atlantic navigation circle, this way Colombo had followed the course of the Genoese commercial expansion from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic Ocean, by which he knew the Volta da Mina, route followed by the Portuguese sailors to return their country from the Gulf of Guinea and thereby the Atlantic trade winds, i.e., winds whose direction remains constant throughout the year blowing to the west. This experience became a captivating world for Colombo encouraged him to be an explorer, and he imagined himself as a discoverer of large and attractive islands, which the Flemish and Portuguese from the Azores called Antilia, these mental digressions could actually be related to the later discoveries which he called the Antilles.

The vessels of the Genoese trade convoy following the route to Genoa and Flanders were almost sunk in 1476 in front of the Cape of St. Vincent, in Portugal, when the fleet commanded by the privateer Cristoforo Salvago was attacked by the French privateer Guillaume de Casenove, Vice Admiral of the King of France. The vessel in which Cristóforo Colombo travelled was sunk; he managed to reach by swimming to the town of Lagos, in the Algarve, while Captain Cristóforo Salvago arrived in Seville where he lived for several years.

In the middle of the 1480, Colombo underwent a transformation from being a sailor and trade agent to become a learned geographer, beginning to read all the books he could get in order to be informed: Pedro de Ailly’s Imago Mundi, published in 1480-1483; Ptolemeo, because of the prestige of his geographical knowledge in cosmology. He read the ancient writers who knew about the configuration of the earth and different countries; such as the works by Estrebon, Plinio, Eneas Silvio Piccolomini, Isidoro, etc., acknowledging the idea of the sphericity of the Earth, defended by Aristoteles, from all these studies he reached the conclusion that the Earth was round; he also copied charts and maps, which he later sold in Córdoba and Seville; in rummaging documents he found maps of the Middle Age in which mythical islands in the Mare Tenebrosum (sea of darkness) to the west of the Strait of Gibraltar or Pillars of Hercules were mentioned. Among these islands, the Atlantis was the most famous of them all, mentioned since the days of the Greeks and finally the Atlantic Ocean was named after this. Colón notices that, between the years 1325 onwards, the maps mentioned the Atlantic islands of Brandani, Diculi, Mayda, Verde Island, Isle of the seven cities and others. Afterwards, it could be proven that not all of them were medieval fantasies.

But the island of Brazil turned out to be the most important, appearing with that name in Genoa’s Angellinus Dalorto maps in 1325, in Dulcert’s map in 1339, in Laurenciano-Gadiano’s in 1351, in Pizigani’s in 1367, and in the Catalan Chart in 1375.

Until 1436 the medieval world maps were circular, focusing in Jerusalem, showing regions of the earthly Paradise, purgatory and other biblical references.

They had good information about the known coasts of the Mediterranean, Baltic and Black seas. In the Far East, Hese placed the Purgatory in the antipodes of Jerusalem; Marignolli stated that the inhabitants of Ceylon were 60 miles from Paradise and that in a clear day you could see the water falling from Eden. Isidoro stated that Paradise was surrounded by a fire curtain reaching the sky and nobody could cross it alive.

Colon also found a letter from Andrea Bianco dated in 1448 where he mentioned that the Portuguese had arrived in Brazil in 1447.

There are actually two cartographic works by Andrea Bianco: One is the 10 sheet Atlas containing nine maps dated in 1436 which is protected in the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice; the other one, the 1448 Nautical Chart, located in the Ambrosian Library in Milan. All of the Portuguese discoveries on the African coast until 1445 are included in this work, the Azores, Cape Verde islands and the Ixola Otenticha, it is believed that this latter is Brazil.

The Antilles Peninsula appears in the 1448 Bianco’s map at 30 degrees north latitude and 1,000 miles from Europe, in the 1459 Fra Mauro map position was corrected to 25 degrees north latitude. In 1474, Toscanelli placed it at 25 degrees north latitude and 4,500 miles from Europe. Martellus placed it in his maps of 1489, 1490 and 1492 at 23 degrees north latitude and 400 miles from Europe.

There were no chronometers at that time and the distance East-West was calculated in a very precise way.

Everybody had drawn the Antilles peninsula almost in the same place, in the Florida peninsula, whose precise position is 25 degrees north latitude and is 4200 miles from Europe.

Monks of the monasteries were the authors of the maps of the known world at that time and nobody had any doubt about their certainty.

The portolano chart or pilot’s book were nautical charts, which served as reference to navigate from a known place to another.

Colombo married Filippa Moniz in Lisbon in 1481, noble lady stepdaughter of Bartolomeu Perestrello, and he so obtained the Portuguese nationality, and by order of the canons of the Church he recovered his baptismal name of Pietro. They settled down in Madeira and his son Diego was born nine months later.

He sailed to Black África together with his brother Bartolomé and reached up to the Cape Santa María in the present-day Angola.

In order to be able to travel, it was suitable for him to leave the care of his wife and child, leaving them in Porto Santo to be cared by his brother in law Pedro Correa and his wife Hiscôa.

During the time Colombo spent in the Portuguese islands of Porto Santo and Madeira; he took care of a dying sailor, a Castilian, whose caravel had been swept by the currents from the Gulf of Guinea to a far-off sea, possibly the Caribbean. This could have been Alonso Sánchez de Huelva, in his deathbed he confided to Colombo the secret of some land discovered on the basis that the Siberians had reached these same places in the Pleistocene and there were documents about possible previous travels. This man claimed that the lands where he reached when he was swept by the currents were the very same he was talking about.

This encouraged Colombo, and he thought that the sailor was surely referring to the Far East, he wrote letters to the Florentine geographer Paolo di Pozzo 7

Toscanelli, whom he consulted about his ideas of going to India, but in another unknown direction, he confirmed that it would be easy to undertake this trip to India by the west, since Lisbon could not be more than 4,000 miles in a straight line from the province of Mango, near to Cathay, it could be found on the way the islands called Antilia and Cipango, distant one from another 225 leagues. Then, he wrote a letter to Fernando Martins, canon of Lisbon and very close to the King. This letter had the Colombo’s project which was based on the assumed belief that there was much more extension of lands in the Eurasian continent in the direction of the parallels—so that it was much shorter the maritime space from coast to coast—a wrong measure of the equatorial degree that would make much smaller the diameter of the Earth than what it actually is by sailing towards the west. With this information Colombo was introduced to the Court to offer the King of Portugal Joâo II to arrange an expedition to India in search of spices, arguing that the Far East could be reached from Europe travelling westward by sea with possibilities of success, seeking a direct route to Eastern Asia bordering África which would shorten the voyage many leagues. The King of Portugal, after submitting this proposal to a Board, presided by Diego Ortíz de Calzadillas, this project was refused because it was considered very expensive and risky, it may also be because the expedition should go along the parallel of the Canaries, as they were explicitly reserved to the Crown of Castile, the Lusitanian King refused to accept it due to the fact that it would supposedly violate the Treaty of Alcaçovas-Toledo, thus losing the exclusivity to sail to the south by the African coast.

Almost simultaneously Cristóforo, already with the refusal, sent his brother Bartolomé to París in order to request help from the Court for his projects of discovering a new route for the Indies, he was received by Anne du Beaujeu, regent of Charles VIII and daughter of the recently deceased Louis XI (whom had annexed to the Crown Maine and Provence, and took advantage of the difficulties of Juan II of Aragón because of the violent uprisings of the peasant movements and asked him, in exchange for his assistance, the counties of Roussillon and Sardinia, as a deposit, and French troops intervened in Roussillon in 1475). Anne du Beaujeu also rejected Colombo’s idea and after this refusal Bartolomé went to England in 1488 to try his luck in the request for help by the King Henry VII, heading to London. Jofre Ibáñez de Sasio’s ship, where Bartolomé was travelling, was boarded by German privateers, they detained him and stripped him of everything he had, being a few years in dire straits, and finally he got a meeting with Henry VII who seemed to be a little interested, but without anything specific.

He went again to Paris to have an interview with Charles VIII, but the Project he explained to the monarch seemed to be very expensive and ridiculous because of its uncertainty, and knowing of Bartolomé’s scarce resources, he ordered that they give him 100 ducats to continue his trip to Spain, and also advised him to meet Américo Vespucci, nephew of Guido Antonio Vespucci who brought Américo to France to serve as secretary to the ambassador Lorenzo Magnificent, getting so into contact with the most distinguished characters of the French court and many Florentine merchants settled in France because of their business.

Bartolomé visited Américo.

—My uncle, is trading in the entire Iberian peninsula, he wants to send me to Seville as his right-hand man to restore the order as he has been informed about mismanagement of his accounts; and at the same time, to meet Gianotto Berardi, the most influential Florentine merchant in Andalusía, who is having contacts with great bankers and very wealthy people, as you know, the Seville-Cádiz hub is an essential stage in the trade between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, especially Seville, which is an active city where sailors from different nationalities mingle, such as: Basques, Bretons, Florentine and Genoese merchants and bankers.

Bartolomé heard him very interested about the most influential personages in the Court:

—I will soon go to África along with my brother Cristóforo, although perhaps, it would be a good idea for us to move to Seville for establishing relationships with the most influential merchants who may have contacts in the Court.

Both men said good-bye to each other with the conviction that they would not certainly meet again any longer.

Cristóforo, on his returning to Lisbon from one of his trips to the west coast of África, in Diego d’Azambuja’s expedition, was surprised at the execution of the Duke of Bragança, Don Fernando, beheaded in the main square of Evora, seizing all of his properties, and persecution by the King of all third Duke of Bragança’s relatives who had conspired against the Portuguese crown, Colombo and his wife Filippa because of her being daughter of a governor—and her family being related to the ducal house of Bragança—were surely among the conspirators; therefore, they had to go fleeing from Portugal to take refuge in Castile. Filippa was pregnant but she died in giving birth to her child, whom survived for a very few weeks.

Portrait of Isabel De Castilla y Fernando De Aragón

CHAPTER II

SPAIN

I N SPAIN, WITH THE MARRIAGE of the Queen Isabel I of Castile and King Fernando II of Aragón, Valencia, Mallorca and Sardinia, the two great crowns of Castile and Aragón were joined. In 1468, a year before his marriage, his father named him King of Sicily and Count of Barcelona.

Isabel was married to her cousin, prince Fernando after a difficult process in which they had to request the approval of the Vatican due to the fact that they could not get married because they were close relatives; but with the help of Pope Sixtus IV and Rodrigo Borgia (future Pope Alexander VI) they ended up accepting their marriage, considering that this marriage was appropriate to the interests of the Church.

Although they governed together, each kingdom kept their own laws and institutions; under the Concordia of Segovia, Fernando was named King of Castile as Fernando V on January 15th, 1475; however, Isabel I could not be named de jure Queen of Aragon because the Salic law of that kingdom prevented her from being so and she became queen consort of Aragón.

As Castile was larger in size and population and had a growing economy and some homogeneous institutions so the establishment of a strong monarchy was essentially supported by the Kingdom of Castile, although, when a military action or a commercial enterprise may be undertaken, this should be done under a common flag.

Isabel I, 1451-1504,—was daughter of Juan II of Castile and her second wife Isabel of Avis, Portugal. She was engaged to 2 years old Fernando since she was 3 years old—Fernando II, 1452-1516—son of Juan II of Aragón and Navarra and Juana Enríquez.

Isabel, so named in honor of her mother—it was not unusual in Spain then—when her father died in 1454, she retired with her younger brother Alfonso to the town of Arévalo, where they saw the attacks of madness of their mother. After having many difficulties with her stepbrother—son of her father’s former marriage to María of Aragón—King Enrique IV the Impotent, so at last she achieved to be granted the title of Princess of Asturias, in a very controversial ceremony—as there was a heiress, Juana nicknamed the Beltraneja, daughter of the queen and her lover Beltrán de la Cueva—that ceremony took place in the Bulls of Guisando (Ávila) on September 19th, 1468, known as the Concordia (Treaty) of Guisando.

The kingdom of the young kings Isabel, aged 18 year old, and Fernando, aged 17 year old, meant in Spain the passage of a medieval dark world to a modern luminous world. The pretension that its citizens may profess the catholic faith was among their planned reforms which led them to the creation in Castile of the Council of the Inquisition (although it already existed in Aragón), a unique institution that was imposed on all the kingdoms (except in Aragón) with the purpose of persecuting the false converts. Tomás de Torquemada was a Dominican friar named Inquisitor General in 1483.

Friar Bernardo Boyl was a reputable reformist in Catalonia; Friar Diego de Deza was a Dominican teacher, afterward a private teacher of the Prince of Asturias, and then Inquisitor General, he was above all interested in the university life. Friar Juan de Puebla, who gave up his countship of Belalcázar in order to be a religious man, Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, a generous, wise and ascetic Franciscan. These men made that Spain with the monarchy were the most firm bastion of the Catholicism and culture in the 16th century.

When the queen met Cisneros, he was confined for seven years in the convent of La Salceda because of a deep spiritual crisis that led him to enter in the order of the Franciscans; it was then that he replaced his first name Gonzálo for that of Francisco in honor of Saint Francis of Assis. The Queen was impressed by the presence of that tall man with a tuned up and sonorous voice, who precisely spoke of the reform she wanted. This Franciscan was included in the Court as a confessor in 1492; he had to show respect, efficient help and support her actions to the Crown, securing success for the reform, he was appointed provincial of the Franciscans in Castile.

The reformed and the newly created orders set up their own education centers.

Cisneros began founding the school of San Ildefonso in Alcalá de Henares, later other schools and the Complutense University; he wrote the polyglot Bible, in which he intended to put the Hebrew Bible to the reach of Christians, allowing theologians to understand the Old Testament, achieving to publish it—thanks to the printing—in their own languages according to the Jewish and Christian tradition, i.e., Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and Latin; later, he also established the compulsory identification of people with a fixed surname, so far, the people were identified by a name and a nickname which showed the place of origin, occupation, or characteristics of the person; that is why many brothers could have different surnames. As from the ordinance of Cisneros, the father’s name was fixed and would become the name of all his descendants.

The Kingdom of Castile unlike that of Portugal, until the end of the 15th, century and the first half of the 16th century, did not have strategies or specific plans for the oceanic discoveries, however as from 1492, there were fruitful years in political creations and great discoveries of lands in the New World.

Colón arrives in Spain

Cristóbal Colón—that is how he was called when coming to Spain in 1484—accompanied by his son Diego and his late wife Filippa’s brother in law, Pedro Correa da Cunha.

This change of name was because he could not reveal to the Court of Aragón his true origins as pirate and then privateer into the service of the enemies of the King Fernando II of Aragón and his father Juan II of Aragón, and as a pirate he would immediately have been hanged, and as a privateer he should show his loyalty to the King, so that he may be able to gain the King’s confidence.

Colón and his family entered Spain by the Port of Palos and went to the friar monastery of Santa María de la Rábida, because the center for the religious attention for the road of the Atlantic was there. Colón appeared in the gate of the monastery asking bread and water for his little five years old son, staying in that place some days in which Colón tried to convince the friars about his projects, which were precisely those prophesied by Isaiah as he was destined to take the limits of the horizon—he showed so certainty in his description that some friars wondered whether Colóns was hiding a reality already proven, a mystery that Colón took to his grave.

He achieved to establish a friendship with the Franciscans, mainly with friar Juan Pérez who introduced him to the Dukes of Medina Sidonia and Medinaceli; after having heard him, they saw that his Project exceeded their possibilities and advised him regarding his project that the most appropriate thing would be that he appeared in the Court, as this travelled, he should leave his little son in a fixed place. He went to Huelva and left his son Diego in the care of his sister in law Briolanja Moniz de Perestrello and her husband the Flemish Miguel de Mulyart.

Afterwards, in 1485, Colón went in search of sponsorship for his adventure, going to the Court set up by that time in Seville, making his petition in writing so that his project of navigation to India by the west may be accepted, without receiving any reply.

In Seville, he visited his old captain and shipbuilder Cristóforo Salvago, who helped him to establish relationships with personages of the royal environment such as the Hieronymite friar Hernando de Talavera, through his mediation, Colón achieved to be received in an audience by the kings in Alcalá de Henares in 1486. After the project was rejected by the Royal Council, because foreigners and those who were not natives or neighbors of Castile were not allowed to practice public functions involving positions of administration, justice and ruling and government of town or province under the Ordenamiento (Laws) of Alcalá,.

He went to Burgos where the Council was in May of that same year.

The Council met again in the University of Salamanca, in the presence of Friar Hernando de Talavera, apostolic administrator of the diocese of Salamanca. Colón argued that the proximity of the lands of the far east (Asia), based in the accepted circumference of the Earth since Eratosthenes, which had 252,000 stades (taking into account the Egyptian stade, it would have a 1% error on the accepted measure, being now 40,000 km) so it was supposed that the coasts of Cipango (Japan) were 400 leagues from the El Hierro island in the Canaries (in that time, the league was considered having 4 miles of 3000 Spanish feet) the error was so big that it placed the coasts of Eastern Asia a little beyond of the

Bermuda’s meridian. The Council considered the distance to India to be excessive; therefore, they considered that the feasibility of the project was impossible.

Colón lived in Córdoba in 1486; he met lady Beatriz Enríquez de Arana, during his stay, a lady of rather humble lineage, with whom he started a great friendship leading them to formalize a relationship. They had a son in 1488, named Hernando, although he did not think of getting married with her.

Colón was summoned to the Royal Campo of Málaga in 1487 to inform him about the refusal of his project, he had another meeting in Murcia in 1488, and this was of no avail. He also offered his idea to don Enrique de Guzmán, Duke of Medina Sidonia between 1488 and 1489, without having any reply. don Luis de la Cerda, Duke of Medinaceli opened the gates of his palace and received Colón under his protection in 1490. At the end of December 1491—without considering himself defeated—he went to the camp of the Royal of Santa Fe de Granada, he waited six months to be received, where he explained to the Queen that until that date of 1492 Spain occupied the finisterre (ends of the world) of Europe, with his project Spain would join the East and the West by sea, and that great universal empire was within her reach, he also mentioned the recently published Castilian grammar by the humanist Antonio de Nebrija, in which it was stated that the extension of the Castilian language was interrelated to the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile, and thus this Castilian language would always be considered the companion of the Empire and it would become since then the Spanish language.

The Queen summoned a Board again—rejecting Colón’s proposal because of his excessive demands—he pretended to have jurisdictional rights to all the lands he may discover in person; friar Hernando de Talavera insisted on her Majesty that she should be interested in the project and granted Colón a subsidy from the Crown; King Don Fernando intervened in that moment:

—The treasury now, I assure you, Mr. Colón is not in its best time because of the war campaigns. This crusade has been the confrontation between Christ and Muhammad, and the future of Europe depended upon it. We were commanding a union of kingdoms and wanted to restore the Spain lost by al-Andalus. Madam Isabel always insisted that the war for Granada was the best service the Spanish kingdoms could provide to the Christendom, keeping away the powerful Turkish that tried to control all the Mediterranean. In 1488, we moved our base of operations to Murcia, pretending to conquer the Nasrid Kingdom, we took advantage of Granada’s dynastic crisis among the pretenders to the Nasrid throne, emir Muley Abul Hasan (called by the Christians Muley Hacen) helped by his brother Abu Abdallah Mohamed El Zagal and the Zegries, fought against the son of emir Abd Allä (Boabdil The Lad) prisoner by his father in one of the towers of the Alhambra for having confronted the emir and his uncle to overthrow him and be proclaimed sultan, encouraged by his mother Aixa la Horra,—resented—because her husband had deeply fallen in love with a Christian woman captured by the Nasrid in the fight between Christians and Muslims of Granada. The captive Isabel de Solís was daughter of Sancho Jiménez de Solís, commander of Martos. During her stay in the tower of La Cautiva (The Captive), in the Alhambra, Muley Hacen fell deeply in love with that beautiful Christian woman, when getting married; she converted to the Islam and took the name of Zoraya (Morning Star) the Christian sultaness of al-Andalus. She had two sons Saad ben Alí and Nasr ben Alí. Saad, the oldest one, had the same rights to the throne as Boabdil, which caused Aixa’s anger. Before this situation between Aixa la Horra and defended by the Abencerrages, they freed Boabdil, inciting him to escape to Gaudix along with his brother Abu-l-Hayyay Yusuf, where they may continue fighting against their father, his brother Yusuf was beheaded by a mizuar in Almería by order of his uncle "El Zagal

Colón, very interested in the story, asked: it would be very difficult for Boabdil to escape from the tower where he was kept prisoner, because he was supposed to be very watched, who helped him?

—His mother’s maids made a string with their veils by which he could descend and the Abencerrages, who were waiting for him in the slope of the gorge accompanied him first to the high Albaycin and then to Gaudix to remake his army with his followers, causing bloody riots in Granada, which were only stopped when they heard, that we, the Christians, had sieged Loja. Muley Hacen along with his brother El Zagal went off to fight us, having made before an agreement with Boabdil that each would keep their respective positions and pretensions. A situation that was used by Boabdil to capture the Alhambra, where he was proclaimed by the Abencerrages as Sultan of Granada.

—There were—Don Fernando added—two Granada’s aristocratic families, rivals to each other, the Zegries, Muley Hacen’s followers and the Abencerrages, Aixa la Horra’s followers, and therefore Boabdil’s. It was evident that they were responsible for the continuous popular riots against the sultan. Muley Hacen in retaliation, so as to help Boabdil and, above all, because he had heard that his beloved wife Zoraida had an affair with an Abencerrages, called the 36 members of the Family and beheaded each one of them in the Fountain of the Lions. In the basin that is in the center have the red spots of the blood of the beheaded. The lions that decorate the basin represent the 12 tribes of Israel; two of the lions have a triangle in their foreheads indicating the two chosen tribes: Judea and Levi. They come from the house of the Jewish vizir Samuel Bem Nagrela, who gave them as a present to Muley Hacen.

The sultan and his brother—continued talking Don Fernando—defeated our armies in the region of Axarquia, it caused the jealousy of Boabdil who decided to besiege us in the city of Lucena, and not only Boabdil could not go into the city, but also he was made prisoner, while Muley Abul Hasan (Muley Hacen) regained the throne of Granada. Aixa, Boabdil’s mother, sent a solemn embassy to Cordoba to negotiate the rescue of her son, so they had to be subject to our conditions and Boabdil had to promise to be our faithful vassal, pay us an annual tax of 12,000 gold doblas, liberate 300 Christian prisoners, allow the access of our armies in his lands so that they went off to fight against his father Muley Hacen and his uncle El Zagal and immediately report to the Court whenever he were called by us, the Kings of Castile. Boabdil went back to Granada with the pretension to proclaim himself sultan, but the Zegries were firmly opposed, but with the intervention of the main chiefs the revolt was appeased. Muley Hacen was an old and blind man, he abdicated in favor of his brother el Zagal, who became Mohamed XI, King of Granada. The abdication brought new confrontations and the spread of revolts throughout the kingdom until el Zagal agreed with his nephew the partition of the states of Granada. The territory was divided in three sectors around Málaga, Granada and Almería. Boabdil agreed to establish himself as sultan in Almería with his followers.

After the hard repressions we had to retreat to Murcia because of the attacks of el Zagal; but in 488, with the conquest of Almeria, the Nasrid Kingdom was left without ports. The capture of Baza in 1489 brought the obedience of Zagal, by a treaty that established that he would keep his royal title and be given in dominion and inheritance the valleys of Ledrin and Andaraz, 20,000 Moorish vassals and a rent of four millions of maravedies per year. During this period el Zagal, being in a difficult situation, with badly submitted vassals, he sold me his states and he moved to Tlemezen—Morocco—where he died, and Boabdil took charge of the kingdom, becoming Mohamed XII King of Granada. I warned him that all the treaties that he had had with his uncle el Zagal were considered like a confederation against Castile, so it was finished the friendship between us, and we besieged the city of Loja, belonging to Boabdil, which he defended and lost it, being hurt and captured by don Diego III Fernández de Córdoba, second count of Cabra, Sir of Lucena, Governor of Los Donceles, beginning the war for the conquest of Granada from 1488 to 1492.

Don Fernando as he was telling what happened noticed the great interest of Colón.

I will prolong my story, because I am noticing that you are interested in the facts. Before the coming of the arrival of the Arabs in the Iberian Península, in what today are the city of Granada and its surroundings, there were three towns: Elvira, in the Albaycin and Alcazaba, Castilia, and Garnata, in the hill facing the Alcazaba. In the year 756, in the period of the independent Emirate, there was already Arabic presence in the peninsula in the central parts of Albaycin and the Alhambra. In 1238, Mohamed-Ben-Nazar, called Al Hamar the Red by the color of his beard, entered in Granada by the gate of Elvira to take over the Weathercock palace—the ancient Alhambra; the people received him shouting Welcome to the Victors by the grace of Allah, to which he replied Only Allah is the Victor, the motto of the Nasrid shield that is written throughout the Alhambra. Going back now to year 1483, when the Castilian troops of the Queen Madame Isabel were going along with her to the war of Granada since its siege in 1485 by the best infantry captain Diego García de Paredes who achieved the surrender of the city of Ronda, one of the major fortresses of the Kingdom of Granada and later in 1487, the capture of the city of Vélez-Málaga by the Great Captain Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba and captain García de Paredes, nicknamed the Samson of Extremadura because of his great stature, he is very brave, pious Christian, loyal, and even has a very acceptable cultural level, since he can read and write, something uncommon for someone who has not been raised in the Court, and even more for a man-at-arms, he is a great friend of Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba. We besieged the city of Granada on April 20th 1491; this long siege lasted eight months. With the capture of Granada on January 2nd 1492, when Boabdil the last Moorish king was defeated by Fernández de Córdoba and García de Paredes and taken prisoner in the battle of Lucena, which the Muslims called Yussana. He was respectfully treated as opposed to what has been said and taken along with his interpreter Baeza to the family castle of his captors in Cabra, where he was prepared the best halls decorated with Arabic plaster works for his comfort. He made there a great friendship with Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, the Great Captain, it was due in part to the kind treatment he received during his prison to the extent that her Majesty Madame Isabel and I, entrusted him to negotiate the capitulations that Boabdil wanted them to be in secret, in which he was demanded that his sons were hostages for the surrender of Granada, that the people of Baeza continued fighting with great fierceness as they did not want to surrender. With the treaty of Córdoba, Boabdil The Lad named Bulcacin Mulch—Governor of Granada—for the negotiations; The Lad became our vassal, he was forced to pay 12,000 doblas in gold annually and the sending of troops to reinforce the Castilian army. Finally, he capitulated and this led to the surrender of other important cities like Gaudix and Almería, and because of the siege we put on them, they surrendered. The Alhambra was occupied by the cardinal Mendoza and the commander Major of León, Gutiérre de Cárdenas, ordering that the flag of the Apostle Jacob, Patrón of Spain, and the Royal flag of Castile be hoisted in the tallest tower of the Alhambra of Granada, the tower of the Vela, ending so the called war of reconquest and the last redoubt invaded by the Saracen Muslims who caused the fall of the Visigoth power in the Battle of Guadalete on Thursday July 19th 711. Actually, it all started because Witiza, son of King Egica, reigned between 702 and 710, at his death, Don Rodrigo was the king elected by the nobles, but Agila II, son of Witiza, tried to impose on Don Rodrigo so he sought help from the North Áfrican Moors, and these under Arab.

General Tarik Arab defeated the Goth armies of King Don Rodrigo, and in four years Tarik troops seized almost the whole mainland, settling in Andalusia, Valencia and Ebro Valley and later at the beginning of the Cantabrian-Pyrenean mountain range and it is precisely in this territory, dominated by Asturians, Cantabrians and Basques, sparsely Romanized and beyond Visigoth occupation, where the germ of resistance to the new enemy will be forged, seven centuries eighty years and two days have passed since they created a new political entity on the Iberian Península by displacing the Visigoths who prolonged the Hispano-Roman heritage. The first Arab vestige was in the city of Córdoba with three hundred mosques and countless palaces rivaling in opulence with Constantinople, Damascus and Baghdad, around the Grand Mosque grew a civilization that became the Caliphate of Córdoba in the Muslim western art lighthouse during Middle Ages. There were two main characters: the Muslim doctor Averroes and the Jewish thinker Maimonides. In Murcia, the rich landowner Teodomiro was offered to keep his possessions in exchange for converting to Islam and he did so by changing his name into Tudmir, likewise, in the Ebro Valley the mighty Casio became Banu-Qasi, the Galicians in al-Galiki and the Hafs Goths of Málaga in Ben-Hafsún, in a few years the Arabs took over the Gothic Hispania. The Asturian Christian resistance achieved that the northern Hispania remained apart from the domain of the Muslim thanks to the leader Don Pelayo, swordsmith of kings Witiza and Don Rodrigo—i.e., member of his guard, the grandson of the monarch Chindasvinto, so he was related to Don Rodrigo, who was the son of Teodrofredo, brother of the father of Don Pelayo, therefore completely Visigoths. Bishop Don Oppas suggested Don Pelayo not to combat and that he should surrender because they had nothing to do with so great Saracen army and they should paid taxes they were requested to pay. Don Pelayo, who began to expel the invaders and defeated the Moorish Muza in the Battle of Covadonga, who had entered in Asturica by the port of Tarna between the years 712 and 714, leaving in charge the governor Munuza. After the battle, Munuza tried to escape from Asturica, but he was caught and killed along with his entourage and his troops in a valley in the middle of Asturias, and the traitor Don Oppas was made prisoner; and so through the northern part of the Península emerged—like a spinal column—the way that became the symbol of the opposition between the Islam and Christianity The Road of Santiago. In the year 740, Don Pelayo died and his son Favila also died being eaten by a bear; therefore, the government of the Kingdom of Asturias was in the hands of Alfonso I, son-in-law of Don Pelayo, as he was married to Ermelinda, daughter of the victor of Covadonga. Alfonso I, one of the last Visigoths that successfully resisted the Saracens, continued along with his brother Fruela Pérez fighting out of the site and after a lot of battles, they captured cities occupied by the Saracens such as: Salamanca, Zamora, Ávila, Segovia, León. The Kingdom of Granada, during the Middle Age, was a state with capital in the city of Granada, founded in 1013 by the Andalusian Zawi ben Ziri. When the Almohads came in 1146, they had finished to submit all al-Andalus by 1192. King Alfonso VIII of Castile wanted to end with the Almohads, but he was defeated at the Battle of Alarcos in 1195, and he subsequently led the Almohads to the border of the Montes de Toledo, with the threat to the city of Toledo and the Tagus valley. Later, in the surrounding area of the town of Jaén, King Alfonso VIII of Castile, organized a crusade along with the Archbishop of Toledo Rodrigo Ximénez de Rada and Pope Innocent III, they decided to meet with Almohad troops coming that were led by Caliph Muhammad Al-Nasir, whom the Spaniards called Miramolín. The Spanish troops under King Alfonso VIII of Castile took 20 militias of Castilian Councils, including those of Medina del Campo, Magerit (in Muslim Mayrit), Soria, Palencia, Almazan, Medinaceli, Bejar and San Esteban de Gormaz, led by don Diego López II de Haro, fifth lord of Biscay, the troops of the kings, Pedro II of Aragón and Alfonso II of Portugal, also 150 French knights of Languedoc joined, with the bishop of Narbonne to the head, 200 Navarre knights led by King Sáncho VII were added to them.

The Christian army met in Toledo in the summer of 1212 and moved south, specifically in Navas de Tolosa, or the plains of La Losa near Santa Elena, in Jaén, where they arrived on July 13th, to meet the Almohad troops, starting the battle, al-Nasir himself remained in combat within the camp, from his tent he harangued his troops dressed in the color of Islam completely green and with a Koran in his right hand, the Navarre were the first to get inside the fence and slay right and left, the army of Al-Nasir disintegrated, many fled to Jaen, including the Caliph, and this was the great victory of the Christians at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, which Arabs call the Battle of Al-Uqab., fought on July 16th, 1212. Later, the Benemerines toppled the Almohad Empire and a new period for the taifas started in the Iberian Península in 1224. On December 22nd 1248, Fernando III triumphantly entered in Seville, leaving almost finished the Reconquest; before, he had subdued the cities of Jaén, Murcia and Córdoba, which was the great capital of the Umayyad Caliphate, converting in Cathedral its illustrious mosque, thus the Muslims kingdoms that were still controlling the provinces of Huelva, Cádiz, Málaga, Granada and Almería in the Iberian Península were forced to retreat. Fernando III, when his father Alfonso IX of León died, joined forever the kingdoms of Castile and León, he had great cathedrals built such as Burgos, Toledo and León. With the conquest of Granada, we have finished with the most remarkable of the taifa kingdoms and with the Mohammedan control in our Península. When they were defeated, the old Nasrid Kingdom became part of the Crown of Castile as the Christian Kingdom of Granada; because of this, the Pope granted us the honorary title of Monarchs of Jerusalém. Boabdil gathered to sign the surrender in the central bedroom, he was sitting with the light behind his back, and the people who were to interview with him would be blinded by the light. Shortly before the Queen and I came on horseback to the Alhambra, its gates were opened and the sultan Boabdil left, arrogantly, also mounted on horseback and accompanied by his court, he was wearing his best dresses with marlota of brocade and velvet, the sword in his waist with the Nasrid motto Only Allah is the Victor. We ordered that the gate where Boabdil went out be walled in as a sign of respect.

—And, Boabdil (Colón asked) where did he go?

—The fact that Boabdil settled in the Manor of Andarax in the lands of the Almerian Alpujarra was to keep him and his followers away from the closest areas to the coast and so prevent a potential revolt of allies by the sea. We granted Boabdil the valley of Purchena and an income so that he may live according to his category; when he left on his way to the Alpujarras, he did not want to turn his head and see Granada, then, they told me that on his way, he turned his head and when seeing Granada in the distance, he cried.

—Did Boabdil have a big family?

—Yes, he was married to Morayna, and they had two sons Yusuf and Amed and a daughter Aixa; the children were kept as hostages held by Martin de Alarcon in the town of Porcuna, they were Christianized and could not speak Arabic, Queen Isabel called them the infanticos (young princes). They got together with their parents in Andarax, shortly after, his son Yusuf died with fevers and his beloved wife also died next month, being deeply saddened, he sold all