The Story of Columbus

THE
S T O RY OF CO LU MBUS
N . ' L E NN E S
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S E I ES O B K S Y UN P E PL
v i
H OR OF A R F OO F OR O G O E
AN D
ESS H I STO Y I N STATE UN I E R SITY NTA NA

b
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OR 0 F R TH E V OF MO
64 I LL U S TR ATI ON S A N D MAPS
' B LI PPI N C OT T COMPA N Y

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PH I LAD E LPH I A A N D LON D ON

CO P Y R I GH T , 1 92 1 , BY ' . B L I PP I N C O TT
. CO MPA NY
P rinted by ' B L ippi nc ot t Comp an y

E lectrot yped a nd . .
The Washington S qu are Press , P hi la delphia , U S A . . .
O Z I ~
OO3 0
APR l8 IBZ I
Cl A 6 1 1 6 7 2
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4M7
I
F OR E W ORD
ON E o f t h e two men Who made t his boo k i s an hi stor i an.
I t i s hi s bu s in ess to try to nd out W hat people did a long

time ago and to know Whet h er or not the stories to l d
about them are true He h as worked over t hi s book care
.
fu lly to make sure that everything in it i s a s nearly true

a s it can now be made The other man has a f ami ly of
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boys and girls I n his house t h ere i s a big r ep l ace and

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in front of i t a bearskin rug I n the evening he lies down

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on this rug and tells these stori es to the chi ldren Then .
he tells them to his dictating machine the stenographer

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copies them and the pr inter makes them into books

, .
N OW he i s telling other stories to these boys and gir ls and ,
some tim e they too may be made into book s I f they are
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,
you will hav e a c h ance to read t h em i f y ou s h ould want

to do so .
iii
T A B LE OF C O NTE NTS
CHA P TE R I PA G E
B E F OR E FI R S T V OY A G E
C H A PT E R II
T H E FI RS T V OY A GE 32 68
C HA PTE R III
C OL U MB U S IN S PA I N A ND TH E SEC O N D V OYAGE 6 9- 107
C H APTE R I V
1 08 13 6
C H APTE R V
F OU RT H V OY A G E 1 3 71 5 9
C H APTE R VI
LA S T YE A RS OF C OL U MB U S 16 01 6
8
MA PS A ND I LLU S T R A T I O NS
PA G E
1 . Po rtra i t of Co l umbu s F ron t is p iece
1
3 . Map of Wo r l d S h o wi ng P arts Kn o wn D e n i te ly t o E ur o peans
,
at t h e T im e of Co lumbus .
4 . Map S h o win g I ta ly F rance S pa in Po rtuga l and N o rt h Afri ca

, , , ,
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5 . Map S h o wi ng Med i terranean .
6 . Map S h o wing I s l ands D i sc o v ered b y t h e Po rtuguese

7 . Map S h o wi ng O v er l and R o utes t o I nd i a
T o sc a n e lli

8 . s
9 . Map reduced
T o sc a n e lli s

,
10 . Map S h owi ng Po rtuguese E xp l o rat i o ns A l o ng Co a st of Afr i ca .
11 . Map of Arag o n C ast il e and M oo ri s h S pa i n

, .
12 . La R ab i da
13 . Co l umbus B e fo re t h e Co urt at S a l amanca
14 . F erd i nand of A rag o n
I sabe ll a of C astil e
16 . S hi p of 14 8 6
17 . S hi p of F i fteent h C entury
1 9 Map D raw n f r o m B e h a im s G l o be

18 , .
20 . Po rtra i t of Co lumbus
21 . Po rtra i t of Co l umbus
22 . T h e C anari es
23 . O ut li ne Map of F i rst O utw ard V o y age
24 . Map S h owi ng D e vi at i o n of t h e Compass
25 . Map S h o wi ng S argasso S ea
26 , 2 7 D eta il ed Map of F i rst O ut ward 'o urne y
. 4 6 , 47
28 . Map of D rift i ng fr o m S eptember 19t h t o S eptember 26t h .
29 . O ut li ne Map of F i rst V o y age S h owi ng Ma i n D ates

30 . Map S h o wi ng I s l and Wh ere Co l umbus Ma y H a v e Landed
31 . Map of Wat lin gs I sl and
32 . I ndi an B e d o r H amm o c k
33 . D eta i led Map of 'o urne y Am o ng I s l ands
34 . Map of Hai ti S h owin g La N avidad
35 . Map of F i rst Ho me w ard V o y a ge
36 . Map of S p ai n S h owi ng P alo s S e vi ll e a nd B arce l on a
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vii
viii MA PS A ND I LL US TRA TI O NS
PA G E
37 Co l um bus Co mmem o rat i v e Meda l
. 72
3 8 Co l umbus s Co at of Arms 73

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3 9 Map S h o wi ng Co urse of S ec o nd V o y age

. 76
4 0 Map S h o wi ng S ec o nd V o y age A m o ng I s l ands
. 77
4 1 O l d P i cture S h o wi ng F i g h t Wi t h C anni ba l s
. 79
4 2 Map of H a i t i S h o wi ng I sabe lla V ega R ea l F o rt S t T h o m a s
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, ,
. . 88
4 3 A rm o r U sed i n T i me of Co l umbus
. 92
44 Map S h o wi ng V o y age of E x p l o rat i o n Am o ng I s l ands o n S ec o nd
.
V o y age 93
Map S h owin g W h ere Col umbus T h o ugh t t h e Co ast of C uba w as 96
Map S h owi ng Co urse Co l umbus P r o p o sed t o F o ll o w t o g o Ar o und
t h e Wo r l d 97
Po rtra i t of B art h o l o me w Co l umb u s 100
Co l umbus i n C h a in s 108
Map S h owi ng Co urs e of T hi rd V o y age 109
Map S h owing T hird Vo yage A m o ng I s l ands 1 10
Co l um bus Alo ng t h e Co ast of C entra l and S o ut h Am eri ca T hir d
,
V o y age 111
O l d P i cture S h owin g Co lumbus T rad i ng fo r Pear l s 1 14
C a t h edra l at S ant o D oming o 1 16
Map of S o ut h Am eri ca 12 2
Map S h owing Co ur se of F o ur t h O utw ard V o yage . 13 8
Map S h owi ng Co urse Al o ng C entra l Am eri ca o n F o ur t h V o yage . 14 0
W eap o ns U sed by N at ives of Veragua . 1 41
Map S h owi ng Co urse of Vo yage fr o m V eragua t o H a i t i 147
S i g nature and M o n o gra m of Co lum bus 16 0
S tatue of Co l umbu s in Gen o a 1 63
S tatue of Co lumbu s at S ant o D o m i ngo . 165
Map of S pa i n S h owin g Va llad oli d 166
Ho use W h ere Co l umbu s D i ed 16 7
2 THE STORY O F C OL U MB US
and to we ar t h e most curious clothes wh i c h co v ered a ll

their b od i es except their hands and faces The Indians .
had never before seen men with white skins and they had ,
never seen people wear ing such clothes The Indians .
themselves were almost naked These strange white .
people were C hristopher Columbus and his followers who ,
MA P O F T H E W O R L D T H E PA R T S K N O W N D E F INIT E LY T O E U R O P E A N S A T TH E TI M E O F
C O L U M B U S A R E S HAD E D D O T TE D L IN E S H O W S C O UR SE O F C O L U M B U S S F I R S T V O Y AG E
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h ad come across t h e A tlant i c O cean from E urope in three

small sailing vessels No wonder the Indians were su r
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prised for up to that time not a single white person l i ved

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in all of what is now called America .
Why did C olumbus go across a wide ocean on a j ourney

as far as from B oston to San Francisco in these little
v essels ? He must have had good reasons for doing so ,
because i n his small ships the j ourney was very dangerous .
It was not the kind of a sailing trip that people would

tak e for the fun of it Did C olumbus know about America
.
,
or was h e t rying to go to some ot h er land about which he

B E F ORE THE FI RS T VOYAGE 3
di d know ? I f you read this book you will nd answers ,
to these quest i ons .
We wi ll now tell the story of C olumbus where he was ,
born where he got his ships why he started out over the
, ,
great ocean what he was trying to nd and what he really

, ,
did nd .
MA P S H O W IN G IT A LY F RA NC E S PA I N P O R T U GA L A N D T H E C ITI ES O F G E N A S A
O V ON A
A N D PA L S
. , , . ,
2 . Wh ere C olu mbu s C ame From

the t ime of . At

Co lumbus nearly all the wh i t e people of the world lived

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in E urope The parts of the world about which they

.
knew are shown in the shaded portion of the map We .
may be sure that there were many people who were curious
to know about the lands beyond this area S ome were .
trying to work along the west coast of A frica to see how ,
far land extended in that direction O thers had made .
long j ourneys overland eastward to India and China and ,
while there had even learned something about Japan .

4 THE STO RY O F C OLUM B US
Co lumbus decided to go straight out into the ocean ,
and the path along which he sailed is shown by the dotted

line in the map Columbus was born in Italy but it was
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,
in Spain that he got his ships and the people who sailed
with him Indeed he had been in Spain less than ten
.
,
years when he started on his great j ourney .
3
. T h e You n g C olu mbu s
I t i s more interesting to
read about places when we know where they are F o r .
this reason we give here a map which shows the countries

Of I taly,
F rance Spain and Portugal
, ,
It shows also .
the cities of G enoa and Savona in Italy and the town

of Palos in Spain These countries and cities wi ll be
.
mentioned again in the story which follows .
It is surprising how little is known about the life of

the young Columbus He was born in Italy and very

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likely in the city of G enoa The year of his birth is now

.
generally believed to have been 144 6 If this is true .

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C olumbus was forty six years old when he started on his

-
j ourney from Spain across the A tlantic His father w as .
a poor man who made his livi ng by weaving cloth It is .
known that C olumbus worked wi th his father combing ,
wool and weavi ng and that people called him a wool

,
comber or weaver as long as he lived in Italy .
We do not know how long Columbus went to school ,
if indeed he went to school at all but we do know that in

,
later lif e he was one of the best educated men of his time .
He read and wrote L atin with ease as well as hi s own

,
I talian language and also Portuguese and Spanish He .
read al l important books on geography and travel and ,
a great many other books that are interestin g only to

l earned people He was in the h ab i t of wr i t ing in the
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B E F ORE THE F I RS T VOYAGE 5
marg i ns of the boo k s which he read and several of these ,
with marginal notes in his handwriting are still to be found

in libraries Of S pain He w as an expert penm an and made
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many beautiful and accurate maps He knew much about .
mathematics astronomy and the art of sailing

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.
The people Of G enoa were much engaged in trading

and thei r goods were carr i ed in ships that sailed back and
fort h over the Mediterranean A large part of t hi s trade
.
came from the eastern end of the Mediterranean where ,

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MA P S H O W IN G M E D IT E RRA NE A N OV E R WH IC H M E R C HA NT S O F G E N O A C AR RI E D T H E IR
G OO D S T O A N D F R O M C O N S T A NTIN O PL E A N D T H E E A S T
they got s i l k s spi ces and ot h er val uable goods that had
,
been carried overland from the F ar E ast .
There are stories that C olumbus went to sea while very

young and that he even took part i n some of the wars
,
wh i ch were then going on B ut whether he went to s ea

.
as a mere boy or not it i s certain that he heard many

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exciting tales from sailors who returned to G enoa I n .
those days there were many pirates who attacked tradin g ,
ships killed the sailors and stole the goods F o r thi s

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reason sea gomg was v ery exciting and dangerous and

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those who came back told thrilling stories to which the

6 THE ST ORY O F C OL UM B US
young C o lumbus must have listened with great inter

est We may be sure that the exciting and adventurous
.
life of the sailor had far greater attraction for him than
the dull and quiet life Of the weaver .
Wh en Columbus was about twenty seven years of age -

,
he left I taly and went to Portugal .
4 W
. h y C olu m bu s W e n t t o P o rt u gal I t was
. no

w onder
that a young man inter
e s t e d in the sea S hould go
to Portugal The Portu .
g u e s e were k nown as the

best seamen in the world
and had discovered more
new lands than any other
people of their time They .
had sailed out into the

Atlantic which was then ,
known as the Sea of Dark

ness and had discovered
,
MA P S H O W I N G I S L A NDS D I S E R E D COV T H E all the islands

B Y are
P O R T U G U ESE
Th e A o r e s M ad e ras and C anar i e s w e r e
' i
shown on the small map 0
k n o wn t o th e an c i e nts and r e d s c o e r e d e arl y

,
i v
had also worked
Et h ig ii i ir gf ii 1 3 3? ? e33: their W 3 far d own 3 1ong
th l n t g 1 0
a s a r s
A o r e s a bo ut 1 4 3 1 y
' .
the w estern coast OfAfric a .
When Columbus was still a boy the Turks conquered

the eastern shores of the Med i terranean and destroyed
the trade which the people of G enoa had carried on with
the E ast Fo r this reason many Of the sailors and map
.
makers of G enoa had gone to Portugal to serve on her

ships and help in her discoveries Among these men was .
B artholomew a younger bro t her of C hristopher Colu mbus

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8 THE STO RY O F C OL UMB US
t h em h a s come down to us C olumbus said however i n a

.
, ,
l etter written after he left P ortugal that he had left h is ,
wife and children We know t h at h e too k his son Diego

.
MA P S H O W IN G OV E R L A N D R O U T ES T O IN D I A
wi t h him so accord i ng to t h at l etter t h ere must h ave

, , ,
been other children .
I n these earlier years of his life Columbus took a great

deal of interest in geography and in the discoveries which
were being made It is unfortunate that later he seems
.
to h av e lo st this i nterest in geo graph y its elf and t h a t his

thoughts turned more and more to the discovery Of gold

and other riches .
6 S t ori e s of t h e Far E a s t
.

Wh en C olumbus started
westward across the A tlantic he expected to reach the
,
e a st coast of A sia Why did he want to go to A sia ? F o r

.
many hundred s of years before the time of Columbus the ,
people of Italy and especially of his own city of G enoa

, ,
had been carrying on a trade with eastern A sia bringin g ,
the goods overland along the lines which are shown on

this map Columbus had seen the great wealth which
.
the people Of G enoa gained by this trade and he had also ,
seen how their wealth was rapidly being lost after the trade
was stopped by the Turks who had conquered the eastern
shores of the Mediterranean He found that the Portuguese
.
were trying to get this trade by sailing around the south

ern end of A frica In time he came to believe however that
.
, ,
by sailing westward he could reach A sia by a S horter route

than by going around A frica and after all it was not cer
,
tain as yet that it w as possible to sail around Africa at all .
Now and then a traveler would go to these eastern

countries and come back with the most wonderful stories
about the riches he had seen The stories of the travels
.
of three of these men are m arvelous indeed Their ,

.
names are Marco Polo Sir John Mandeville and Nicolo

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di Conti Many of the i r stories were of course not true

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, ,
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T h ey told of cities with bridges built of costly stone ; they

told about more gold and silver and pearls than there
really was at that time anyw here in the world A ll things .
,
except men they said were ner in the E ast than else
, ,
where ; t h e trees grew taller the animals were larger O nly

,
.
the p eople were sm all and weak and not so br ave a s in,
10 THE STO RY O F C OL UMB US
E uro p e .They had been fed so well and had lived in a

climate where they needed to do so little work that they
had become soft and puny .
The people of E urope were anxious to nd an easy

way to reach these very rich countries wh ere they could
trade an d it must be said not only trade but even

, , ,
steal the ric h es and carry them away We shall nd .
later in this story that this is precisely what Columbus

did with the I ndians and that i s what a great many
,
others did for years to come .
People like to tell wonderful stories and they also like

to believe them and so these stories of the riches of the
,
Far E ast were not only believed but as they were told ,
from time to time they were improved upon and the E ast ,
grew richer and richer as the stories were repeated It is .
no wonder then that many people in Italy Portugal and , ,
Spain w ere trying to nd some direct way to these untold

treasures where they might easily make themselves rich .
I t is difcult for us who live far from that time and from
,
those places to understand j ust how excited they got

,
about it W e know how people now go alm ost mad when

.
they hear about the nding of gold Hundreds Of thou .
sands rush away from home and from their work trying ,
to get rich all Of a sudden by digging gold B ut in t hose .
days people could not rush to India as they do now to

newly found gold elds The only way they knew w as
.
to sail to the eastern end of the Mediterranean and then ,
to go overland on a long and di f cult j ourney B ut this .
route had been made impossible by the Turks who refused ,
to let Christians carry on trade over the lands which t hey

h ad conquered There were too many stories of savage
.
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B E FORE THE FI RS T VOYAGE 11
beasts and other great dangers S O people began to think

.
more and more about nding other ways to go to the F a r

E ast .The Portuguese were trying to sail around the south
coast Of Africa A few were thinking about going around
.
the world by sailing westward across the A tl antic This .
last idea nally led C olumbus to make his great j ourney .
7 H
. ow C olu mbu s C ame t o B e lie ve t h e E a rt h R o u n d .
We now know that the earth is round very nearly the ,
shape of a true S phere A t the time of Columbus most

.
people believed that it was at S ome thought that it .
was at and round j ust like the top Of a dining table and
, ,
others thought that it was at and square or rectangular , ,
like the top Of a at desk Those who believed the earth

.
at said that if it were round li ke a ball then there mu st ,
be people or anim als Of some kind on the other side Of it

and that they would be walking w i th their feet pointed
upward and their heads pointed downward This they .
,
said could not be because those on the other S ide would

, ,
fall Off the earth In answer to the argument that if the

.
earth were at the water of the ocean would run Off the
,
edge they said that all around the edge of the earth
,
there was land which kept it from running Off .
However the belief that the earth is round had been held
,
by many people for nearly two thousand years before the

time of Columbus S ome stories told ab out Columbus would
.
lead us to believe that this idea w as new with him but that ,
is by no means true There were the two beliefs that we

.
have mentioned about the shape of the earth and the credit ,
that belongs to Columbus is that he ch ose the right one

,
.
Columbus read all the books on geography that he could

nd and we know from the remarks which he wrote in
,
12 THE ST ORY O F C OL UMB US
t h eir margins that he was most interested in the s h ape

of the earth and the possibility of reaching the E ast by
sailin g westward When still a young man not far from
.
,
thirty years of age he wrote to one of the wisest men o f

,
that time an Italian by name Toscanelli asking him for

, ,
h is O pinion about the shape of t h e earth and tellin g him ,
of his idea of sailing westward to reach the E ast In reply .

,
Toscanelli sent a copy of a letter which he had recentl y

T OS C A N E L L I S MA P
T he o r i g i nal h as b ee n l o st and th i s I S f r o m an e arl y r e p r o d u c t io n s i m p l e d
i
written to the King of Portugal on t hi s same subj ect and

also enclosed a cop y of a map This map has been lost .
,
but the one show n here is p art of an early reproduction

of it The island called Cip ango was supposed to represent
.
modern Japan which i s right Off the coast Of A sia I n

,
.
the letter to C olumbus Toscanelli said among other things

, , ,

I perce ive y o ur great and n ob l e des i re t o go t o t h e p l ace wh ere sp i ces
g ro w ; wh ere fo re in rep ly t o a l etter of y o urs I send y o u a c o p y of,
an o t h er
l etter whi c h I w o te t o a fr i end of m in e a gent leman of t h e h o use h o l d of
,
r
t h e m o st grac i o us kin g of Po rtuga l .

F ollowing is part Of the letter to the gentleman in the

Ki ng s household Of which Toscanell i enclosed a c opy to

C olum bus :
I was glad t o h ear of y o ur i ntim ac y and fa v o r wi th y o ur m o st n ob l e

and ill ustri o us king I h a ve fo rmer ly sp ok en wi t h y o u ab o ut a s h o rter

.
r o ute t o t h e p laces of sp i ces b y o cean navi gat i o n t h an t h at whi ch yo u are

pursui ng b y Guinea T h e m o st graci o us ki ng n ow des i res fr o m me s ome
.
statement o r rat h er an e hib i t i o n t o t h e e ye s o t h at e ven t h e s li gh t ly edu

,
x ,
c t e d can grasp and c o mpre h end t h at r o ute

a Alt h o ug h I am w e ll a w are t h at
.
thi s can be pr o ved fr o m t h e sp h er i ca l s h ape of th e ea t h neve t h less i n o rder r ,

r e ,
t o ma k e t h e p o int c l earer and t o fac ili tate t h e enterpr i se I h a v e dec i ded ,
t o e xhib i t t h at r o ute b y means of a sa ling c h art I t h ere fo re send t o hi s

i .
ma'est y a c h art made b y m y o wn h ands up o n whi c h are l a i d d own yo ur ,
c o asts and t h e i s l ands fr o m whi c h y o u must begin t o s h ape y o ur c o urse

,
stead ily westward and t h e p laces at whi c h y o u are b o und t o arr iv e and
, ,
h ow far fr o m t h e p o l e o r fr o m t h e e quat o r yo u ough t t o keep awa y and ,
th r o ug h ho w muc h space o r t h r o ugh h ow man y m il es y o u are t o arr ive at

p l aces m o st fert il e i n a ll s o rts of sp i ces and gems ; and d o n o t wo nder at
my ca lli ng w t t h e parts wh ere t h e sp i ces are wh ereas t h e y are c omm o n ly
es ,
call ed t because t o pers o ns sa ili ng pers i stent ly w estw ard t h o se parts

ca s ,
will be fo und b y c o urses o n t h e under s i de Of t h e eart h .
I h a ve draw n up o n t h e map v ar i o us p l aces up o n whi c h y o u ma y c o me ,
fo t h e better i n fo rmat i o n Of t h e na vi gat o rs in case of t h e ir arr ivin g wh et h er

r , ,
t h r o ugh acc i dent Of wi nd o wh at n o t at s o me d ifferent p l ace fro m wh at

r ,
t h e y h ad e xpected ; but part ly in o rder t h at t h e y may s h ow t h e in h ab i tants

t h at t h e y h ave s ome kn owled ge of t h e i r c o untry whi c h i s sure t o be a ,
p l easant t hi n g I t i s sa i d t h at n o ne but merch ants dwe ll in t h e i s l ands

. .
F o r s o great t h ere i s t h e number Of na vi gat o rs wi t h t h e i r merc h and i se t h at

i n a ll t h e rest of t he wo rl d t h ere are n o t so man y as in o ne v er y sp l end i d
p o rt ca lled Z ait o n F o r t h e y s y th at a h undred great S hi ps of pepper
. a
un l o ad in t h at p o rt e very year bes ides o t h er s hi ps br ingin g o t h er sp i ces

,
.
T h at c o un tr y i s v ery p o pulo us and v ery r i c h wi t h a mu l t i tude of pr o vi nces ,
and ki ngd o ms and c i t i es wi t h o ut number I h ad a l o ng ta lk

.
wi t h him ab o ut man y t hin gs ab o ut t h e great S i e of t h e i r r o y a l pa l aces

,
'
and t h e remark abl e l en gt h and breadt h of t h e i r r ivers and t h e mu l ti tudes ,
of c i t i es o n t h e ban k s of t h e r ivers suc h t h at o n o ne r iver t h ere are ab o ut

,
t wo h undred c i t i es wi t h m arb l e br i dges v ery l o ng and wi de and e v erywh ere

,
ad o rned wi t h c o l umns .

F r o m t h e c i ty of L i sb o n due west t h ere are 2 6 spaces mark ed o n t h e
,
map eac h of whi c h c o nta ins 2 5 0 m il es as far as t h e v ery great and Spl endi d
, ,
c i ty Of Quin say F o r i t i s a h undred m iles in c i rcum ference and h as ten

.
br i dges and i ts name means C i t y of H ea ven and man y w o nder fu l t hings

, ,
a re t o l d ab o ut i t and ab o ut t h e mu l t i tude of i ts arts and re venues .

14 THE STORY O F C OL UMB US
B ut fr o m t h e i s l and of An t ilia whi c h y o u kn ow t o t h e ver y sp lend i d

, ,
i s land of C i pango t h ere are ten S pace s F o r t h at i s land ab oun ds in gol d

,
.
,
pear l s and prec i o us st o nes and t h e y c o ver t h e temp l es and pa l aces wi th

, ,
s o lid go l d S o t h ro ugh t h e unk n own parts of t h e r oute t h e stretch es of

.
,
sea t o be tra versed are n o t great Man y t hi ngs mi gh t per h aps h av e been
.
stated m o re c l ear ly but o ne wh o duly c ons iders wh at I h a ve sa i d will be

,
ab l e t o w o rk o u t t h e rest fo r him se lf Farewe ll m o st esteemed o ne

.

, .
In reply to a l etter from C olumbus Toscanell i wrote : ,

I h a v e rece ived y o ur letters w i t h t h e t hings whi c h y o u sent me fo r
, ,
wh i c h I t h ank yo u very muc h I regard as n ob l e and grand y our pr o 'ect

.
of sa ilin g fr o m east t o west acc o rdi ng t o t h e indi cat i o ns furni s h ed b y t h e

map whi c h I sent y o u and whi c h wo u l d appear st ill m o re p la in ly up o n a
,
sp h ere I am muc h p leased t o see t h at I h av e been we ll underst oo d and

.
,
t h at t h e v o yage h as bec ome n o t o n ly p o ssib l e but certain fraugh t wi t h ,
h o n o r i t must be and i nest imab l e ga in and m o st l ofty fame am o ng a ll

as , ,
C h r i st i an pe o p l e .

Wh en t h at v oy age s h a ll be acc o mp li s h ed i t will be a vo y ge t o p o wer fu l ,
a
k ingd o ms and t o c i ti es and pr o vi nces m o st wea l t hy and n ob l e ab o und ing i n

, ,
a ll s o rts of t hin g s mo st des i red b y us I me n w it h ll ki nds Of sp i ces and '

a ,
e we l s a
i n great abundance . F o r t h ese reas o ns and man y o th ers t h at ,
m i gh t be ment i o ned I d o n o t w o nder t h at y o u wh o are of great c o urage and

,

, ,
t h e wh o l e Po rtuguese nat i on whi c h h as a lwa ys h ad men d i st ingu i sh ed in all

,
suc h enterpr i ses are n ow i n'amed wi th desi re t o e xecute t h e sai d v oyage

, .

We do not know j ust when Columbus received these

letters but it was certainly more than ten years before he
,
sailed on his rst voyage N O doubt his belief that the .
earth was round grew stronger a s the years went on .
It was very important indeed for Columbus to be , ,
certain in his belief that the earth was round for when he ,
tried to get kings and queens and others to help him he ,
rst had to tell them the wonderful stories about the riches
of the F ar E ast and then show them that this F ar E ast
,
could be reached by going west Much of the trouble .
which Columbus had in securing help came from the fact

that those who might help him woul d not do so because
MA P S H O W I NG P O R T U G U ESE E' P LO R A T I O NS A L O NG T HE CO A S O F A F R IC A
T
was the island of Japan about w h ich Marco Polo had

,
learned on his trip to China .

9 . Voy ag es an d D i s co v e ri e s o f t h e P o rt u gu e s e T O .

understand conditions at the time we must now tell briey

about the voyages and discoveries Of the Portuguese .
F o r a century before the coming of C olumbus they had ,
sailed westward into the Atlantic and south along the

west coast Of Af rica They had discovered the A zores
.
,
the Madeiras and the Canaries and in their efforts to

, , ,
reach A sia by sea they were gradually working their way

, ,
down the west coast of Africa Just before reaching .
G uinea the coast of Africa turned towards the east and

,
for a time they hoped they had reached the southern end
of the continent B ut about the time that Columbus
.
came to Portugal they were discouraged by nding that

the coast again turned southward It w as not until 14 8 7 .
,
ve years before the rst voyage of Columbus that they ,
nally reached the Cape of G ood Hope the most southerly ,
point of Africa E ven then they did not go on to sail

.
completely around the continent and it w a s ten years ,
later that Da G ama nally went on across the Indian O cean

to India It i s known that B artholomew the younger
.
,
brother of Columbus took part in the voyage that rst

,
reached the Cape of G ood Hope and it is believed that ,
C olumbus himself took part in some of the earlier voyages .
10 Th e Voyag e s of t h e No rs e m e n
. S ailors from .

Norway and Denmark who are usually called Norsemen, ,
had crossed the northern end of the A tlantic and found

America nearly ve hundred years before the time of
Columbus S ome time during the years when he lived in
.
Portugal Columbus made a voyage to the north visiting

, ,
E ngland and possibly going a s far north as Iceland

,
.
S ome writers Of history have believed that in talking with

2
the people of E ngland or Icelan d Columbus heard stories

,
about the land that these Norsemen had found far to the
west If he heard such stori es it is certain that they did
.
,
not l ead hi m to try to nd the land that the Norsemen

had found It was believed at that time that all the
.
lands found by the Norsemen in going westward across

the northern part Of the A tlantic were connected in the
north with E urope Columbus wanted to go to the
.
Indies and he believed that they lay far to the south of

the lands which the Norsemen had discovered A s we .
S hall nd when Columbus left Spain he sailed to t he

,
southwest instead of to the northwest We may be .
certain therefore that he did not get any ideas from the
, ,
stories of the Norse voyages which helped him to dec i de

to reach A sia by sailing westward Indeed i t i s very
.
,
doubtful whether he ever heard of these v oyages at all ,
for he never mentions them in an y Of his writ ings w h ic h

have come down to us .
I I .T h e S i z e of t h e E art h
C o lumbus t h ough t that
.
the earth was really much smaller than it i s and so he ,
believed that the distance from Spain to E astern A sia

was only about t hree t h o u san d mi les We now know that
.
if there had been no land in the way so that Columbus ,
could have sailed to E astern A sia in a straight line he ,
would have had to go about three times as far as he

actually did S ome geographers of that time believed that
.
the distance was even less than three thousand miles and at ,
times when Columbus w as very anx ious to get help he

spoke of A sia as bordering up against the coast of Af rica .
A t that time there was a general belief that only about

one s ixth of the earth s surface was covered with water
-
B E FORE HE FI RS T VOYAGE
T 19
and that the other v e-sixt h s

were land F o r this reason
.
the maps of that time showed large areas of land and small
seas We now know that only about one fourth of the
.
-
eart h s surface is land and that the other three-fourths

are covered with water If Columbus had really known

.
how large the earth is and that he would have had to sail
nine thousand miles before he could reach A sia it is very ,
likely that he would not have dared to start on h i s v oyage .
O f course i n those days nobody even dreamed Of a large

,
continent lying between E urope and A sia .
12 S u mm ary o f C olu mbu s s B elief s

. We have now

seen that Columbus believed the stories Of the wonderful

riches of the Far E ast ; that he believed the earth to be
round ; that he thought the size Of the earth was much
l ess than it really is so that the distance from Spain to
,
A sia would be only about three thousand miles He .
believed that there were very many islands scattered all

over the A tlantic and he expected to discover some of these
before he actually reached A sia In only one of these .
beliefs was he right namely that the earth is round It

, , .
is surely interestin g that every one Of his mi staken notions

w as a good reason why he should go across the A tlantic .
Thus all his mistakes made him more determined to go

and made it easier for him to get the help which he needed
both in S hips and in crews If Columbus and those who
.
helped him had known the facts he would never have

crossed the A tlantic and found America .
I 3 C o l u mbu s as a S ailor
.

To sail westward across
.
the A tlantic for the purpose of reaching A s1a it was by ,
no means enough that Columbus should bel i eve the earth

to be round and the distance to be much less than it w a s .
20 T HE ST ORY O F C OLUM B US
It was necessary for him to be a very good seaman He .
needed t o have the cour age to go far out into the unknown
ocean He needed to be able to co mm and other men and
.
,
he had to have the earnest desire to go which would make ,
him disregard all the dangers that he might meet .
His life among the Portuguese had helped very much

to develop these qualities in him N O doubt he sailed on .
many Of their voyages he took part in long j ourneys into

,
unknown seas and he learned from the Portugu ese sailors

,
the art of handling ships and of nding his location at sea .
We shall learn later that he was one of the very best sailo rs
of his time It happened repeatedly that no one else in
.
his crews kn ew where they were but seldom if ever did , , ,
C olumbus miss his bearings It is interesting to note the

.
combination of qualit i es which were needed for the under

taking Of C olumbus He needed to know the best science
.
of his time to be informed on all that the best geographers

,
could teach and besides that he had to be a rough and

,
-
ready practical seaman who was willing to brave all the

,
dangers of unknown oceans .
We S hall see that still other qualities were nee d ed .
I t required remarkable personal qualities to go on for

many years seeking the help he needed and to strive to
convince people that his plans could be carried out .
I 4
. C o lu mbu s T ri e d t o G e t H elp From t h e K in g of
P o rt u gal . T O undertake such a v oyage as C olumbus

wanted to make it was necessary to have good ships and ,
crews brave enough to start out on a long and dangerous

j ourney G ood ships cost a great deal of money and
.
,
sailors to go on them had to be paid wages Columbus .
w a s poor and h a d to seek help from some one else I n .

those days it was usual for ki ngs to send out ships to

,
search for new lands Since the Portuguese were the

.
greatest explorers of that time it was natural that Colum

,
bus should go to the King of Portugal to explain what he ,
wanted to do and to ask for help The King however .

, ,
soon learned that Columbus not only wanted help in ships

and money but that he also wanted to get for himself a
,
large share Of the riches to be O btained from the lands that

he might nd Columbus also wanted the King to promi se
.
that he should be viceroy or governor Of all the new lands

that he might discover In those days when a king tted
.
out ships to discover new lands it was customary that ,
the lands thus found and whatsoever could be made by

,
trad ing with them or by stealing their wealth all belonged ,
to the king S o the demands of Columbus appeared very

.
unusual and the King refused to give him any help .
The King Of Portugal thoug h t however that it might , ,
be worth while to test the ideas of C olumbus S o he sent .
some S hips to carry goods to the C ape V erde Islands and

gave them instructions to go from there westward into the
A tlantic to search for the land that Columbus had told
,
about This shows that if C olumbus had not wanted

.
much more than others who went out on such j ourneys ,
he would have received help l ong before he did and his

v oyages could hav e begun many years before he actu
ally got started .
There are stories that at this time Columbus tried to

get help from his own city of G enoa in Italy and also , ,
from one other place in Italy ; but if he tried he certainly

failed We are not at all c ertain howev er that either of
.
, ,
t h ese stor i es is true .

1 5 . C olu mbu s L eavin g P ort u gal for S pain .

Wh en
Columbus found that the king of Portugal would not give

him the help that he wanted and at the same time promise
him all that he demanded he decided to go to Spain to
, ,
try to get the King and Queen Of Spain to help him He .
believed that they might be willing to do so because he

knew that Spain was now anx ious to discover new lands .
F o r many years the Portu g u ese had done more exploring

than any other people in
E urope but Spain was now
,
rapidly becoming m o r e
powerful and it seemed
,
reasonable to Columbus
that the Spaniards might
be anxious to get the trade
of the E ast and s o get
ahead of their old rivals .
MA P ARAG O C A S TI L E A N D M OO R I S H S PA I N
OF N
It was in Spain that CO
ships and his men but it took him eight years to get them
,
.
16 S pain Wh en C o lumbu s Came Th e re

.

T O under .
stand the trouble which Columbus had in getting help

from Spain we must now t ell something about that
,
country as it was at the time of C olumbus More than .
seven hundred years earlier a people called the Moors

,
had crossed over from northern A frica taken much Of the,
land and made their homes there These Moors were a

,
.
very remarkable people A t a time when the streets of

.
L ondon were unpaved with footpaths winding among

,
puddles Of lth in which hogs were wallowing the streets ,
of Cordova and Seville were beautifully paved Wh ile .

come to t h e Court of F erd inand and I sabella T hi s w ou l d .
be d ifcult enough in ordinary times and was especially ,
so now when the attent i on of the King and Queen was
wholly taken up by the great war Co l umbus rst sought.
the acquaintance of some Of the great men o f Spain and ,
it was by their help t h at he was nally perm i tted to appear

at the Court A fter some years he was engaged in the
.
service of the C ourt and received a smal l su m of money
C O L U M B U S BE F O R E T H E C O U R T AT S A L AMA N CA
yearl y The K i ng and Queen however were too busy to

.
, ,
listen to his plans and they asked a number of learned men

to decide what should be done Some of these men really
.
believed that Columbus mi ght be right while others de ,
c lared he was a wild dreamer S O years went by without

. .
anything being done In the meantim e B artholomew

.
, ,
the younger brother of Columbus returned from the ,
voyage on whi ch the southern end of A frica had been

found This expedition made him fear that the Portuguese
.
would be the rst to reach the E ast by an all sea route and
-
so he hurri ed B artholomew to E ng l and to seek h elp He .
also tried to get some of the rich nobles of S pam to furnish

ships and men and they would have done so h ad not the
,
Queen obj ected She did not wish anyone ex cept h erself
.
or the King to send out such an exp ed it i on .
F E RD I N A N D O F ARAG O N
Duri ng all these years Columbus talked about
p l ans to a ll who would listen and he succeeded
,
in getting
many to b elieve in them This w as important for the
.
,
King and Queen would not be likely to furnish Ships and

men for such a voyage wit h out the advice of the wi sest
and most learned men of their ki ngdom .
In the rst months of the year 1 492 after t h e war ,
against the Moors had been nished the Kin g and Queen ,
26 THE STORY O F C OLUM B US
decided to send Columb us on his voyage Trouble started .

,
however when they found what Columbus wanted In

, .
S pite Of years Of poverty and waiting he made exactly the ,
same demands of the Ki ng and Queen of Spain that he

had made eight years earlier of the King of Portugal .
He still wanted to be viceroy of all l ands h e mi ght discover .
He wanted the promi se of large incomes of money and other

things which it was dif cult even for a king and queen to
grant B ut Columbus was x ed in his ideas as to what he
.
should have and the result was that all help was refu sed him
,
.
18 C o lu mbu s S t arting for Fran c e

.

C olumbus now .
decided to go to F rance A lone riding a mule he started

.
, ,
on his way There were many people at the Court how

.
,
ever who believed in his stories and plans and it hurt

, ,
their pride to think that all these wonderful th ings might

go to France j ust because Spain would not risk a small
amount of money These people went to the Queen
. .
F o r some t ime it had been noted that the Ki ng was not

a s willing to listen to t h e plans of C olumbus as was the
Queen and so they went to her instead of to the King
, .
They told her again the stori es which Columbus had told
of the wonderful riches of the E ast ; they told her that
Columbus was really right and that if she would send him
out the Spanish Court would be the richest in the world
,
.
The result was that the Queen decided to help Columbus .
She said that she would get the money from Castile and
that Aragon Should have no part i n this expedition S O .
it happened that a messenger was sent i n all haste to over

take Columbus He found him a long way from the Court
.
,
riding his lone mule The messenger stopped him and

.
told him that the Queen wanted him to return C olumbus .

was uncertain and thought that probably when the time

really came they would again refuse him help N ev ert h e .
l ess he turned his mule around and went back to the

,
Spanish C ourt T h e st o ry has been to l d t h at the Queen

.
I S A BE LLA OF C A S TI L E
pawn ed her j ewels to get the money with which to t

out the ships This is now known not to be true I t is
.
.
p
retty certain however
,
that all the
,
expense was borne
by C astile.
We shall learn a little later th at the ships
were prov i ded in another way ; that is the Queen was not ,
obliged to buy the ships nor to build them .

1 9 . Wh at t he King
Q u e e n an d
P r om i s e d C o l u m b u s .
Wh ile the Queen provided the necessary money the King ,
j oined her in the promises which were made to C olumbus .
The most important of these were :

1 T h at Co l um bus S h o u l d be vi cer o y of a ll t h e l ands whi c h h e m i g h t
.
d i sc over and t h at hi s son and his s o n s son and s o me member of his fam ily
, ,

fo re ver a f ter him s h o u l d be vi cer o y of t h ese l ands .
2 T h at h e s h o u l d be 'udge and A dm ira l of a ll t h e l ands and i s l ands

.
h e mi gh t di sc o ver .
3 Th at h e him se lf s h o u l d rece ive o ne -tent h of a ll t h e v a l uab l e g oo ds

.
,
a ll t h e g o l d and s ilver and pearl s and a ll t hings wh ats o e ver whi c h s h o u l d be

,
g o tten f ro m t h ese l ands a fter t h e c o st of Obta in ing t h em h ad been deducted

,
.
T hi slast promise would have made C olumbus very

wealthy if he had found the rich lands that he expected
to nd We must be sure to understand j ust what this
.
promise meant An y people who were to trade with

.
these lands would have to give C olumbus one tenth of

-
all the prots they made and anybody who might go ,
over and rob those people would have to give him one
t enth of what they took .
There were other promises too but these were the most ,
important ones F o r many hundreds Of years both before

.
,
and after C olumbus a great many ships had gone out into,
t h e ocean to nd new land but no one had ever received ,
a promise of the kind that Columbus received I t w as .
really a promise which not even a king and a q u een could

carry out in the long run It is remarkable that this poor .
man a foreigner born in G enoa who had lived a few

, ,
years in Portugal should come to the Court Of Spain ,
and be able to get the Kin g and the Queen to make him
such a promise It i s the same kind Of promise that he
.
tried to get from the King Of Portugal and which that King
refuse d to mak e I t was because of that re fusal that

.
C olum bus left Portugal for Spain and he h ad once left ,
the Court of Spain to go to F rance j ust because the

King and Queen had in t h e rst place refused to grant
his demands .
The one thing that C olumbus wanted above every

thing else was riches and gl ory for h imself W e sh all see .
later in this story that his endeavor to become rich gave

him more su ffering and pain and caused him more trouble
than all the other things of his life Had h e been satised
.
to go out as other great sailors had done to nd new lands , ,
and to receive what was naturally given to people who

wor k mainly for their country he would have been much
,
wealthier in the end Had he not been so grasp ing he

.
probably could have started on his rst voyage eight

years earlier .
Wh en Columbus real ly d i sco v ere d t h e new world h e

found but little gold or ot h er ri ches and he died poor ,
and lonely and almost forgotten .
20 H ow t h e S h ips W e re Provi d e d
.

T h e story h as
b een told that Queen Isabella bought the ships This .
story however is not true and the way t h at t h e Sh ip s

, , ,
really were O btained was as follows .
The people of the little town of Palos h ad done some

thing to displease the King and Queen and i t had been ,
decided to ne the town by making the people furnish two

ships and crews for the time Of twelve months Wh en it .
was decided to h elp Columbus an order w as made out at

,
the C our t commandin g P alos to prepare two s hips to

, ,
pro vi de crews and to l et C o lumbus take t h em for hi s

,
proposed v oyage .
30 THE STORY O F C O L UMB US
The sailors on these v essels were to be paid the same

as sailors on warships which was more than ordinary
,
sailors received and were to be given four months pay

,

in advance at the tim e of starting on the voyage Any

, .
one who might be under arrest or in j ail was to be allowed

to become a member of the crews and nothing was to be ,
done with him until two months after his return It will .
thus be seen that any criminal in the town of Palos a
thief or a murderer might avoid being put into prison

or escape being executed for a certain length of time

simply by going on the voyage Of Columbus .
The town of Palos was required to furnish on ly two

v essels Columbus however was allowed to g et another
.
, ,
vessel if he could making three in all This he nally did

,
.
by the h elp of two brothers who were Old seamen and who ,
had considerable money The name of these men was .
P inzon The vessel which was provided by the P inzons

.
was the largest of the three and was used by Columbus

as his agship We wi ll describe these ships a little later
. .
21. D if cu lty in G e t t in g Crew s

I t was very hard .
,
indeed to get seamen to go on this voyage E verybody

,
.
w as afraid of the great dangers which were believed to be

lurking in the far ocean E ven emptying the j ail of Palos
.
did not furnish enough men for the crews So F erdi .
nand and Isabella gave an order to impress seamen To .

impress seamen means simply to take them whether ,
they want to go or not and make them go It was found

,
.
difcult even to impress seamen and it looked for a while ,
a s though the whole plan would fail because Of lack Of
sailors A t that time the two Pinzon brothers the ones

.
,
who h a d helped C olumbus to get the third ship o ffered ,

C H A PTE R II
T H E FI RS T V O Y A G E
23 . Th e S h ips of C olu mbu s
C olumbus t h us nally

O btained three ships the Santa Maria the Nina and the
, , ,
Pinta The town Of Palos provided the Nina and the

.
Pinta and some friends of Columbus the Pinzons helped

, , ,
him to secure the S anta Maria The Nina and the Pinta
.
were sailing vessels of t h e kind called caravels which ,
were much used in those days

to carry armed men These .
S hips were open in the middle

but built over at bot h ends
- .
That is in each end there ,
were small rooms where the

c rew and the captain lived .
They were fast sailers and

w i th a good wind could make
a s high as twelve miles an
hour This would make one .
mile in ve minutes and it

S I 148 6
H P OF
,
takes a fairly fast runner to

go at t h at rate for a whole mile The Nina was a little .
smaller than the Pinta .
The thir d ship the Santa Maria was l arger and

, ,
h eavier and had a deck extending over her full length

,
.
This ki nd Of ship was called a carack and was ordinarily

used for carrying merchandise Columbus complained .
that the S anta Maria was a dull sailer and not well suited
for his purposes The ships of Columbus were v ery small
.
32
TH E FI RS T VOYA G E 33
wh en compared w i th the sh i ps that sail the ocean to day - .
It has been gured out that the Santa Maria was s ixty
three feet l ong on the deck twenty feet wide and about
, ,
ten an d one-h alf feet d eep I f f our teen ships o f h er s iz e

.
S H I P O F F I FT EE NT H C EN T U R Y
were pl a ced e nd to end they wou l d not all togeth er be as

long as the Lusitania The Santa Maria was less than
.
twice as long as an ordinary school room and somewhat ,
narrower Y o u will n d that your school room is more

.
than ten and one half feet high which w as the distance
-
,
from the dec k to t h e bottom o f the Santa Maria .
3
34 THE ST ORY O F C OL UM B US
2 4 . Wh a t C o lu mbu s E xpe c t e d t o Fin d

Columbus
believed that by sailing about three thousand miles west
MA P D R AW N F R O M B E H A I M S G L O B E

w ard h e wou l d reach the eastern coast o f A sia He also .
believed that between E urope and A sia there were many

THE FI R S T VOYAGE 35
isl ands wh i ch had not yet been discovered and h e expected ,
to nd some of those on his trip across B ut after leaving .
MA P D AW N F R O M B E HA I M S G L O B E
R

the Canary Islands which were already known he did

, ,
not see land until he reached the West Indies .

36 THE STORY O F C OLUMB US
The map on pages 3 4 and 3 5 is from a glo b e made in the

year 14 90 j ust two years before Columbus sailed It was
, .
made by a man who up to that time had lived in Portugal

and who therefore had the same ideas about the Shape of
the earth and the nearness Of E urope to A sia that the
learned men of Portugal had at that time Columbus .
had not seen this globe before he started on his voyage ,
because it was made in a G erman city and did not reach

S pain in time . B ut it represented the most advanced
ideas about geography and we may well believe that it
shows fairly well what Columbus had in mind .
Columbus must have taken maps wi th him but it is ,
n o t known j ust what they were Since he h imself was an

.
expert map maker it is very likely that he carried maps

of his o w n construction F o r more than ten years he had
.
been making plans for this j ourney and he had no doubt ,
made sailing charts and maps of the regions he proposed

to v i si t . N O doubt too he showed these maps and charts
, ,
to people whose help he w as trying to secure Naturally .

,
such maps would be taken on the voyage W e have no .
sure proof as to any of these things and we can o nly believe

,
that the map given here shows fairly well the nature of
the maps and charts which he carried .

25 . S t art in g on t h e Voyag e Wh en they were nally
.
ready for the voyage the ships lay I n the mout h o f a

,
small river that owed into the harbor of Palos About .
a half hour before su n rise on the morning of August third

, ,
1 4 9 2 the anchors were lifted the sails were S pread and

, , ,
the little ships headed towards the sea Columbus de .
cided to make a complete history of his j ourney and k eep

a daily record of all interesting ev ents A boo k in whic h .
THE FI RS T VOYA G E 37
s u ch a record is kept is called a j ournal and we will refer

to the one kept by Columbus as the 'ou rn al Wh ile the .
original Journal has been lost we have early copies Of it

,
which are believed to be fairly accurate It is from this .
Journal that we have most of our information about this

remarkable and important voyage Columbus also de .
cided to make a map of the countries that he might dis

cover and to make a chart showing the exact track of his
vessels across the O cean It is interesting to notice that
.
it took seventy days from the time the ships sailed from
Palos until they reached the West Indies which shows ,
an average S peed of about forty v e miles per day The

- .
L usitania going at her best speed would have made this

, ,
distance in j ust a few hours more than ve days Colum .
bus headed his ships for a group Of islands called the

C anaries which are about one thousand miles from Spain
,
.
2 6 Th e Appe aran c e o f C o lu mbu s

. We do not know
that a picture of Columbus was ever painted while he

l ived We give here two of the earliest pictures Of him
.
,
and they are S O different that both of them cannot be

good likenesses of the real man .
We learn from the writings Of those who knew him

that he was tall and strong with owing white hair an d
,
keen gray eyes He was friendly and polite and people

.
,
were charmed by his conversation E ven those who .
opposed him felt respect for him for he had an air of ,
authority He was full of enthusiasm for his own plans

.
,
and felt that they would not only bring him great wealth
and fame but would be the means of carrying the C h ristian
religion to millions of heathens In h is later years he
.
wished peopl e to t hin k h e w a s Of nob l e f amily although ,

we know his father was a poor weaver He even c h anged

.
Colomb o in I talian 'to C olon

his name from C o l um b us '
,
CO L U M B US
whic h was the name o f a great Frenc h a dmiral. Nowa

days we O ften nd th at great men whose parents were poor
40 THE STORY O F C OL UM B US
voyage A t the Canaries the Nina had to stop to ch ange

.
her sails The Pinta had begun to leak and had to be

.
repaired ; her rudder or steering gear had been damage d

, ,
on the way down and that also had to be xed .
Wh ile passing one of the Canary Islands the T en erl fe , ,
they saw a volcano in eruption Stories have been told.
Of the great fear which the sailors had of this volcano ,
but t h ere is no good reason for believing them There .
were many volcanoes in the waters where these sailors were

used to going and they no doubt had seen them in action
before People who have written about Columbus have
.
O ften told stories the truth of which no one knows Indeed

,
.
,
they have liked to tell exciting tales about his j ourneys .
We always need to be careful in reading about great

men to be sure that there is good reason for believing
what i s told about them .
The island at which they stopped last is called G omera .
Here they took on board wood water and food A t this

, ,
.
place they also met people from the Island of F erro which ,
is the farthest west among the Canaries These people .
told of islands farther out in the A tlan t ic Such stories .
are not surprising We shall see that several times on

.
this voyage Columbus and his men thought they saw

land only to nd a little later that they were mistaken .
28 S ailin g t h e U nk n own Oc ean

. On Thursday morn
ing S eptember sixth Columbus and his crews left G omera

, ,
and started out over the open ocean B efore starting on .
the j ourney Columbus had predicted that land would be

reached by sailing three thousand miles or less from Spain .
He feared however that they might have to go farther

, , ,
s o he decided to dece i ve his men When they had sailed

.
THE FI RS T VOYAGE
about one hundred and eighty miles he told them that

they had gone only about one hundred and forty miles .
In this way he hoped to be able to make them believe that

they were not as far from home as they really were When .
they reached the West Indies the crews were made to
T H E C A N AR I ES
believe they had gone several hundred miles less than

they really had .
There were many things which made them fearful

out in this vast ocean where no one had ever gone before
but which imagination had infes t ed with countless dangers .
The long days and nights gave the superstitious sailors

plenty of time to think about the great monsters which
they had heard inhabited the S ea of Darkness The wind .
w as blo w m g constantly to the westward and they feared

,
it would be difcult to sail back against it Would they

.
sail over the edge of the earth and never be able to return ?
We shall s ee in the next section that the compass behaved

in a way to alarm them It was really a wonder th at
.
Columbus cou l d persuade these crews to go on straight

westward for over thirty days .
29 Th e C ompa s s
. A t the t ime o f C o lumbus sai lors

,
used the compass to S how the direction in which they

were going In all the seas known at that time the needle
.
i
p ointed not quite north but a little to

,
the west of north .
O U TL IN E MA P O F F I R S T O UT WARD VO Y AG E
It was kn ow n that by going westward t h e compass needle

would point more nearly to the north B ut no one had .
heard of a place w h ere it pointed exactly north or even ,
somewhat to the east of north The map here shows very

.
nearly the direction in which the needle pointed at the

various parts of Columbus voyage Wh en they got out

.
a certain distance they found that it pointed straight

,
north and when they got a little farther it began to point

,
a little to the east Of north This they could not explain

.
,
and to keep the crew from getting too muc h worried about
THE FI RS T VOYAGE 43
this matter C olum bus told them that i t wasn t the com
,

pass which had gone wrong but that the North Star had ,
changed it s locat i on A S the vo y age p roceeded the com

.
,
pass Oi course p ointed more and more to the east and

, , ,
Columbus k ept on explaining this by saying that the North

Star had moved more and more out of its proper place .
C olumbus did not really believe this but he thought it ,
MA P S H O W IN G D E V I A TI O N O F T H E C O M P A SS
I t i su p p o s e d that th e n ee d l e p m t d f arth e r t o th e e ast
s o e th e t i m e of C o lum bus t han
I n
i t d o e n o w b t 'ust h o w mu c h n o o n e k n o ws Th s m p g e s a g e n e ral i d e a of th e
s u i a iv
t d at t hat t m e
.
,
w y t p
a I oI n e i .
would be less likely to scare the men than if he told them

that the compass had begun to point in a direction where
it never pointed before He thought it might make them
.
believe that the compass would be of little use in nding

their way out in this part of the ocean .
3 0 B ir d s at S ea
.

B irds were seen almost every day
of the voyage Columbus remarked in his j ournal several
.
times that birds would not go more than about sixty miles
from land therefore there must be land at least that near
,
.
44 THE STORY O F C OL UMBU S
We now know h owever that many birds gO muc h fart h er

, ,
from land than Columbus supposed O nce he remarked .
that he knew there must be land close by but t h at ,
they would not stop to nd it now as they could look

it up when they returned The Portuguese were O ften
.
believed to have found l and by following in the dire c

tion in which the birds were ying and that made ,
Columbus more certain that the birds belonged to some

land nearby Sometimes they thought they saw ocks
.
of land birds in the evening but they never could see

,
'
them in the full light of day O f course they did not
.
,
really see such birds but on ly thought they did N O

,
.
doubt the belief that land was near though they did not
s e e it made them feel safer than they would have felt if
they had known that t h ere was no land within hundreds

of miles .
3 1 Th e S argass o S e a
. F rom S eptember sixteenth to

O ctober third the S hips sailed through great bodies o f

seaweed These weeds were very heavy perhaps as thick
.
,
around as one s thumb and very long There were great

,
.
masses of these weeds Stories hav e been told th at the

.
sailors became much worr i ed about t h em ; they thought

they would be entangled so badly in them that t h ey
could not get out ; but there is no reason to believe these
tales C olumbus says nothing about such fears in his
.
Journal and we must believe that the stories were invented

,
by tho se who like to h ave exciting tales to tell The weeds .
w ere thought to be river weeds or at least to come from

,
some land nearby and to indicate that they were sailing

,
close to islands or lands which however they did not s ee

, ,
.
O n S eptember twenty second they even changed their

-
TH E FI RS T VOYAGE 45
direct i on i n order to try to get out Of the weeds and they ,
really did so for a short time .
We now know that there is a place in the A tlantic

called the Sargasso S ea where a great many weeds have
,
been collected and are oating out in the middle Of the

ocean These weeds are gathered here by great currents
.
wh i ch go in a circ l e and t hus keep them in a sort of eddy

su ch as we often see in a river where bits of wood may be
,
M A P S H O W IN G S ARGA SS O SEA
seen oating around in t h e same place f or a long t ime .
Columbus of course knew nothing about all this and

, ,
thought they c ame from nearby land F ortun ately he .
did not lose time by searching for these lands To sail .
west and thus to reach A sia was the guiding star of C olum
bus H is straight path across the ocean shows this more
.
clearly than anything else With slight exceptions he laid

.
,
his course as true to the westward as does the modern liner .
3 2 . S t ory of t h e Voyage from t h e C an ari e s t o t h e W e s t

I ndi e s
The rst three days were calm and the ships
46 THE STORY O F C O LUMB US
moved slowly O n S eptember thirteenth when they had

.
,
been sailing j ust one week after leav ing G omera they were ,
about two hundred miles west of the A zores which were ,
the islands farthest west i n the A tlantic wh i ch were

known at that time .
O n S eptember fourteent h they saw what t h ey thought

were l and birds and they believed they were within a .
short distance from land O n Saturday the fteenth

.
, ,
D E T A I L E D MA P O F I R S T O U T WARD O U R NE Y
F '
they saw a bolt of re shoot into the ocean This no .

,
doubt was a shooting star or a meteor O n S eptember

,
.
sixteenth they entered the Sargasso Sea about which we ,
have j ust read O n S eptember seventeenth they believed

.
they saw other land b irds which a s Columbus remarked

, ,
in his Journal do not sleep on the sea They were now

,
.
sure they were near land and the Pinta which w a s the
, ,
fastest sailer started ahead to see land rst They also

,
.
thought they saw ocks of birds in the west There were .
heavy clouds which they thought were sure signs of lan d

,
.
48 TH E STORY O F C OL UMB US
O n the evening of the twenty they were certain - ft h

they saw land in the southwest an d sailed in that d irection ,
to nd it I n the morning of the next day however they

.
, ,
discovered that what they had seen w as only clouds and

there was no land .
They now sailed straight west for twelve days O n O cto .
ber third they t h o u g h t

they s aw branches with
fruit among the weeds .
O n O ctober sixth the Pin

zon brothers began to urge
that they sail on a more
M
AP D R I F TI N G R M S E P T E MB E R 1 9
OF F O
southerlyTH
C ourse
To
as ?
SE P T E M BE R 2 6 TE
bel i eved that the land was
in that direction Columbus however persisted in sailing
.
, ,
westward O n Sunday O ctober seventh the Nina which

.
, , ,
was in the lead red a gun and raised a ag to show that

,
they had sighted land A gain they found they were mis
.
taken . However towards evening Of t hat same day

, ,
Columbus decided to go in a more southerly d i rection as ,
urged by the Pinzon brothers G reat ocks o f b i rds were .
now seen ying southwestward and again they thought of ,
the stories of the Portuguese nding land by following birds .
They were now two hundred miles farther west than

the distance which C olumbus had said would take them
to Cipango the island of Japan

.
O n O ctober eighth they saw land b i rds ying along

the course of the ships O n the tenth Columbus wrote.
in his Journal that t he crews were becoming very much

worried and he encouraged them as best he could He .
told them they could not now be far from land that it ,
wou ld be too bad to turn around after they had gone s o

far and that if they only kept on they would reach A sia
,
an d that all Of them would be very rich He also spoke .
about wh at the King and Q ueen would think of men who

had gone S O far and would turn around without going
j ust a little farther .
O n O ctober e l eventh there was a very rough sea and ,
we may imagine how the little ships were tossed about
O U T L I NE MA P O F F I R S T VO AG E S H O W IN G MA IN DA T ES
Y ,
in it However there were now real signs that land was

.
,
near They saw logs oating in the water and they even
.
,
thought they saw a stick of wood which had been carved

with a knife They saw green bushes and stalks of the
.
,
rosemary and bits of cane There was no doubt that land

, .
was near an d t hey changed their course to the west A t

, /
.

two o clock in the morning of O ctober twelfth land was ,
seen The great voyage w as over ' It was now thirty six
.
-
days since they left the Canary Islands They had found .
nothing unusual T h e sea was the same kind of sea as

. .
at home The wind and the waves were the same as

.
those they h ad been used to They had found none of .
the horrible things which people believed were out in the

great ocean Indeed nothing strange had happened on
.
,
the j ourney L onger voyages had frequently been made

.
from Portugal The only unusual thing about this voyage

.
was that they had sailed ou t into the great ocean straight ,
toward the west about two thousand miles farther th an

,
any ship had ever sailed so far as they knew ,

.
When they were sur e that they saw land the ships ,
were turned around to av oid running ashore in the dark

ness N O doubt C olumbus slept little that night F o r
. .
more than ten years possibly for nearly twe nty years
, ,
he had been hoping some day to sail west to nd land .
Now he had sailed west j ust about the distance that he

expected to sail to nd the great continent of A sia There .
the land lay before him and he had no doubt but that it
,
was A sia itself or one of the islands which he believed to

be lying out in the sea near that continent The moon .
was three quarters full and in it s light thr ee thousand

-
, ,
miles west of E urope those little ships lay with their prows
,
turned to the wind their crews waiting for the morning

, ,
when they would head for the shore to see what they had
really found We must not forget that this voyage was
.
one of the very greatest things ever accomplished by any

one Columbus and hi s men knew that well B ut Colum
. .
bus had one fear F o r many years he h a d h oped to become

.
rich and great through such a voyage T O those who sent .
him he had held out prospects of glory and power sufcient

to make them unrivaled among the kings of the earth ,
and what he had reserved for himself was enough to make

him richer and more powerful than any save his King and
Queen Would he nd the riches ? Was this in deed the
.
land where bridges were built of costly stones and where ,
the people were so weak that he could easily make him self
their master ? We may well believe that h e passed an
anxious and restless night .
33. T h e S t o ry o f t h e L igh t
A nyone who has read
anything at all about the voyage of C olumbus has read
the story that in the evening of O ctober eleventh standing ,
in the prow Of his ship and peering into the darkness he ,
s aw a light ,
and that this light was the rst real sign Of
land that was seen It would be more p l easant not to tell
.
the story about this light but those who write about men
,
who have made history should tell the whole truth The .
story goes that Columbus saw the light or t h ought he ,
s aw it and that he spoke to one of his men about it and

,
that this man who was not much more than a slave said
, ,
he thought he saw it too Columbus also spoke to one

.
other man in a different part of the Ship about it but this ,
man could not see it Columbus further said that he saw

.
the light a little later and that it moved up and down .
This was between ten and eleven o clock at night We

.
know now that at the rate at which they were sailing they
were at least thirty miles from the land which they really
saw at two o clock in the morning Hence Columbus

.
could not possibly have seen a light on shore because ,
there could not have been a light powerful enough to be

seen even ten miles away let alone thirty miles Further
,
.
,
to be visible that far the light must have been elevated

more than 600 feet above the water and Columbus himself
,
d esc rib es this land as low and at W e must tell the rest
.
of the story The King and the Queen had promised to

.
give a su m of money every year for life to that one of the

crew who should see land rst The su m Of money was
.
not great about S ixt y d ollars a year but money was

worth much more then than it is now and taking it all ,
in all it was a very considerable su m for a poor sailor .
The man who really saw land rst w as a sailor on the

Pinta by name R oderigo de Triana The Pinta red the
,
.
gun to let the rest of the Ships kn ow that this time they
really saw l and AS soon as this gun was red the ship
.
,
turned about and lay still for the night .
It seems that if C olumbus saw the light as he says he ,

did at ten or eleven o c l ock that night he would not have
, ,
gone on sailing straight for i t i f he saw i t ahead and i f he ,
saw it on ei ther side of the vessel he would surely not have

gone on b ut would have stopped s o as to see the land in
,
the morning If he really saw the light ahead he would

.
,
have known by the next morning that the light could not
have been on the land now lying before them since that ,
was too far away from the place where he saw it .
O n their return to Spain R oderigo claimed the reward

,
for seeing land rst but Columbus den i ed that he should

,
have it and claim ed it for himself because he had seen a

light four hours before R oderigo really saw the land .
The reward was given to C o lumbus and the story goes that
R oderigo was so disgusted with Christian j ustice that he
turned Mohamm edan S O the great admiral the man
.
,

who w as to be the viceroy of all the lands that he should

discover kept for himself the money which would be of

little importance to a rich man but which would amount

,
to a great deal for a poor sailor To say the l east there

.
,
was grave doubt that C olumbus really saw land rst ,
and it would seem that a great and generous man would

h ave allowed a poor sailor to get his reward and would
MA P S H O W IN G I S LA N D S WH E R E C O L U M B U S MA Y HA V E L A N D E D
not have taken it for himself B ut th i s was not the .
way of C olumbus .
34 .W h e r e D id C o lu mbu s Lan d ?
I t i s not known
with absolute certainty which one of the islands in the
West Indies Columbus saw rst O n the map in this page .
you will see Cat Island Wa t lin gs Island S amana A cklin

, , ,
54 TH E STORY O F C OLUM B U S
Island Mariguana and G rand Turk Island A t one t ime

, , .
or another each one Of t h ese has been supposed to be the

place on wh ich Columbus landed It is now fairly certain .
,
however that he actually did land on Wat lin gs Island

, .
Columbus himself said that the island w as low that there ,
was a l arge lagoon or lake in its

interior that it bore green trees
, ,
and many different kinds of fruit .
Wat lin gs Island seems to be the

only one which answers t hi s de
scription completely .
35 C o u.r s e A m o ng t h e
I s lan d s The course along which
it is believed C olumbus sailed
among the islands is Shown on
the map 'see page
The r st island which we now ,
believe was Wat lin gs Island he ,

named San Salvador or Holy ,

S avior The next island of con
MA P O F W I S LA ND
.
ATLI N GS
sid erable size whi ch he discovered
h e named F ernandina after the King of Spain and the next

, ,
considerable island he named Isabella after the Queen of ,
Spain . Cuba he named Juana after the Crown Prince

,
of Spain and Haiti 'Hispaniola' was named after Spain

,
herself They left the eastern end of Hait i on January

.
tenth and saw that island for the last time on the sixteenth
of January We thus see that Columbus and his men
.
spent three months among these islands B y looking at .
a map of America we w ill s ee that after all Colum bus

, , ,
s aw very little of it on his rst j ourney and we may ,

56 TH E STORY O F C OLUMB US
H ou se s , C an o e sW eapon s of t h e Nat ives

an d .
Columbus believed the natives d i d not know anything

about the sharp edge of a kn i fe or a sword because they ,
took hold of his sw ord in such a way as to cut their h ands .
They had spears made Of sticks to which were tied po inte d

pieces of bone They made canoes by hollowing out logs
. .
Most of the canoes were small j ust large enough for one ,
e r on but ot h ers w ere v ery l a rg some o f t h em large

p s , e
I ND IAN BE D OR H AMM O C K
enough to hold fty men Small paddl es were use d f or

.
oars . The natives were excellent sw immers When a .
canoe tipped over t h ey sw am along beside it turned it

, ,
over and crawled back into it again and were not in the
least put out by such an a ccident I n Haiti one of the .
ki ngs lived in considerable style He was carried on an .
arrangement like a litter and he even wore somethin g on

,
his head that resembled a crown Columbus tells about .
going into some of the houses E verythin g in them was.
neat and there were beds hung b etween p osts whi ch they
, ,
called hamm oc k s This is where we get our word h am

.
mock The houses were shaped like tents but t h ere were
.
,
not more than twelve or fteen of them toget h er in one

group Columbus says they saw dogs running about
.
which could not bark .
The Indians had no domestic animals such as cattle ,
S h eep swi ne and horses

, ,
They had large numbers of
.
tame p arrots which they killed and ate as we do turkeys

and chickens T h e ir food consisted mostly of fruit which
.
grew in abundance of corn potatoes and sh The Span

, , ,
.
iard s found large stores of ne cotton in Cuba and the ,
nat ives knew how to weave it into some kind of cloth .
3 8 C o lu
. mbu s an d t h e N a t iv e s
A t S an S alvador ,
Colum bus retained two Of the natives on his ships to help

him talk with the Indians o f the other islands That .
is he took them prisoners A few days later one of

,
.
,
these escaped from the s hi p but Columbus caught another

,
man who was paddling around in a canoe and took him

instead S everal times C olumbus would capture men and
.
even women and keep t h em prisoners for a while on his

S hips treat them well and t h en give them presents and
,
let them go so that they mi ght tell the natives that the
strangers were not dangerous I n this way Columbus .
got the natives to come to t h e shore and bring down

th ings to trade for the little trink ets that he carried
with him for that purpose I n some places the natives
.
ed f rom their houses and even from the towns wh en they

, ,
saw the strange shi ps comin g toward shore It was .
thought that they were afraid that these ships mi ght

carry some of their enemies who used to come and make ,
war upon them Nearly all of the natives that Columbus

.
58 THE STORY O F C OLUMB US
met on this voyage showed a friendly S pirit and with a ,
few exceptions such as taking some of them prisoner now

,
and then he treated them well in return The natives

,
.
along the eastern shore Of Haiti were less friendly and ,
once they began to Shoot at the Spani ards with their bows
and arrows Then for the rst tim e Columbus r ed at
.
, ,
them with his guns and a number Of the Indians were

wounded The ght lasted for a very short time for when
.
,
the natives saw the r ing of the guns they ran for their
lives I n Cuba Columbus took S ix men seven women
.
, , ,
and some children on board his ship as prisoners and ten ,
of these were carried back to Spain These people were .
taken by force and entirely against their will They kn ew .
nothing about where they were going and t h eir friends

and relatives thought they might j ust as wel l be dead as
to go out into the ocean on these strange ships C olumbus .
wanted these people to S how to the Kin g and Queen and

the peop l e of Spain and he didn t care very muc h whether
,

they liked to go or not We shall learn later t h at Colum

.
bus cared little what t h e natives themselves wanted ; he

was wi lling to make them do anything so long as he ,
thought it would pay We shall nd him crowding hun

.
dreds of these poor siI n ple people in little ships to carry

,
them to Spain to sell as slaves The only excuse he ever .
made was that by taking them to Spain they could be

converted into Christians We certainly would not like .
to have strange things like those Ships come to our shore

and take some Of our peop l e away as was done wit h
these nat ives .
39 T. h e S e a rc h for G old
T h e movements Of Co l um
bu s On his v oyages cannot be understood unless we keep ,
clearly in mind that what he was really trying to do was

to get gold and other valuable things Indeed we cannot .
,
understand his life at all unless this is kept clearly in

mind I n the Journal in which he described his rst voy
.
age he mentioned gold nearly every day from the t ime he

reached the rst island until he left for Spain Small bits .
Of gold were O btained from the n tives at nearly all the

a
places where they landed More of it was obta ined in
.
Hait i t han elsewhere and that was probably the strongest

,
reason why he decided to build a fort there as we shall ,
s ee a little later that he did .
I n many places the natives wore smal l ornaments of

gold and Columbus tried to nd out from them where
gold could be found It is interesting that in most places
.
he understood the natives to say that the gold was some

where farther o n ; that there was not much of it in their
island but that t h ere were other places where there was a
,
great deal of it The natives seemed to say that the land

.
where the most gold could be found was to the south and
east of the islands rst visited Their enemies they said .
, ,
went to the south to O btain gold .
O n O ctober fteenth Columbus wrote that he hoped to

nd gold with the help of our L ord Wh en he reached .
F ernandina he learned that there was a gold mine some

where o u that island and he tried to nd it but did not
,
succeed I n Isabella h e heard of a kin g who was covered

.
with gold ornaments O n O ctober twenty- rst he wrote

.

in his Journal I am proceeding solely in quest Of gold
,

and spices I n Cuba he heard stories of gold to be found
.
elsewhere He also learned that pearls could be found

.
in some of the islands O n the north coast of Cuba wh ich

.
,
was the most westerly point reached on this vo ya ge very ,
little gold was found The natives however told of a

.
, ,
place far to the south and east where much gold could be
O btained S O on November twelfth Columbus turned about
, .
If Columbus had been sailing merely to discover new

lands and to learn about geography and not to nd gold , ,
S pices and other riches he would probably have gone

, ,
farther westward along the north coast of Cuba If he .
had he would have discovered that Cuba was an island

,
and not a part Of t he main land as he supposed to t he end

Of his days If he had s ailed around the west end of Cuba
.
,
he would have gotten into the G ulf of Mexico and it is ,
perfectly possible that in that case he would have sailed

still farther west and so found M e xico itself where there ,
was an imm ense amount of gold If Colum bus had not .
been so anxi ous to nd gold he might have found a very ,
great deal of it .
A bout November twentieth Pinzon in the Pinta stole , , ,
away from C olumbus in the hope that he might nd gold

all by himself C olumbus did not know where the Pinta
.
had gone and he even thought that Pinzon might have

,
hurried back to Spain to carry the news of the discovery of

these western lands to the King and Queen before Colum
bus could do so himself About ve weeks later however
.
, ,
the Pinta was found on the north coast of Haiti and this ,
ship sailed with Columbus when they started on their

homeward voyage .
I n Haiti where the fort was built the King brought

, ,
considerable gold He had some large plates of this metal

.
,
which he broke in pieces and traded to the Spaniards .
O n December twenty-second Columbus wrote in his


Journal O ur L ord in whose hands are all things b e my
, ,
Help O ur L ord in his mercy direct me where I may nd

.

the gold mine .
I t is not surprising that Colum bus Should write this
DE T A I L E D MA P O F O U R N
' EY A M O N G I S LANDS
p rayer in his Journal He was sent out by

. t h e S pan i s h
C ourt because it was supposed that India where he was ,
going was immensely rich and the thing that the Spaniards
, ,
wanted above all el se was to get hold of these riches .
Columbus had been able to get his ships and his men
because it was thought that these riches could be had .
The Spaniards did not think much about discovering lands

simply for the sake of discovering them or nding out
about th ings ; they wanted to get rich that is the thing
that must be kept in mind to understand them at all .
4 0 Th e
. S h ipwr e c k
On
. December twenty ft h
-
'Christmas Day ' e S anta Maria w as wrecked I n the

,
t h .
evening of December twenty fourth the S anta Maria and

-
the N ina were sail ing smoothly along the northwest coast
Of Haiti C olumbus who was
.
,
badly in need Of sleep had ,
gone to bed O n the S anta

Maria all of the crew had done

the same except a young boy
,
who was put at the helm to

MA P O F HA ITI S H O W IN G L A A V I DA
N D
drifting along with no one but the boy awake a current ,
carried her onto a sandbank The boy awakened Colum .
bu s who at once saw the danger

,
The crew were imm e .
diat ely called to work They put out an anchor and

.
they tried in every way to pull the Ship o ff the sandbank ,
but could not move her Wh en they found that she w as

.
stuck fast they cut the mast and began to move the stores
to the Nina The natives came out in their canoes
.
and helped in this work During this Christmas Day .
everything of value was saved from the wrecked ship .
The S anta Maria had to be given up and C olumbus ,
now had left only one very small ship the Nina We re ,
.
member that the Pinta had sailed away more than a

month earlier and as y et C olumbus knew nothing of
,
h er whereabouts .
64 TH E STORY O F C OL UMB U S
ght with the Spaniards terrible things might be expected .
S O he red a shot from his cannon and sent it clear through

both sides of the S anta Maria that was lying on the bank .
The great noise of the ring of the cannon and the wonder
ful power of that great ball was something terrifying and
awful to those Indians This cannon was indeed very
.
different from t h e l i ttle spears which the I ndians used

as weapons .
Columbus now gave much good advice to the men

w h o were to remain at the fort We can easily see that
.
they needed good advice They were left there for the
.
purpose of collecting gold and they would Of course need

, , ,
the help of the natives in doing this There were only .
forty Spaniards and there was a whole island full of

Indians SO it was very important that the Spaniards
.
should tre at the Indians well and not offend them in any
way W e shall learn later t h at the good advice whi ch
.
C olumbus gave did not do muc h good The men who .
were left at the fort did anything but treat the Indians
well and the result was that when Columbus returned
, ,
eleven months later every one of these forty men had

,
been killed We must not blame the Indians too much for
.
this The Spani ards would steal everything that they

.
could nd and would take the women away from their

families put them i nto the fort and treat them as slaves
, ,
.
Wh at do you thi nk we would do if people were to come to

our Shores and begin doing that sort of thing ? Is it likely
we would treat them any better than the natives treated
these Spaniards ?
43 W h.a t C o lum bu s Th o u gh t o f t h e I s lan d s
I t is
inter est ing t o no t e wh at C o lumbus t h ought o f the i slands
TH E FI RS T VOYAGE 65
h e h ad discovered He began by speaking of the natives

.
as a poor and weak people but the climate and the trees ,
and the islands themselves pleased him greatly E very .
new place he reached he said was n er than any he had

seen before He thought the islands themselves were
.
immensely rich and he believed that great gold mines were

to be found somewhere in them Columbus never knew .
that Cuba was an island but thought it a part of the main

,
land Of A sia It is interesting to note too that on this

.
, ,
j ourney Columbus found the potato and also tobacco and ,
cotton Any one of these commodities has proved of

.
much greater value than all the gold that Spain ever got
from the new world or ever hoped to get Columbus left
,
.
for E urope however with the belief that riches were to

, ,
be found somewhere mainly in gold and spices He carried

,
.
wi th him samples of strange bushes on which he believed

S pices grew These however proved to be worthless
.
, ,
.
44
. S t ran g e S t o ri e s Columbus and his men heard

many strange stories in their j ourney among these islands .
The natives seemed to believe that the Spaniards who ,
were white had come from Heaven

,
The Spaniards .
themselves enco uraged this belief by saying that they

were children of Heaven who had come to seek for gold ,
.
They did this of course to get the natives to help them

, ,
and also to make the natives afraid to attack them .
There were stories Of men who would kill people an d

eat them Men who do that are called cannibals They
. .
heard that there was a tribe of cannibals somewhere to

the south and that these cannibals now and then would
come to the islands in the north to kill people for food O n .
the island of Haiti some Of the nativ es showed C olumbus

5
gashes on their legs which they said were places where

,
the cannibals had started to eat them and had bitten out
chunks before they could get away The Spaniards also .
heard stories about men with one eye and with faces like
dogs ; they heard about people with tails who were su p ,
posed to be somewhere to the westward O n November .
seventeenth when C olumbus turned eastward on the north

,
coast Of C uba he remarked in his Journal that he would

,
have to go and hunt for gold now but that some t ime later ,
he might go farther west and s ee the people with tails .
4 5 Th e H ome w ard Voyag e Just two days after

. .
Christmas on December twenty seventh C olumbus got

,
-
,
word that the Pinta was somewhere on the north coast of

Haiti and he sent men in a boat to get her captain to bring
his ship to Navidad The P inta however did not return
.
, , ,
but Columbus found her ab out a week later when he w as

on his j ourney homeward Her captain P i n 'on exp lained
.
, ,
his desertion by saying t h at he h ad gotten lost from the

rest of the eet and he now a gree d to go along wi th Colum
,
bus O n January fourth C olum b us left the fort at Navi

.
dad and sailed eastward along the northern coast of Haiti .
The wind and the current kept them from going very fast ,
and i t was not until January s ix teenth that they saw the
land Of Haiti 'or Hispaniola as they called it 'for the last
,
time They then turned northward as will be seen from

.
,
the map until they got about as far north as Spai n and
, ,
then sailed straight east .
The homeward vo y age was very stormy The two .
S h i ps the Nina and the Pinta were separated and Colum

, ,
bus feared that the P i nta m i gh t h ave gone down with

all on b o ard C olumb us was so muc h afraid that his own
.
ship would S ink that he wrote a story of h i s voy age and

put it into a small barrel or keg and threw it overboard ,
in the hope that someone might n d it in case his ship

Should be lost . He also put a story of the same k ind into
another keg and placed it on the deck of the Nina so that
it might oat Off in case S he S hould go down .
A fter sailing one month they were not exactly certain

as to their location Columbus thought t h ey were some
.
MA P O F F I R S T H O M E WARD VO Y AG E
where close to the A zores while other members of the

,
crew thought they were somewhere near the coast of Sp ain .
O n F ebruary eighteenth they sailed into a harbor Of a

small island which they found to be one of the A zores
, .
C olumbus was right and the others were wrong The .
A zore s b elonged to the Portuguese and when Columbus,
sent one half of his men ashore to attend church they

-
were made pri soners and the Portuguese came out to the
S hips and tried to take Columbus and the rest of his men .
However Columbus showed them the papers which had

,
been given him by the Ki ng and Queen of Spain and the

Portuguese thought then that they had better let him and
his men go inasmuch as it was dangerous to O ffend the
,
powerfu l Spanish kingdom Columbus sailed on thr ough

.
a terrible storm and on March th ir d the weather drove

,
him into a small port in Portugal He stayed there a few

.
days and then went on to Palos the port in southern Spain

,
from which he had sailed He reached Palos on March

.
fteenth about seven months after he had left it I n the

,
.
meant ime the Pinta had reached a port in northern Spain

,
and from there she proceeded around the coast of Portu

gal and arrived in P al os the afternoon of the same day that
C olumbus d i d .
CH APTE R III
C O LU M B U S IN SP AI N AND TH E S E C ON D V O Y A G E
46 . R e c e pt i o n in Palo s
was a j oyful day for the

It
people of Palos when the ships of Columbus retur ned .
S even months earlier they had started out into the u n

known Atlantic and there were many who feared that
,
they were lost During the winter the weather was u nu su

.
ally bad Wh ile Columbus was sailing among the islands

.
Of the West Indies in beautiful weather the coasts of ,
E urope were lashed by terric storms that raised the sea

to unusual heights O n his homeward voyage Columbus
.
ran into these storms and his ships were in great danger .
We can well imagine how the people of Palos visited

back and forth during the long winter months that had
j ust passed and talked about the terrible things which
were believed to be out in the great ocean AS they were .
seated around their resid es in the evening hearing the ,
wind howl they thought Of their own people members of

, ,
their own families away out on the ocean where they

,
believed the storm was j ust as furious and possibly worse ,
and it is no wonder that they were worried We can under .
stand then how happy these people were when they saw
, ,
the Ships coming back And what strange things these

.
travelers brought and what marvelous stori es they told '

How the people looked with wonder upon the half -naked
Indians and the curious birds and the branches of strange
trees and how they listened to the story of the j ourney
,
and of the new land beyond the great ocean '

There was still some anxiety for the forty men wh o had
69
70 THE ST ORY O F C OLU MB US
been left at F ort Navidad but Columbus assured the ,
people that they were all well and no doubt they would
be found happy and prosperous when he S hould return to
them These S imple people of the little town of Palos
.
were happy beyond expression They were proud that .
the little eet whic h made this wonderful voyage had

sailed from their town And indeed they might well be .
proud of it The name Of the little town Of Palos is

.
n o w kno w n all over the world
j ust because C olumbus sailed

from there .
C olumbus sent a messen

ger to the Court w i th the news
that he had returned and then
w ent to Seville to await orders .
The King and Queen imm edi

MA P OF S P A IN S H O W I N G P A L O S S E V I LL E
A N D B AR C E L O N A
, ,
come to them at once to tell

h is story They also told him to start making arrange
.
'
ments for another voyage They were now in a hurry to .
go on with these voyages because they feared that the

Portuguese would send out a eet and take some of the
lands which the Spaniards hoped to get for themselves .
47 R e c e p
.t io n a t C ou rt News of his return spread
rapidly as he went on his way from S eville to B arcelona ,
where the C ourt was now located People gathered from .
all around to see him a s he passed through the town s and

to look upon the strange people and the wonderful things
he had brought He had with him six of his ten Indians
. .
O ne had died at sea and three were sick at Palos A S he .
entered the cit y Of B arcelona he had a procession not

72 THE STORY O F C O L UMB U S
they greeted him on the street F o r six week s at l east

.
, ,
C o lumbus was regarded as the real ly great man of Spain .
The news of the great disco v ery spread rapidly throughout

E uro p e and S pain was the center Of much interest We
,
.
h ear Of b anquets given to Columbus and man y interesting ,
stories are told of his lif e at C ourt O ne of these h as been .
told o v er and over aga in and had been told many times
before about ot h er p eopl e We will rep eat i t h ere th ough
.
,
C O L U M B U S C O MM E M O RA TI V E M E DA L
S tru c k a f t e r h i s r e t urn f r o m th e rst v o y a g e
i t is not certain that i t really happened in the case Of

C olumbus A t a banquet table someone is supposed to
.
h av e said t h at it was easy enough to nd India all that
one had to do was to sail westward C olumbus then asked .
a waiter to bring in an egg and requested the guests to

try to make it stand on end They all tried to do so but
.
failed Then Columbus too k the egg crushed one end a

.
,

little and t hus made it stan d up Then he said This is .
,

p erfectly easy ; al l one has to do is to crack one end a little .
T h e King and Queen now gave Columbus considerable

money and aw ard ed a c o at o f arms t o him an d his family .
C O LU MB US I N SPA IN A N D TH E S E C O N D VO YAGE 73
A coat of arms is an ornament or badge which kings and

queens give to people w h om they wish to favor especially .
This coat o f arms Co lumbus was supposed to put on his

banner and the members of h i s family were also supposed
,
to use i t in some such way .

4 8 P r.eparat i o n fo r t h e S e c o n d Voya g e P reparations
for the second voyage h ad been started before C olumbus

C o L U MB U S s CO A T OF A R M S
T he p i c tur e to r i g h t sh o ws t h e c o a t of arms as g i v e n t o C o lum bus T h e m o tt o e s as
sh o wn i n p i c t ur e to l e ft w e r e add e d lat e r by d e s ce ndants of C o lum bus
left Seville and were being made rapidly Seventeen Ships .
were collected in the port of Seville Arms and ammu n i .
tion left over from t h e Moorish wars were placed on board .
Horses and other domestic animals all sorts of tools and , ,
implements for tilling the ground garden seeds large , ,
quantities of food and many other things were loaded into

the v essels Three Of the v essels were large Of the same
.
,
typ e as the S anta Maria built especially for carrying ,
freight There w ere man y of the typ e of the Pinta an d

.
74 TH E STORY O F C OL UMB US
the Nina built for war and there were some smaller l i ght
, , ,
v essels built to run in shallow water and rivers for the

,
purpose of exploring along the coast .
It is important to notice the kind of people who went

on the second voyage We remember that on the rst.
voyage it was very hard to get men to go that criminals ,
had to be taken from the j ails and that even then it was,
with great difculty that about one hundred men were

gotten together Now it was very different There were
. .
many more wanting to go than could be taken Columbus .
says that about two thousand Offered their services ,
w hereas he could take only fteen hun dred Indeed it .

,
had been decided at the outset that there were to be twelve

hundred men in the expedition but there were so many ,
wanting to go that this number was nally increased to

fteen hundred B ut few of the men who went w ere used to
.
hard work ; many of them were nobles who had never done a
bit of work in their lives and who wanted to go on an ex c it
ing trip S ome were soldiers who looked for adventures in
.
the unknown lands to the West S ome hoped to trade .
with the natives and make themselves wealthy .
There were men in this expedition who afterwards

became great sailors O ne of these was Ponce de L eon
.
,
who later discovered F lorida There w as a young man by

.
,
name O j eda a brave daredevil of great muscular strength

, ,
who performed notable feats on this trip and who later

co mmanded expeditions of his own Diego the youngest .
,
brother of Columbus came on from Italy and sailed on

,
this j ourney .
49
. S t art in g on t h e S e c on d V oya g e On Septemb er
t w ent y ft h 14 93 about t hirteen mont h s after C olumbu s

-
, ,
C OL UMB US I N SPA IN A N D T HE S E C ON D VOYA G E 75
started on his rst voyage the eet of seventeen ships left

,
the port Of Cadiz for the second j ourney across the ocean .
This must have been a wonderful day for Columbus A s .
he looked around the harbor he saw the eet of many

vessels of which he w as the sole comm ander When the
,
.
crews lifted the anchors and hoisted the sails music ,
sounded from the S hore There were great crowds watch

.
ing the departing ships Cannon were red and the echoes
.
rolled over the waters G aily dressed ships not belonging

.
to the eet Of Columbus followed them out to sea O n .
the decks Of his eet were his fteen hundred men one of

the most curious mixture of men that ever went on any

voyage There were sailors ; there were nobles and ser
.
v ants idlers and working men ; there were those who went
,
for the fun of it and others who were ready for anyt hi ng
, ,
be it hard or easy There were priests who started with

.
the purpose of converting the Indians into Christians .
There were men to govern the new provinces in the west ,
who were already thinking about how to arrange their

states And the master of all this was the weaver s son
.

from G enoa for thirty years a wanderer on the earth go i ng

, ,
from land to land to nd the help which he needed to sail

west and nd A sia .
It was a great day for the people of Cadiz and of all

Spain They believed that these voyages would add to
.
their country great territories and that Spain would be

come greater and richer than she ever had been before .
Though there were to be many disappointments never ,
t h eless these voyages led to the discovery Of all of S outh

America and Central America and most of these belonged
,
to Spain for about three hundred years and she lost the
76 THE STORY O F C OLU MB US
l ast o f her possessions C uba and Porto R ico i n t h e y ear

, ,
1 898 in her war with the U ni ted States

,
.
5 0 V
. oya g e fr o m S pain t o t h e W e s t I n d i e s A s on hi s
r st voyage Columbus sailed from Spain to the Canaries

,
.
He reached these islands in seven days and on O ctober ,
f th anchored at the island Of G omera the same island ,
from which he sailed on his r st voyage .
A t G omera they took on board wood water and many , ,
MA P S H O W IN G C O U R SE O F SE C O N D VO Y AG E
an imal s w hi c h they expected to need such as calves goats , , ,
sheep sw in e and fowl And they also took seeds with

, ,
.
whi ch to plant elds gardens and orchards T hi s time

, ,
.
t h e intention was to start a real settlement in the new land ,
so they too k with them all that they thou ght they needed
to do t h at They also took on board fru i t such as oranges
.
, ,
lemons and melons

,
.
O n the seventh of O ctober t h e eet sailed from G omera .
They now went farther south than on the r st voyage .
W e wi ll remember that the natives had often told Colum

bu s about lands Oi gold and riches to the south Of Haiti ,
C OL UMB US I N SP A IN A ND THE S E C O ND VOYAGE 77
and C o lumbus wanted to nd these l ands on hi s way out .
O f course he intended to go back to F ort Navidad in

,
Haiti but h e expected to make discoveries on hi s way there

, .
The second voyage was not nearly as interest in g to

Columbus and i s not as interesting to us as was the rst
, ,
voyage O n the rst voyage they did not know j ust wh ere
.
they were going and they were watching anxiousl y f o r
MA P S H O W IN G SE C O N D V O Y AG E AM O N G I S L A N D S
every new thing that they saw O n the second voyage .
they knew j ust what they were about and sailed right
along without paying any attention to little things which
they noted with care the rst time This time they ran .
to the south of the seaweed which they saw so mu ch o f

on the rst voyage .
O n Sunday November t hird t h ey saw l and

, It was , .
v ery unlike the island whi ch they had seen on the rst
voyage Instead of being low and at it had great moun
.
,
tains T h ey cal l e d t hi s i sland Dominica in honor of t he

.
, .
78 THE STORY OF C O LUM B U S
day on wh i c h they rst saw it Finding t h at t h ey cou l d .
not land here they sailed on to another which t h ey n amed

, ,
Marigalant e after the agship of C olumbus

,
.
5 1
. Fro m M ar igalan t e t o Fo rt N av i d a d
W h en they
landed on the island Of M arigalant e they found that the
natives had ed There were beaut iful trees giving off
.
,
the O dors wh i ch they t h ough t were the O dors Of spices .
They did not stay to co ll ect sp i ces however and the next , ,
morning they sailed to an ot h er is l and whi ch they called ,
Guadeloupe Here they found a real village in which there

.
,
were only a few young c hi ldren who had been left when
the others ran away Columbus tried to get t h e nat i ves
.
to come back by givin g these c hi ldren little bells and other

trinkets A fter a while the Spaniards saw a few women
.
i n the roads nearby but they found no grown u p men

,
-
.
I n another little town w hich they vis i ted the houses ,
were built around a square These houses were made of

.
logs and t h e roofs were covered with leaves I n them were .
chairs and ot h er s imple pieces of furn iture They foun d .
bows and bone-tipped arrows and they thought that some ,
of these w ere po inted wi th human shin bones There .
were also fowl s something like geese many parrots an d , ,
pineapples whi c h they had not tasted before They saw

,
.
what they supposed were the bones Of men and women

that had been eaten and they believed they saw human
,
esh cooking i n pots and hanging from the roofs to dry .
O ver and over again they tell the story that the people
in these islands were cannibals It is certain that the word.

cannibal is derived from the name Caribs which was

given to these people They were rst called Caribs
.
,

t h en C arabels and nally the word became C anni
,
80 TH E STORY O F C OLU MB U S
Santa Cruz was inhabited by the same ki nd of peop le

the Caribs that they found on the islands farther sout h

.
Columbus wanted to take some of them and so he ran one ,
of his ships right onto a canoe lled with them overturned ,
the canoe and then tried to sh the swimming Caribs

,
out of the water Caribs on shore started shooting with

.
arrows and those in the water fought very ercely A

, .
numb er of the S paniards were wounded and Of course , , ,
some of the natives were also wounded or killed The .
men from the overturned canoe were either killed or cap

t u re d and taken on the ship and chained O ne Of the .
S paniards who was wounded in this ght died later and

was buried on the north coast of Haiti These Caribs .
used arrows with poisoned tips and it w a s one of these ,
that killed t h e Spaniard .
Passing many small islands they came to the i sland ,
now called Puerto R ico Here they saw a village close by

.
the shore which was laid out neatl y B ut the natives had
,
.
ed and they saw none of them O n November twenty .
second they sighted a low at island wh i ch proved to be

, ,
Haiti the island C o lumbus had left in the middle of J an

,
uary of the same year .
While sailing along the north coast of Haiti they landed

at various places and at one place they found human
,
bodies with whiskers which made them fearful that they

,
were the bodies Of men that had been left at F ort Navidad .
They reached the shore outside of F ort Navidad on the

:
evening of November twenty seventh and anchored t heir

-
ships It was dark and too late to go ashore so they red

.
,
a cannon to let the people whom they supposed were at

the f ort know that they h ad returned There was no .
C O LUMB US I N SP AI N AN D T HE S E C O ND VOYAGE 81
a nswer to this S ignal but a little later a native came out

,
in a canoe and nally got on board Columbus s Ship

.
This native told a story which they had dif c u lt y in under

,
standing about how all of the people of the fort had been
,
killed and that there was not a S ingle one of the forty
men left alive .
5 2.T h e F a t e of t h e M e n at F o rt N avi d a d T O under

stand w hat happened at F ort Navidad we now recall the ,
kind of men that Columbus had taken out with him on

his r st voyage Many of them were bad men men
.

who had comm itted all sorts of crimes in Spain for which ,
they had been put in prison They were not the sort of .
men who would be likely to treat the natives ki ndly and ,
they surely did not do so They were cruel they stole .

,
what they could lay their hands on and even took the ,
women and kept them prisoners in the fort W e now also .
recall the Ki ng who had been so friendly to C olumbus on

his rst voyage His name was Gu acan agari Wh ile no
. .
doubt he had l earned to distrust the Spaniards he had ,
remained in peace with them during the tim e that C o lum

bus was away .
The people outside Of his domi ni on however soon , ,
learned to distrust the Spaniards heartily and they were ,
only looking for a good chance to attack them This .
chance came when the Spaniards began to quarrel among

themselves They did not like the man whom Columbus
.
had made governor and they tried to put anot h er man in

,
his place They did not succeed in doing this however

.
, ,
for the l arger number were willing to have the Old go v ernor
go on until Columbus Should return Those who were .
dissatised left the fort and went far into the island ,
6
82 THE STORY O F C OLU MB U S
beyond the dominion of King Gu a can a gari Here a young .
C arib who had come from the other islands farther south
heard about the Spaniards ghting among themselves .
He got a number Of natives together and they killed the

few Spaniards who were away out in the island Then .
this same Carib got some other li ttle ki ngs to j o in with

him and they marched qu i etly and hurriedl y up to F ort
Navidad and attacked it in the middle of the ni gh t The .
Spaniards were very careless and did not even have a

,
watch looking out for danger A pparently al l were as l eep

.
,
and the Indians kil l ed every one of them Then they .
burned the village of King Gu ac anagari and wounded the

Ki ng h imself .
Wh en C o lum bus returned and the King nally came

on board his ship he would not allow C olumbus to hang
,
a chain with a cross around his neck He did not want.
any of the religion i n which these Spaniards beli ev ed He .
though t they were brutal and cruel and he did not lik e
,
to have any more to do with t h em than was necessary .
If the Spani ards who were left at F ort Navidad had

been the right kind of people they could surely have gotten
,
along nicely with the natives and there would have been
no trouble They l ost their lives because they did what
.
w as wr ong . Decent people will not kill poor savages and

steal what l ittle they have even if they are not strong
enough to defend themselves and in this case the men
,
who acted in this manner received their j ust pu ni shm ent .
53 . B u il d in g t h e N e w T o w n o f I sabe lla

Columbus
now decided that the place where F ort Navidad had been
built was not a good place for a colony It was low wet .
, ,
and unh eal thy and there was no stone with whic h to put
,
C OLUMB US I N SPA IN A N D THE S E C O N D VOYAGE 83
up buildings SO he sent out ships to explore around the

.
islands tryin g to nd a better location These Ships

,
.
came back wi thout nding a place that was thought really

suitable and on December seventh ten days after the
, ,
eet had anchored outside of F ort Navidad they began ,
sailing eastward along the coast Of Haiti They were .
driven into a harbor by a storm and this appeared to be a ,
suitable place for their colony There was a high rocky

.
,
point on which they could build a fort There were two .
rivers which they could use to turn the wheels of a mill

, ,
and everythi ng here seemed to be ne They pl anted .
garden seeds which came up in ve days and they soon ,

had plenty of onions radishes and beets V egetables
, , .
,

they said grow more in eight days here than they do in
,

Spain in twenty They also heard that there were gold
.
mines in the mountains not far away They called the .
new town Isabella after the Queen of Spain , .
The work Of unloading the seventeen ships now began

in good earnest There were horses and other animals to
.
be put ashore there were provisions and ammunition for

, ,
the guns and goods Of all sorts They made a plan for the
,
.
town There was to be a square in the middle and also

.
a street They marked places for the church for a store

.
,
house and for a house for the admiral The smaller houses
, .
were built quic kly S O that the people might have places
in which to live While some were building houses others
.
,
cleared el ds and planted orchards Piers were built to .
be used in landing goods and animals There was a great .
deal Of hard work to be done and many of the men who,
had come out had not been used to work of this sort
and natu rally t h ey got tir ed easily A strange S i ckness .
,
84 THE STORY O F C O LUM B US
called malaria crept i nto the town and soon about one
,
half of the whole expedition were sick The town for a .
while was a great hospital and those who were well had
to take care of those who were ill C olumbus himself was .
S i ck for several weeks but a s the time went on things got

,
better The men got well again the smaller houses were
.
,
nishe d and the Ships unloaded and made ready to

,
return to Spain .
All that is now left of the little town of Isabella are the
ruins of thr ee stone buildings the church the storehouse
, , ,

and the admiral s house A ll else is a wilderness and no
.
one lives there .
The main troub l e of Columbus now was to get some

thing valuable to send back to Spain He had expected .
that the little colony at F ort Navidad would collect a lot

Of gold an d other riches to be sent back so that the Span ,
iard s at home would not feel that they were wasting their
money on these expeditions .
54
. Th e S e ar c h f o r G o ld C olumbus now made a

hur ried effort to nd a gold mine in order to be able to

send some good news to Spain instead of the gold he had
hoped to send from Navidad O j eda was placed in charge
.
of an expedition of fteen men to hunt gold and he started ,
right into the territory of the Carib chief who had mur
dered the men at F ort Navidad Thi s chief s name was .

Caonabo It is important to remember his name fo r we

.
,
Shall hear much about him later It was certainly a daring

.
thing for these fteen men to start into this territory but ,
they were brave and well armed The second night they
,
.
slept on the top of a mountain and in the morning they ,
saw before them a broad beautiful valley which they

, ,
C OLUMB US I N SPA I N A ND THE S E C O N D VOYAGE 85

called V ega R eal whic h means R ic h Plains
, . There
were small towns scattered over the valley and a river ,
wound its peaceful way along its bottom They went .
down into this valley and the natives received them kindly .
They marched up the mountain on the opposite Side and

the natives were still friendly They did not see o r hear
.
anything of Chief Caonabo

E verywhere in the streams they saw glittering particles
of what appeared to be gold and O j eda picked up one lump
,
of real gold which weighed nine ounces All this gave .
rise to the w i ldest stories about the tremendous amount

of gold to be found in the interior parts of the island O ne .
statement was like t hi s :

Th e m o st sp lend i d t hing of all i s t h at t h e ro c k s o n t h e s i de of t he
m o unta in be ing struc k wi t h a c lub l arge quanti ti es of go l d br oke fo rth .

I t was said that O j eda was loaded down with the gold
t h at they gathered after thus striking the rock once .

They all said If we nd these things on the surface
,
of the mountains what must we not nd inside Of the

,

mountains ' The natives knew how to separate the gold
from the sand and with their help the Spaniards soon
,
collected quite a bit of it With this gold and the promise

.
,
of more Columbus felt he could send encouraging reports

,
to Spain .
55 .C o u mbu s Writ e s a L e t t e r
l
Columbus now wrote
.
a long letter to the King and Queen of Spain This letter .

,
with notes written in the margin by the King and Queen ,
is still in existence and may be read with great interest .
The letter w as carried by one Of the important men who

came out with the expedition and who was now returning
to Spain I n it C olumbus requested the King and Queen
.
to ask the bearer of the letter about the gold to be found

near Isabella and advised them to return thanks to G od
,
for the riches that had already been discovered The .

King wr ote in the m arg i n We now return thanks to G od
, .
Columbus then explained about the S ickness of his men

and the friendliness of the natives He said the greater .
part of his men were sick and that the natives rambled
about the settlement both day and night He gave reasons .
for doing and not doing certain things and the monarchs ,
wrote in the margin that he had done well C olumbus .
said that he was buildi n g a stone fort for defense and th at

when this was done he would provide for the gathering

of gold . E xactly as should be done w rote the monarchs ,
in the marg in .
C olumbus then asked for prov i s i ons and to l d what

they had done in the way of planting He wrote about .
the cannibals and asked that they be made acquainted

,
with the Christian faith and taught the Spanish language .

These suggestions are good wrote the King and Queen
,
in the margin Now came the vital point in this letter

. .
Columbus said that cattle were needed in the settlement ,
and that t h ese could be paid for in Carib S laves With .
the light boats which they were building it would be easy

to capture them He said They are a wild people t
.
, ,
for any work well proportioned and very intelligent and

, , ,
who when they have got rid of their cruel habits to which
,
they have been accustomed will be better than any other

,

kind of S laves N O more denite proposal to start a
.
slave trade was ever made A s Columbus laid down his

.
pen he asked the King and Queen to praise G od as he ,
himself w as then doing .

H eaven The h alf roasted Indi an replied t h at i f there

.
-
w ere Christians i n H eaven he did not want to go there .
57. C o lu mbu s H i m s e lf Go e s in S ea rc h fo r G old .
L eav i ng h i s b rot h er Diego in comm and at I sabella

, , ,
Columbus now started at the h ead of a large exp edition

for the mountain where O j eda had found gold I n that .
expedition there were four hundred soldiers many work ,
MAP O F HA I TI S H O W IN G I S A BE LL A V E GA R E A L
, , F O R T S T T H O MA S
.
men and mi ners and men to carry provisions They had

,
.
mi litary music the drums were beat in g constantly and

, ,
they made as much of a warlike Show as they could in

order to impress the natives .
O n the w ay they had to build roads and bridges They .
camped on the same mountain where O j ed a had camped ,
and they looked down up on the same beautiful valley ,
the V ega R eal Columbus erected a cross on the summ i t

.
and then went down into the valley as O j eda had done ,
.
The horses and horsemen asto ni s h ed the natives beyond

descrip tion They had never seen a horse before and they
.
,
COL UMB US I N SPA IN AN D THE S E C O ND VOYAGE 89
though t that the h orse and his rider were all one animal .
When one of the riders got o ff they thought that the

animal separated itself into two parts The Spaniards .
came to the river in the middle of the valley and the men
bathed in it but they found it too deep to wade across
,
.
S O they built rafts on which the men and goods could be

carried and the horses were led as they swam the river
,
.
Then the expedition clambered up the steep mountain

where O j eda had f ound gold .
O n this mountain , at a place a little more than fty

miles from Isabella t h ey built a fort which they called
, ,
St Thomas
. There was a river here which owed in a
.
Sharp curve so that it was on three Sides of the fort F or .
this reason Columbus thought the fort could easily be

defended against possible attacks of the natives .
Columbus w as now in the highest hopes that a great

quantity of gold would be found He thought he saw the .
glittering particles in all the streams The n atives had .
learned to know what the Spani ards wanted and so they ,
brought bits of gold to the fort and traded them for little
j angli ng bells and other tinsel which were Of no value,
to the Spaniards but which the natives liked better than

the gold .
F ort St Thomas w a s now regarded as the mining camp

.
Of the expedition A road was built to Isabella from which

.
,
food and other needed articles were brought to the new fort .
F rom F ort St Thomas expeditions were sent out to get

.
acquainted with the country The Spaniards planned to.
explore the whole island s o that they might discover the

best mines The whole thing was arranged in a business-like
.
manner for the one purpose of gathering gold .

90 THE STO RY O F C OLUM B US
5 8 . Trouble at I s abella
Many of the men at Isabella

h ad become dissatised They had to work hard whereas.

,
t h ey had come out expecting to h ave a lot o f fun and no

serious work to do The food was not good nor was there
.
,
plenty of it Wh en the exped ition was tted out in Spai n

.
some Of t h e merchants had put i n bad food although good ,
food h ad been paid for T hi s i s not at a ll surpris ing The

. .
same thing has happened many a tim e even i n our day .
Men have sold bad food to armies both in the U n i ted ,
States and i n E ngland w i thin t h e memory o f t h ose o f us

,
wh o are not even Old at the present t im e .
The man wh o kept the accounts o f the co l ony one ,
n amed D i az now put him sel f at the head of those who

,
w ere dissatised He accused Co lumbus of mismanag ing

.
t h e colony and of having made fal se promises to the

co l o ni sts before they l eft Spain I n a l and which C olum .
b us had described as beaut i ful ric h and healthy they , , ,
were d yi ng from sic kness and starvat i on D i az and his .
followers ev en made plans to bring charges against Colum

bus at the C ourt of Spain The plots were discovered by .
C olumbus and D i az was put in chains and placed aboard

,
a Ship to be taken to Spain for trial T h e other men were .
p unished in various ways but on the whole the p

,
unish
ments were light Columbus did not want to be harsh
.
with them for by showing that he was l enient he hoped

,
to get all his men to like him so t h at t h ere would b e no

further trouble of this sort .
There is no doubt that C o lum bus h ad p ai nted t h e

newly discovered country i n too rosy colors He surely .
said that it was ner in many respects than it really

was . Now t h ese Spani ards wh o h ad not been used to
, ,
92 THE ST ORY OF C OL UMB US
b ut a f o r e i gn er
a mere I tali an should now mak e t h em

work However they had to work or starve and the result

.
, ,
was that in the end they all worked .
59 . T r o u b le w it h t h e N a t ive s A t St Thomas C olum

.
,

bus left force of ft y six men to complete the fort to
a
,
explore the country an d to collect gold He gave the men

, .
in structions to treat the natives

w ell but these instructions were
,
useless The Spani ards were soon

.
abusing them j ust as the men at

F ort Navidad had done and the ,
natives became angry and war

like They began to capture and
.
rob small parties of Spaniards

going between Isabella and F ort
St Thomas The natives were
. .
not really dangerous however , ,
for it was found that a single

horseman in armor could defeat
a who l e band of Indians .
I n one case a Spanish h orse

man attacked a group of natives
and rec ap tured ve Spaniards
A R M O R U S E D I N T I M E O F O U M U Whom
C L B S
had taken prisoners .
The fact was t h at th e weapons of the Spaniards enabled

them to defeat the natives even when they were in very
l arge numbers Th i s l ed Columbus to believ e that all
.
that w as necessary was to take good care and there

wou l d be no real danger from their attacks A s soon as .
he felt that his men could get on w i thout him he dec i ded ,
to tak e t hr ee small ships and go on an expl oring exp edit i on

C OL UMB US I N SPAI N A ND THE S E C O N D VOYAGE 93
toward the west O n April twenty fourth he l eft I sabella

.
-
and sailed westward along the coast of Haiti .
60 S ailin g Along t h e S ou t h C o a st of Cu ba
.

On his
'ourney westward along the north
,
coast of Haiti C olum ,
bus stopped at the old F ort Navidad King Gu ac an agari .
did not come out to greet him and C olumbus did not stay
to learn why but went on to Cuba When he reached the .
east end Of thi s i sland which he h ad seen on his rst

,
v oy a ge he sailed along its southern coast

,
O n the rst .
MA P S H O W IN G VO Y AG E O F E PL O RA TI O N AM O N G I S LA N D S O N SE C O ND VO Y AG E
'
day th ey found natives near the shore These peop l e .
h ad never seen Sh ips like those of C olumbus and they 'ed ,
in terror T h e crews of the ships landed and ate their

.
food Wh en some Of the nat ives came nearer the Shore

.
,
Columbus gave them trink ets for the food and treated
them well T h e story o f these ship s and Of the kindly
.
white men in them was tol d along the shore ahead of

Co lumbus and as the Ships glided by th e natives came
, ,
out in their canoes and brought all the fruit t h at Columbus

and his men could use N O doubt the natives came out
.
,
not only to trade t h eir fru i t but also to see the wonderful
,
ships E very place Columbus went h e heard t h e same

.
94 THE STORY O F C O LUM B US
story about the great island to t h e sout h from whic h al l

the gold that the C ubans had was said to come SO on .
,
May third after h aving reached w h at is now th e town of

,
S antiago Cuba Colum bus l eft the coast of C uba and

, ,
sailed straight sout h .
6 1 C olu mbu s in 'amaic a

.

Soon a fter l eavi ng t h e
coast of C uba they saw a streak of land on the h orizon ,
but it was two days before t h ey came close to t h e shore .
This land was an islan d wh ich the natives called Jamai ca .
C olum bus named it San Diego but i ts old I ndian name ,
h as continued unt il now A s t h ey drew near great

.
numbers of canoes came out to meet them A t r st the .
nat ives Sh owed signs o f fri ght but C olum bus t hrew them
,
little gifts and they l ost t h e ir fears Wh en the Span

,
.
iard s began to l and 1h owever the natives attacked t hem ;

, ,
but a cannon wa s red several times and t h ey ran f or

their liv es . Here for the r st time we h ear the story
that the Spaniards l et loose a erce dog on t h e nat ives .
L ater on they used t h ese dogs frequently in their wars

wit h the I ndians .
A King now came out to mak e p eace wit h C o lumbus ,
and as the Spaniards sailed along the coast westward there

was no more trouble w i t h the natives T h ey came out in .
their canoes constantly to trade and i t w as here that a ,

young man came on b oard C olumbus s ship and asked if
he might be taken to the strange land from which these
ships came Columbus agreed to take him and asked the
.
,
crew to treat him kindly since the boy appeared to have

courage and other likable qualities We hear nothing .
more about him h owev er and i t is not known what

, ,
b ecame Of him .
62 . S ailin g Along t h e C o a s t of Cu ba
We now recall
that it was on the north c oast of Cuba that C olumbus heard
about p eople with tails and now he heard the same stories
,
again T h ese peop le with tails were supposed to live much

.
farther west They wore long cloaks so t h at t h e tails

.
could not b e seen O ne day when C olum bus had to stop

.
to x one of the ship s a hunter went ashore and came ,
ru shing back with the story that he had seen some people
with white robes O ther men were sent ashore to hunt

.
f or them for they thought ,
surely here were the people

with tails None w ere found .
,
however I t is supp osed that

.
the excited hunter saw a ock

of white cranes i n the distance .
T h e coast now began to

turn sout hward an d C olumbus
MAPS H O W I N G WH E R E O L U MB U S T U GH T
C HO he was sailin g
TH E OA ST C U BA W
OF C AS
along t h e shore o f the Malay
Peninsula in eastern A sia O n t h e map you will see j ust .
where Columbus t h ought h e was The Malay Pen i nsula .
was believed to be t h e r i c h est i n spi ces o f al l t h e l ands Of

the E ast .
W e know t h at at t hi s t ime C o lumbus was th i nking

about sailing around the south co a st of A sia and then
around Af rica to Spain He also thought that he might .
sail up the R ed Sea and l eav e hi s ships cross overland ,
where the Suez C anal now is and then get anot h er ship ,
and reach Spain b y the way Of t h e Mediterranean O f .
course we know now that C olumbus could not have done

,
that because h e w as n ot on the coast of A sia at all ; but

,
C OL UMB US I N SPA I N AN D THE S E C O ND VOYAGE 97
if he really had tried to do i t h e would no doubt have run

up against the mainland in Central Am erica and thus
found Mexico whi ch h e never did n d
,
.
T h e wooden ships of those day s were O ften attacked

b y a boring worm especially in a warm climate and be
, ,
c ame leaky C olum bus s ships were now leaking badly

.

MA P S H O W IN G C O U R SE C O L U M B U S P R O P O SE D T O F O LL O W T O G O AR O U ND T H E W O R L D
from this cause and the crews became anx ious and wanted
,
to turn back to Isabella A t this point they found that

.
their interpreter whom they had taken along from Haiti

, ,
could no longer understand the people F or these reasons .

,
though much against his will Columbus was compelled ,
to turn around .
63 C olu mbu s s M e n S i gn a P ape r

.

B efore Colum bus .

started back he drew up a remarkable paper and compelled

his men to S ign it I n this paper they swore that they
.
98 THE STO RY OF C OL UM B U S
believed C uba was a part Of A sia and that one could trave l
all the way from t h ere to Sp ain by land I t w as solemnly .
stated that if anyone Sh ould change hi s mind on this

matter he would be severely pun i s h ed If he were an .
o ffi cer he w as to be ned a large su m of money and if an ,
ord inary sail or he w as to receive one hundred lashes on

his back and have his tongu e out A l l the eighty people .

in Columbus s crews swore to this p aper O f course it .
w as all nonsense to S ign suc h a paper for t h ey could not ,
poss ib ly know that the statements in it were true They .
had no means of know ing that one could pass by land

from C uba to Spain . Surely if later they might learn
that C uba was an island as we now know it is not all the
, ,
sworn statements i n the world could keep them from
changing their minds C hildish and silly as th i s whole

.
thing now seems to us Columbus wanted such a paper to

,
present to the C ourt Of Spain He was anx ious above all

.
else to mak e certain that he had really found A sia and ,
p ossibly a little more a n xi ous to have others believe it .
I t i s interesting to think that i f C o lumbus had sailed

w estward j ust a very few days more the coast would ,
h av e turned to t h e northward and i f h e had followed it

,
h e would have gone around C uba and he and his men

wou l d have changed the ir minds in sp ite o f the statement
the y had all sworn to .
64 R et u rning E a st w ard
.

On t h e way eastward t h ey
.
found the I sle of Pines then sailed along the south shore
,
of Jamai ca and the south shore of Haiti They were .
delayed by storms along the whole eastward j ourney but ,
the nat i ves continued to be friendly and to provide the

crew s wi t h su c h food a s they h ad T h e food w as gett ing
.
100 TH E STORY O F C OL U MB U S
better man than his brot h er He was a better sp eak er

.
and wr i ter and h e cou l d manage men b etter an d w as not ,
so g iv en to impractica l dream i ng Columbus n o w m ade .
PO R TR A IT O F B A RT H O LO M E W C O L U M B U S
him go v ernor o f Hait i wi t h t he t i t l e o f A delantado whic h

, ,
means governor of a provinc e .
B artholomew told how t hings w ere go ing i n Sp ain ,
that C olumbus s family were well and were enj oying them

sel v es at the Court Columbus had f eared that his enemies

.
might h ave gotten the King and Queen to show h i s family

disfav or but B artho l omew told him that there was no
,
C OLUM B US I N SP AI N AN D T H E S E C O N D VOYAGE 101
serious danger of that Meeting wi th hi s brother and .
hearing the good news which he had to tell was very im

portant for C olumbus now when he was in bad health and
,
low spirits It di d more to make him well than anyt hing

.
else could possibly have done .
66 Trou ble at I sabella Wh ile Colu mbu s Was Aw ay

. .
A t Isabella C olu mbus found trouble enough for a w ell man

,
.
The expedition which w as to explore the country around

F ort St T h omas had not done so but had abused the
.
,
natives in many ways s o that they had become v ery

unfriendly The chief Caonabo who had destroyed F ort
.
, ,
Navidad now decided to destroy F ort St Thomas He

,
. .
gathered an army and tried to surprise the Spaniards .
O j eda wh o w as in command was too shrewd and alert

, ,
to be taken by surprise He gathered his men into the .
fort and Caonabo who had hoped to surprise them found

, , ,
the Spani ards ready The natives di d not dare to come

.
wi thin range of the Spanish weapons and O j eda was too ,
wary to be drawn into an open ght Caonabo then tried .
to starve the Spaniards by placing a guard all about the

fort S O no one could go out or in If he had kept this up .
long enough he no doubt would have succeeded but little ,
by little the savages b ecame tired of the siege and went

away SO O j eda and his men got out safely C aonabo
. .
now learned of quarrels among the Spaniards at Isabella ,
and although he had j ust failed to take F ort St Thomas .

,
he now decided to try to drive the Spaniards from the

island altogether He felt that this was not entirely a
.
h opeless undertaking for he had once succeeded in doing

,
away wi th the entire Spanish colon y at F ort Navidad .
King Gu ac an agari the Old friend of C olumbus learned

, ,
1 02 THE STORY O F C OL UMB US
o f t h e p l ans of C aonabo and as soon as C o lumbus returned ,
from his trip to the west he told hi m what was going on .
6 7 Th e B at t le o f Ve ga R e al
.

The native army was .
gathering in the valley called V ega R eal The story runs .
that they numbered one hundred thousand C olumbus .
h ad opposed to them about two h undred soldiers with ,
twenty h orsemen The Spaniards attacked from all sides .
at once The natives were in an open space wi th t imber

.
all around and the Spaniards crawled up close to them

,
thr ough the trees and then began to S hoot at them with
guns The natives were bewi ldered by the shots coming
.
from all sides Their confusion was increased by t h e noise

.
of the Spani sh dr ums which was greater than that Of all ,
their w arw h o op s When they began to retreat O j eda at

.
, ,
the head Of the twenty h orsemen rode straight into the ,
crowd and killed a great many of them wit h spears A t .
the same time a number Of bloodhounds were let l oose

, .
The I ndians were soon on the r un making for the hill ,
sides all around C aonabo and his great army were com
.
p le t e ly defeated F rom now on the. natives were much ,
in fear of the Spani ards and there was no further attempt

to drive them from the island .
6 8 Th e C apt u re of C a on abo
. C aonabo h owever .

, ,
escaped and O j eda followed hi m with only ten men The

,
.
S paniards rushed right into C ao n abo s camp and the

I ndian who liked thi s brave reckless man treated him

, , ,
as his own guest O j eda now i nvi ted C aonabo to go

.
with him to Isabella to see the town A s C aonabo had .
wandered about in the woods near Isabella he had heard

the ringing of the great bell and he wanted very much to ,
see i t . O j eda told him that i f he would go with him he

104 THE STORY O F C OLU MB US
On F ebruary twent y fourth 14 9 5 the rst Sh ip loads of

-
, ,
I ndians were sent to Sp a in Fiv e hundred of them were

.
crowded into sm all S hip s to make the j ourney across the

ocean W e must not be too h ars h i n our j udgment of
.
C olumbus on account o f thi s for in hi s time the enslavi ng

,
of heathen people was not always t h ought to be wrong .
T h e Portu gu ese had taken a great many slaves in A frica

and sold them in E urope .
W e should remember however that t h e Kin g and the

, ,
Queen of Spain h ad not been any too certain that this

should be done an d l ater Queen Isabel la dec i ded t h at
,
slav ery was bad and some of the slaves were sent back
from Spain to the West I ndies .
7 0 H.ow t h e N a t i v e s W e r e F o rc e d t o G a t h e r Go.ld
C o lumbus now f el t that h e had taken care of his enemies
among the S p aniards and that he had subdued the I ndians .
So he dec i ded to giv e al l h i s attent i on to the gat h ering of

gold He made a p l an for f orc ing the natives to gat h er
.
gold whic h in t h e end made slaves o f t h em all E very

,
.
p erson above f our teen years of age was required to br in g
in a certain amount every thr ee mont h s T h e Spani ards .
made little cop p er medal s and gave one to eac h native

as he broug h t in t h e amount required of him I f the Span .
iard s found a native without the proper number Of these

copper medals they kn ew that he had not done his work .
The Indians w ho did not brin g in gold were given a certain

number of lashes and set to work j ust like pri soners or
slaves I n many parts of the i sland the nat iv es cou l d not
.
possibly nd as much go l d as t h ey were requ ir ed to bring

in and in these cases t h ey were allowed to bring in cotton
,
.
Some chiefs O ffered to bring in grain but the Spaniards ,

C OL UMB US I N SPA IN AN D TH E S E C O ND VOYAGE 105
1n s1s t ed on eit her gold or cotton E ven Columbus s Old

.

friend King Gu ac an agari h ad to bring in his share Small .
bod ies of armed men were stationed in little forts all over
the i sl and These men continued the customary Spanish
.
abuse of the natives and hunted out those who failed to

bring in gold U nder this treatment the character of the
.
Indians changed entirely Their spirit of j oyful inde

.
p en d en c e was lost They became sad

. and quiet They .
sang sad songs and many of them went into the moun
,
tains wh ere they starved and d ied rather t h an work for

,
the Sp aniards U nder this b r utal treatment the Indians

.
died rapidly C olumbus was mistaken in h i s belief that

.
they would make ne slaves .
7 1 Th e E n emi e s of Columbu s in S pain I h the

.
meantime Columbus had made many enemies S ome of

,
.
the men who went out with him on h is rst voyage were
j ealous because they thought they should receive as much
credit for the voyage as Columbus himself O thers who .
went on the second voyage and had returned to Spain

hated Columbus because he had not permitted them to
steal as much as they wanted to from the natives O thers .
were honest in their belief that the colony at Isabella was

not well managed and that Columbus was cruel to the
natives These enemies when they got to Spain went to
.
, ,
the C ourt and told their stories to the King and Queen .
Some o f the stories were true and some were not They .
told how the natives were abused how Columbus was ,
brutal not only to the natives but als o to the Spaniards .
They said everything w as going wrong in Haiti that the ,
land which he had described as beautiful and rich w as in

reality a wretched place and not t for the homes of white
106 THE STORY O F C OL UM B US
peop l e Wh at t h e enemies of Colu mbus really wanted to

.
do was to hav e h is power taken away The result was .
that the K ing and Queen sent another exp edition to Haiti
to look over the whole i slan d and see j ust wh at it was like
and what was going on C olumbus h eard about this
.
trouble at the Court and so he decided that the best thing

,
for him to do was to go to S pain and see the King and

Queen h imself O n June el event h 1496 his s hip entered
.
, ,
t h e harbor Of Cadiz in Spain .
7 2
. C o lu mbu s in S pain ,
I 49 6 I 49 8
T h e men w.h o
crawled out Of the caravels in the harbor o f Cadiz were
'
weak from sic kness and worn out by a long v oyage The .
constant westerly winds had k ept them near the W est

Indies for two months and the j ourn ey from Isabella to
Spa in occupied in all thr ee months A s they landed
.
C olumbus wore the simp l e robe Of a monk and his meek ,
bearing was in marked contrast to his splendid return

from the r st voyage There was a small eet in the har
.
bor ready to sail for Isabel l a and C olumbus sent a letter to

,
his brother B artholomew in which he urged him to use

,
every means to make the colony protable so that some of

the m o n ey p aid in tting out his expeditions might be repaid .
The King and Queen now had many t hings to hold

their attention Their son and daughter were both about
.
to be married There was grave danger of war w ith

.
France C olumbus wanted to get ships for another exp e

.
dition to sail in search Of lands not yet discovered but all ,
ships that could be had were needed at home since the

French mi ght make an attack at any time I n the spring .
of 14 98 the Queen sent two ships to Isabel l a wi th food and

o th er n ecessary articles .
C H A P TE R I V
T H E T H I RD V O Y A G E
73 . Th e C ou rs e Plann e d for t h e Third

Voy Forag e
sev eral reason s C o lumbus now p l a nne d to sail sout h ab o u t

as far as t he E qu ato r a n d t h en st rai gh t west a cro s s t h e
Atlantic T h e n at iv es h ad const ant ly to l d ab o ut ric h
.
C O L U MB U S I N C HA I NS
l an d s f arther sout h an d h e wi s h ed to nd t h ese on h i s way

out There was al so at t h at t ime a bel i ef in E urope t h at
.
the greatest ri ches were to be found i n the warmer c li mates .
I n a letter wri tten to Columbus by a w ell known j eweler

-
we nd the statement that gold and j ewels come in greatest

abundanc e from near the E quator w h ere black races of ,

people l iv e Therefore says this j eweler
.
,
steer s outh
,
1 08
T HE TH I RD VOYAGE 1 09
and nd a black race if you would nd such riches I n

abundance . Co lu mbus also expected by going farther
south to strik e the most southern part of C hina and pos
sibly sail around i t into the Indian O cean .
74 Th
. e S t o ry of t h e Ou t w ard Vo ya g e

A s on t h e
previous v o y ages C olumbus sailed from Spain to the

,
Island o f G omera From there he sent three Of his six

.
M A P S H O W I N G C O UR SE O F T H I RD VO Y A GE
sh i ps d ir ectly to Haiti with provisions Then he sailed .
south with the other three to t h e Cape V erde Islands .
There he found the c limate exceedingly hot and bad for

the health Of hi mself and his crews He now began to be .
troubled with gout which was to grow worse and remain

,
with him for the rest Of his days When he started west
.
ward from the Cape V erde Islands he ran into a calm sea
and for a couple of weeks the ships lay nearly still We .
now know that there is a belt of calms in the region of the

E quator and it was in this belt that Columbus found him
,
s elf
. To get out of the calms he headed his ships farther
1 10 THE STORY O F C OLUM B US
nort h and t h en started west for what he t h ough t were t h e

Carib Islands where he had struck land on h is second
,
v oyage Swept along by the ocean current and a steady

.
wind he crossed the A tlantic rapidly and on July thirty

,
rst land was sighted .
7 5 Th e I slan d of Trinid ad
. .

I t was fortunate that
they reached land qu i c kl y because the ir water was nearly
,
,
gone their ships were
leaky the crews were
,
discouraged and many

,
on b o a r d w e r e s i c k
.
The island whi c h C O

lumbus saw rst had
three tall peaks and so
he called i t Tri n i dad .
T h e y l a n d e d at t h e
south end Of this i sland ,
and lled their water

MA P S H O W IN G T H I RD VO Y AG E A M O N G S L A N D S
I
casks The men went
.
ashore mornings and eveni ngs and found t h e co l d breezes

most delightful after the very hot weat h er that they had
experi enced on their j ourney To the sout h they s aw the
.
low country of South America wit h the many mouths Of

the great O rinoco R iver We know that t hi s riv er divides
.
up into a number Of streams to form a great delta j ust as

it enters the ocean It is interestin g that when Columbus
.
saw the ma inland of America for the rst t ime he thought
it was an island whereas he thought C uba which is in

, ,
reality an island was a part of the mainland

,
.
7 6 Th e S e rpe n t s M ou t h
.

.

We now know t h at there
i s a great ocean curr ent go ing in from the A tlantic along
1 12 THE ST ORY OF C OL UM B U S
not turn around because it was impossible to sail aga inst

the current and it looked very dangerous to go on A
, .
boat was sent out to examine the passage and came back
with the story that the water was really deeper than it
looked to be and so they decided to try it A favorable
,
.
wind came up and they h eaded the small ships right

through the boiling water They came through all right .
,
and on the other side the water was smooth and placid .
Columbus named this strait the Serpent s Mouth a name
which it bears to this day .
77 I n t h.e G u lf o f P ar i a They now s ailed northwar d

.
al ong the west coast of the Trini dad Island and soon found
another narrow stra i t with rushing currents which loo ked ,
even worse than the S erpent s Mouth Th i s they named

.
the Dragon s Mouth Columbus who di d not know that

.
,
they were in an enclosed bay sailed westward along the ,
shore From the ships they saw a lot of monkeys but

.
,
no people They nally cast an chor near the mouth of a

.
river and landed This is probably the rst time that

,
.
white people landed on the continent of America Colum .
bus was ill at the time and i t is not certain that h e him
self went ashore He was di sappointed to see that the
.
natives were copper colored like those Of Hait i and , ,
not black as he h ad expected I t was among b l ac k .
people that he hoped to n d much gold and many

precious stones Columbus heard the natives c all the
.
land Paria and this is the name w h ich he g av e to t he

,
land and also to the sea .
The natives were v ery frien dly and r eceived them wi t h

h ospitality A s they sailed al ong the coast they found
.
better canoes than they had s een farther north They .

THE TH I RD VOYAGE 1 13
were of the same general type but showed better w o rk

manship Columbus also thought that t he p e o pl e were
.
more clever and more intelligent than any he had seen

before The women wore strings of pearls hanging about
.
their necks and the Spaniards were told that these pearls
,
came from oyster shells .
The food that the Spaniards had tak en wit h them on

the voyage was now rapidly spoiling because of the warm
weather E ven things wh i ch they had taken to deliver
.
at Haiti were spoiling Columbus w as feeling worse his

.
,
gout was bad and his eyes had swollen s o that he could
,
scarcely see and he was afraid that he would become

,
really s i ck as h e was when he returned to Haiti the

,
y ear before .
8 Th D agon s M ou t h They now returned to the

7 . e r .

Dragon s Mouth but it looked to be a v ery dangerous
,
place to pass The waters rushed and tum bled like a

.
river owing swiftl y over rocks Columbus thought that .
this might be from other causes t h an rocks and as there ,
was really nothing else to do he decided to send the little

eet thr ough They waited for a favorable wi nd and
.
then headed r i ght for the middle Of the strait While .
going through the wind stopped and they had to let

the current sweep them along B ut everything went .
all right and they came out on the other side to peaceful
,
water as they had done when they p assed through the

Serpent s Mouth
.
79 T. h e C o a s t o f P aria On August fteenth they

.
found themselves in the open waters north of Trinidad ,
and sailed w estward along the coast They found natives .
in c anoes shin g f or p earls and stop p ed to trade with ,
8
1 14 THE STORY O F C OLU MB US
them C o l umbus remark e d t h at t h e Span i ards exc h anged

.
worth l e ss t h in gs f or pearls W e h av e seen t h at C o lumbus

.
beli e v ed that t h e l and t o t he sou t h was an i sl and He .
O L D P IC T U R E S H O W IN G C O L UM B U S TR AD I NG F OR P EA R L S
thought a strait sep arated it from t h e main land Of A sia ,
whi ch he supposed lay to the west and he continued west ,
ward along the coast to nd this strait The nat i ves told .

him that to the west there was a narrow place and
C o lumbus though t they meant a narrow strait through
do was to serv e the Span i ards prompt ly Wh en t h ey

'
.
were requ est ed t o bring i n food cotton and ot h er useful

, ,
articles to the settlers in this new town they did so without ,
making any O bj ections .
When Columbus left the co a st of P ari a to sail f or Haiti

his sh ips were carried f ar to t h e west by the ocean current ,
and he nally struc k t h e co ast o f Hait i much farther west
C A T H E DRA L A T SA N T O D O M IN G O
t h an h e h ad exp ecte d F eari ng i t wou l d tak e a l ong t ime

.
to sail eastward against t h is current h e sent a messenger ,
ashore to let his broth er know that h e h ad returned .
B artholomew went to meet him and it was on board h is

,
ship o ff the south coast of Hait i that Colu mbus l earned

about the founding of S anto Domingo and about the
many troubles in Haiti during his absence .
8 1 R e lat ion s w it h t h e N a t ive s

.

Columbus f ound the
relations between the Span i ards and the natives even
worse th an when h e left Small parties of workm en and
.
so l d i ers were now living in t h e little forts t h at h ad b een

built in every neighborh ood In this way Spanish brutal
.
ity and mistreatment had reached all the people of t h e

island E ven though the natives had learned that they
.
could not wi n in a ght against the whi te men they at ,
times got so desperate over the wrongs they suffered

that they made attacks These attacks were pu ni shed
.
with the utmost severity O nce the natives broke into

.
a Sp anish c hurch destroyed the altar and took out

, ,
some of the sacred vessels and buried them The story .
w as to l d that where these vessels were buried trees in ,
the shape of crosses grew up B ut this did not satisfy .
the Span i ards They put to death al l whom they believed

.
h ad a h and in this robbery and they ev en burned some Of

,
th em al iv e T hi s l ast act of cruelty caused the nativ es

.
to make one more attempt to overcome their enemi es ,
but as in other suc h cases they w ere defeated and pun

, ,
ished wit h fresh cruelt i es .
8 2 R old an s R ebellion
.
T h e peop l e wh o followed
.
C olumbus from Spain to Hait i were not such as would be

likely to establ i sh a successful colony Criminals tak en .
from t h e j ails were dangerous when allowed to roam at

wi ll among a weak and simple people and were rebellious
wh en kept in check Priests and nobles were worse than
.
u seless in suc h a settlement when allowed to rema in idle ,
and became morose and dissatised when compelled to

work ev en in the face of starv ation C olumbus an d hi s
,
.
brothers D i ego and B artho l omew were hated partly be

cause they were forei gners The proud Spaniards did .
not want to be ruled by men of foreign birth N O doubt .

,
too Columbus h ad made m i stakes Possibly some had

, .
1 18 TH E STO RY O F C OL UMBU S
come t o Hai t i t hr ough wh at they regarde d as his m i s

represent a tions Many believed that affairs in Hait i
.
were badly managed T h ey were all certain t h ey were

.
not h avi ng a s good t imes and were not gett i ng r i ch as

fast as they had hoped I t i s easy to defend C olumbus
.
by p oint i ng out t h at t h ose who came after him were

accused as he was and had j ust as much trou b le with the
rebellious sp i ri ts of thei r followers B ut whether C olum .
bus was at fault or not t h ere were alway s many dissat is

,
ed Spaniards wh o were ready to follow anyone who would

rise up again st him T h e ru l e of B artholomew who was
.
,
in comm and whil e C olumbus w as absent was even l ess ,
agreeab l e to t h e Sp aniar ds than that of C o lumbus himself .
B artholomew was h arsh er i n hi s manners a nd more

unyielding i n hi s demands .
I n t h e absence of C o l um bu s a m an b y the name o f,
R oldan wh om he had made the c h ief j udge on the island

, ,
put himself at t h e head of those wh o were dissatised .
Word came from Spain that Columbus was now unpopular

at the C ourt and they t h ought it safe to start a real rebel
lion B artholomew did not kn ow how many would follow
.
h i m and h ow many would follow R oldan i n case it

came to a real ght so h e did not dare to try to
,
make him prisoner T h e arrival of C olumbus did not

.
help much In the end he and his brother came to the

.
belief that i t would not be safe to ri sk a ght with

R oldan Hence Columbus gave R o l dan and his rebelli ous
.
followers ev erything they wanted R oldan was placed .
back in his o f ce as ch i ef j udge of the island C o lumbus .
did h owever try to send him b ac k to Spain bu t there w as

, , ,
great dif cu l ty i n g ettin g ships A fter waiting awhile .

1 20 THE STORY O F C OLUMB U S
e nd t h ey were a ll killed Off Their ghts with the Span .
iard s were over They had been thoroughly defeated

. .
They h ad l ost t h eir courage and made no more st ruggles

against t h e sl avery which the Spaniards were rapidly
imposing upon them .
8 4 D is c ov e rie s by Ot h e r s t h an C olu mbu s

.

I t will
be remembered that a young Spaniard by name O j eda , ,
took an important part in the second voyage of C o lumbus

and that he had much to do with the defeat of the nativ es
in the onl y reall y important battle which the Spaniards
ever fought with them i n Haiti the battle of V ega R eal

.
It will be remembered too that this same O j eda captured

, ,
C a onabo the most warlike Of t h e native chiefs Wh en

,
.
the news of C olumbus s d i scovery of the coast of P aria

came to Spain in 14 99 O j eda was there He heard with

,
.
particular interest the story about the nding of p earl s ,
and so he app li ed to the treasurer of the C ourt f or permis

sion to visit this co ast This permission was g iv en
.
,
although the C ourt had previously promised C o lumbus

that no one would be allowed to visit any of the l ands he
'
might d i scover except by p ermission Of Columbus himself .
It will be seen t h erefore that the C ourt w as now breaking

, ,
its promise .
I n the expedition Of O j eda there was a man by t h e

name of Am ericus V e spu c iu s This man should be remem .
bered because his name w as nally given to the Am erican

cont inent T h ere were also many who had gone with
.
Columbus on one or more of his voyages They reached .
land east of the O rinoco R iver sailed westward by using ,
the charts that C olumbus had made passed through the ,

Serpent s Mouth then through the Dragon s Mouth and

, ,
THE TH I R D VOYAGE 12 1
sailed westward along the coast of Pari a as Columbus ,
had done There they found a city built on piles driven

.
into the water and called it V enezuela after the city of ,
Venice in I taly which is built in this way

,
O j eda then .
sailed northward to Haiti and nally returned to Spain .
Another Sp anish sailor named Nino sailed to the same

coast and gathered many pearls His was the rst voyage .
to the new world that brought back enough treasure to

p y
a the expense of the voyage B y the agreement. between
the Court and C olumbus he should have had a certain
,
sh are Of these pearls but he d i d not receive any of them

,
.
It wil l be remember e d that two brothers by the name

of P i nzon went out with Co lumb us on his rst voyage .
O ne of these now got together a eet Of four ships and

started to sail west and south as Columbus had done on ,
his second voyage He st ruck the coast of South America

.
in the neighborhood Of the present Cape St Augustine

. .
,
which i s t he most easterly point of the continent Then .
sailing northward he d i scovered the Amazon R iver whose

, ,
volume of water was s o great that even wh en the ships

were out of sight of land the water was fresh enough to
drink Pinzon then sailed up to the Gulf by Paria from
.
,
there to the northern islands rst discovered by Columbus ,
and then back again to Spain .
A Spaniard by the name of Diego de L epe sailed along

the same course as Pinzon but went farther south a good
, ,
ways below the Cape of S t Augustine Then there w a s

. .
,
another sailor by the name Of L a Cosa who w as a good

, ,
map maker He went on a voyage to S outh Am erica in

.
search of pearls and made the rst fairly good map of

,
the lands he visited This same L a Cosa also w a s wit h

.
122 TH E ST ORY O F C O LU MB US
MA P OF SO U H A ME R CA
T I
1 24 THE ST ORY O F C OL UMB US
with the peop l e outs i de Wh en starting on hi s th ird

.
j ourney it was again necessary to ll hi s crew s wi t h crim

in als from the j ails .
V ery l ittle of t h e p rom i sed go l d h ad b een b rought

bac k but Columbus cont i nued to tal k about t h e great
,
riches wh i ch he and others were going to mak e out of the

new lands He spok e of using part Of his own income to
.
take P a l estine and esp ec i ally Jerusalem away from t h e

, ,
Turk s Peop le did not like to h ear a man talk li k e t h at

.
w hen at the same tim e h e fail ed to p ay his sai lors the ir

wages C olumbus k ept for hi mself most of the p earls w hi c h
.
he got on the coast of Paria and when he was ask e d why ,
he did thi s he said that h e w anted to k eep the pearls until

h e could get an equal amount of gold so as to mak e a good ,
showing This explanat i on d i d not satisfy the p eople in

.
general I t l ooked as if h e was more anx i ous to get rich

.

than to do anyth in g el se C o lumbus s two sons were now
.
pages of the Queen and as t h ey passed through the streets

,
the people hooted them The sick and unpaid sailors .
wandered through the C ourt and stood under t h e palace

window calling for the ir pay .
There was also a good deal Of t alk about C olumbus

sending Indians to Spain as slav es The story w as told .
that he refused to have some nat ives bapt i zed because

then they wou l d be C hr i stians and could not b e sold
as slaves .
8 6 Th e Q u een D o ubt ing C o lumbu s

.
From t h e very
r st the King and Queen had doubted whether it was wise
to give C olumbus the great powers whi ch they gav e him
before h e started on his rst v oyage T hi s doubt on the .
part of t h e Ki ng had been strengthened by the charges

whi c h were made against Columbus again and agai n and ,
now the Queen began to doubt him also She thought .
that something must be wrong or there would not be so

many complaints against h im True enough C olumbus .
,
was a man who had the courage and the wisdom to start
west but at the same time was he able to govern a
, , ,
colony well ? And if he was not able to govern a colony

well was it right f or the King and Queen to keep him as
,
governor even if he had been promised that he and his

,
sons and his sons sons should forever govern all the lands

that he might discover ? R o l dan s rebellion brought this
question up more clearly than ever A t this time a num .
ber of R oldan s friends came to Spain and of course they

, ,
told the Court that Columbus was entirely unt to govern

the colony Columbus also continued to send home slaves
.
against the wishes of the Queen and it is stated that ,
she became so angry that he would have been disgraced

at once had she not remembered the great services
which he had rendered to Spain by discovering the lands
beyond the ocean .
There is no doubt th at the Spaniards h ad treated the

Indians very bad ly and bru tally and Columbus was ,
blamed for it all I t is not at all certain that it was j ust

.
to lay all the blame on Columbus I t is very doubtful .
whether any man could have succeeded in so controlling

those unruly Spaniards that the natives would not have
been abused Certainly none of the men who followed
.
C olumbus as governors Of the Spanish colonies succeeded

in doing this ; but his enemies used exactly those argu
ments with the Queen wh ich they thought would be useful
in setting her against him .
A t t hi s v ery t ime a l etter arrived from C o lumbu s

r equesting that h e mi ght b e given permission t o cont inue
the sending home Of slaves for two years more The Queen .
answered th i s l etter by saying that She had ordered all

the slaves which had been sold in Spain to be sent back
to the W est I ndies She called the I ndians her people
.
,
and would not consent to h ave them sold as slaves .
I t is of course clear why Columbus was so anx i ous

, ,
to sell these slaves B y so doing not only could he himself

.
,
get a s h are of the money for which they were sold but he ,
h op ed also to Show a prot for those who provided ships

and money for hi s voyages .
8 7 A 'u d ge S ent t o H ait i

. . At t h e same t ime that
-
C o lumbus ask ed to be permitted to go on selling slaves

f or two years more h e also asked that a j udge be sent out
,
to d ecide between him and R oldan The King at once .
appointed a man b y the name of B obadilla who had been ,
an o ffi cer in the C ourt to gO to Haiti as j udge The affair

,
.
was managed very differently from the way Columbus

h a d exp ected We cannot now be certain j ust what orders
.
t h e King gave B obadilla Not all Of the orders were put

.
down i n wri ting . He carried one letter from the K in g ,
direc t ed to Columbus whi c h read in part as follows :

,

W e h av e d i rected F ranc i sc o B o bad ill a t h e bearer of t hi s t o te ll
, ,
y o u fo r us
,
Of certa i n t hi ngs t o be ment i o ned b y h im W e as k y.o u t o g iv e
fa i t h and credence t o w h at h e sa y s and t o obe y him

,
.

T h e express i on to obey him of course meant that
, ,
B o b ad il l a w as now to have hi gher p ower than Columbus .
N ev ert h el ess we must not forget that B obadilla was to

,
b e j udge Of t h e trouble between R oldan and Columbus ,
an d was not sent out to n d f au l t wi th C o l umbus or do

1 28 THE STORY O F C OLU MB U S
chains and put on board one o f t h e sh ip s A s soon as .
Columbus h imsel f came to Santo Dom ingo h e a l so w a s

p u t in c h a i ns and p l aced i n a stone tower whi ch was used
as a pri son That tower i s still st anding and vi sitors are
.
now shown the p l ace wh ere C o lumbus lay in chains .
B artho l omew the other brother o f C o lumb us was also

, ,
iI np riso n e d and placed on a ship It was t h e purpose of

.
B o ba dilla t o k eep these men separated so that they could

not make any plans among themsel v es C olumbus him .
self th ough t that they were go in g to kill him When an .
ofcer came to tak e h im out Of pr i son and place him on

board a sh ip to go back to Spain he asked Wh ere are , ,

y ou taki ng me ? To embark on t h e sh i p was the ,

answer Said C o lumbus
. I s t h at t h e trut h ?
,
It is

true rep li ed the o f cer wh o was cap tai n Of t h e ship
, ,
.
C olumbus now knew t h at h e wou l d a fter all see Spain and

her King and Queen once more A s soon as t h e ship l eft .
,
the captain wh o was a humane man wante d to tak e the

, ,
cha ins Off his p risoner but C olumbus would not l et him
,
.

He sai d No T h ese ch ains hav e been p l ace d on me by
,
.
B obadil l a on orders o f t h e Ki ng and they s h all not be

, ,

taken Off until t h e K ing orders t h em to be taken Off .
So Co lumbus cr o ssed the A tlantic chai ned as a murderer ,
mi gh t be They h ad ne weather and a quic k v oyage

.
,
and re a c h ed Spa in early i n t h e year 1 500 .
8 9 H ow C olumbu s w as R e ce ive d in S pain

.
Seven
y ears ear li er wh en C olumb us return ed from his rst
,
v oyage h e w as greeted and rece iv ed like a ki ng I t was

,
.
th en a comm on thing to see h im wi th t h e King and t h e

P rin ce riding through the streets of t h e c i ty Now he .
r eturned a pr i soner i n ch ai ns H i s enemi es lik ed t hi s

.
,
THE TH I RD VOYAGE 129
but there were many ot h ers who beli ev ed that he h ad

been greatly wronged and there was popu l ar feeling in,
his favor P ity was awakened on all sides and th i s pity

.
,
extended even to t h e C ourt Just after landing he wrote

'
.
,
a letter to a l ady at the Court who he kn ew would show ,
it to the Queen I n the very beginni ng of this letter he

.

wrote :
I have now reached that point where I believe

that there is no man so l ow but who th inks it is ri ght to

insult me B y order from the King the chains were
.
,
p romptly taken Off and C ol um ,

bus was given money with
which to make himself ready to come to the Court W e .
shall n ever know whether B obad ill a had done t hings to

Columbus wh ich t h e King and Queen h ad not ordered him
to do or wh et h er they now had changed their minds I t
,
.
is not unlikely that t h e general fee lin g in fav or Of C o lumb us

h ad affected them .
The meet in g of C o lumbus wi th t h e Kin g and Queen

was sad and touc hing The Queen wept and Columbus .
,
fell on t h e ground at h er feet C olumbus had a very .
peculiar type of m ind I n the letter which we have j ust

.
ment i oned h e said that h e kn ew no reason wh y h e s h ould

be imprisoned Now in tal ki ng to the C ourt he men
.
, ,
t io n ed all the reasons for hi s impriso nm ent wh i c h his

enemies ev er had stated and he tried to show that he had ,
not been at fault in any of them E vidently h e had for .
gotten the letter and so had the King and Queen and
, ,
they pitied him They made promi ses of money and said
.
,
that his p ower s h ould be restored to him ; but C o lumbus

was never to b e v i ceroy of the Indies again .
9 0 E ig.h t e e n M o n t h s in S i
p n
a Columbus was now to
spend eighteen months in S p a in bef ore h e could go on
9
13 0 THE ST ORY O F C O LUMB U S
another v o y a ge He c ontinued to urge the K ing and Queen

.
to make him v i ceroy agai n and to send him out to Hai t i .
To thi s the K ing sai d that he now had a great many ene
mi es in Hait i that the i sland was in a turmo il and that
,
the w i sest t hing to do would be to wait unt il order was

restored T h is seemed not unreasonab l e to C o l umbus
.
and he became more content to wait .
The mistake in making the rst agreement wi t h C olum

bus as sweeping as i t was now became more and more
clear S p ain was in a hurry to explore as much of the new
.
world as possible because bot h Portugal and E ng l and were

s ending out expeditions and the C ourt d i d not w ant to
,

wait for C olumbus s consent before send ing out other
explorers A s we h ave seen t h e agreement h ad already
.
,
been broken w h en O j eda L a C osa L epe and P inzon, , ,
were sent out on d iff erent exped i tions I t has been said .
that t h e King w as anxious to bring C o lumbus into disgrace ,
for by so doing he would be ab l e to keep on send ing out

expeditions when and where he pleased T h e one tent h - .
of all the prots w h ich was to go to Columbus also turned

, ,
out in t h e l o ng run to be no small affair I t would indeed .
be surpris ing if a contract Of this sort shou l d not be broken .
That one individual and h i s heir s shou l d h ave a right

forever to one tenth of al l the prots wh ich mi gh t be
-
made by trading wi th all t h e lands which this one i ndi

vi dual might discover was surely a very dangerous contract
,
to make While C olumbus was in Spain the agreement

.
with him continued to be broken O j eda started out to .
make a settlement in V enezuela There he had about as .
much trouble as Columbus had in Hait i His people quar .
reled among themselves abused and insulted the nat iv es

, ,
13 2 THE STORY O F C OLU MB US
certa i n t h at B obadill a d i d not succeed any better than

C olumbus i f indeed h e d i d as we l l S O i t became nec es
, , ,
.
sary to send another governor to Hait i to replace B oba

dilla A man by t h e name o f O vando was sel ected for
.
this post O vando l eft wi t h a eet Of t hirty s hips and

.
twenty- ve hun dred persons A new type of people was .
now be i ng sent o v er There were on longer merely sing l e

.
men wh o were generally adv enturers and often criminals

,
.
Many of t h e new sett l ers were men wi t h wiv es and

f am ili es wh o came to t h e new w orld to build h omes and
mak e a liv ing T h ere were h owev er ent irely too many
.
, ,

nob l es in this expedition men wh o wou l d not work
b ut taken al l in all it was made up of a muc h better
, ,
t yp e of peop l e t h an t h ose t ak en out by C o lumbus esp e ,
c ially those w h o came on the r st and th ir d voyages .
O f the th ir ty sh ips t h at sail ed wi th O vando many were

l arge and C olumbus was o b li ged to l ook upon an exp ed i
,
t i on v ery muc h l arger and more e l egant than any that he

h ad t aken out Wh ile O vando was dressed in si lks and
.
sat i ns C o lumbus was wearing the s imple robe of a monk .
He h a d ne i ther money nor power but the King promi sed ,
that any property h e h ad i n Hait i should be returned to

h im and he w as allowed to select a man to see to it that
,
th i s promi se was carr i ed out It was now the purpose to .
send to Haiti somet hing of the style and pomp of an

E u r op ean C ourt to see w h at might come of that
, .
9
.
2 N e gr o S.lave ry in H ait i
O vando was allowed to .
tak e some negroes to Hai t i to serve as slav es Wh ile .
Isabe ll a would not have h er subj ects as she called t h e ,
nat iv es Of the West Ind i es sold as slaves in S pain she

, ,
w as willing to hav e negroes sold as slaves in Haiti I t .

THE TH I R D VOYAGE 13 3
l ook s as t h ough it was not the i dea of sl av ery whi c h the

Queen disliked but rather the i dea tha t her peopl e sh ould
,
be sold as slaves anyw here I t may be also that the Span

.
iards began to see even this early that the Indians were
not tted for the heaviest work in the mines The negroes .
were so muc h better workers than the I n di ans that wit hin
a few years numb ers of them were sent o v er A s the .
nat ives died rapi dly under the harsh treatment of the
Spaniards negroes too k their places so that nally all the
,
slaves in the islands were Of negro blood I t is now a long.
time since t h e l ast Indian in t h e i slands d i scov ered by

Columbus passed away .
93 . W rit in g s o f C o lumbu s While in S pa in

Dur i ng .
this stay in Spain C olumbus wrote a most pecu l iar litt l e

,
book the manuscript of whi ch has come dow n to us but all

,
of whi c h h as never been printed He referred to his early

.
arguments to sh ow t h at the earth was round that h e was ,
l ed to believe it w as round because of certain reasons which

h e h ad t h en stated and by means of whi c h h e got people
to believe in him and nally to h elp him get up a small
eet for hi s rst voyage Now h e said that thi s was all
.
,
a mi stake ; that these were not really the reasons that made
him believe the earth w as round but that G od h ad ap
,
p e ar ed d irectly to him and h ad told him all t h ese things ,
and that h e had been appointed d irectly by G od to go

west and nd A sia 'G od seems to have left him i n the
.
belief that it was A sia and not Am erica t h at lay on the

west side of the A tlantic ' He said that now there was
.
only one great thing left to do and that was to take

,
Jerusalem from the Turks He believed that he had been

.
appointed by G od to do this work also He said he be .

lieved h i s troubles i n the I ndies were al l due to t h e devil ,
because the devil knew that i f C olumbus succeede d there

and got enough we alth then h e wou l d go at t he h e ad Of
,
anot h er exped i t i on an d t ake Jerus al em from t h e Tu rks ,
and t h e devil of course w anted Jerus al em to be in the

, ,
h an d s o f the Turks .
W e now k now of course t h at the arguments about the

, ,
shape of t h e earth w hi ch C o lumbus used in his earlier l ife

were entir ely sound and i t seems a pity that in hi s more
,
advanced y ears h e should hav e giv en t h em u p B u t one .
c annot b e certain whether or not the man w as ent irely

s ane W e must remember too t h at in t h e d ays of C olum
.
, ,
bus t h ere w as a great deal more talk o f t h e ki n d we nd

in t hi s boo k t h an there is nowadays I t i s h ard to be .
certain of t h e reasons w hy C olumb us d i d wh at h e d i d at

various t i mes Of hi s lif e I t m ay b e h e though t t h at by
.
promising to go at the head of an exp ed it i on to t ak e J eru

salem from the Turk s he would get the church on hi s s i d e
, ,
and in those days the chur ch was very powerfu l indeed I t ,

.
i s h ard to t hink that a man as i ntell i gent a s C o lumbus ,
was in some way s could real ly bel ieve all th at he wrote

,
down during these mont h s of depressi on and s adness .
A t thi s t ime h e al so wr ote a v ery i nterest ing l etter to

a bank in G enoa the c i ty of hi s b irth He m ade C opies
,
.
of all the p apers t h at had been giv en him s h owing the ,
powers and rights that h a d been granted him and these ,
h e sent to the bank i n G enoa for safe keep ing together ,
with the l etter j ust ment i oned These papers are st i l l .
kept in G enoa I n thi s letter h e says that one tenth of

.

the weal th whi ch m ay come from hi s p ossess i ons should

b e gi ven to t he c i ty of G enoa for the purp ose of helping
13 6 THE ST ORY O F C OL U MBUS
to buy bread and other necessities for the poor Surely .

,
Columbus was a remarkable sailor ' This man who had

lived nearly all his life in the utmost poverty who could ,
not pay his j ust debts and who did not have enough
,
wh erewith to c l othe him self decently was propos ing to

,
use his wealt h for all time to come to pro vi de food to

the needy people of hi s native city .
94 P .r e parat i o n for t h e Fou rt h Voyage All t hi s t ime

,
h owever Columbus had been thin king in a sensible way

,
about geograp hy He felt su r e that Cuba was a part of

.
A sia and that the l ands to the south were all i slands .
The great current which owed westward both on the

south s i de of Cuba and along the coast of Paria made him
feel certain that there must be a strait through to the
west ; for what could become of all the water owi ng west
w ard if i t did not ow out through a strai t ? So he wanted
to g o on another v oyage to nd thi s stra i t The King
.
thoug h t i t might be well to test out this t h eory especially ,
s ince the Portu guese h ad now sai led to In di a by way of
the south coast of Afri ca I f the same land they had found
.
could be reached b y go i ng thr ough a strait j ust west of

the lands discovered by Colum bus the Spani ards W ould
h ave a much shorter route than the Portuguese Possibly .
,
also h e was glad to get r i d Of C olumbus who whi le i n

, ,
Spain would nev er stop seeking to have his rights restored .
A s we have seen before he was requested not to go to

,
Haiti on the way out but might stop there on his return
,
j ourney The King and the Queen assured him that later
.
on all his rights would be given back to him So wi th a .

,
eet of four small vessels and about one hundred and

f ty men C olumbus started on his fourth v oyage
,
.
C H A P TE R V
T H E F OU RT H V O Y A G E
95 . Th e Out war d
' When C o lumbus started
ou rn e y
on his fourth voyage early in May 1 502 he intended to , ,
sail around the world He expected to pass through the

.
strait wh i ch he supposed was somewhere south and west

of Cuba t hrough the Ind i an O cean and around the south
,
end Of Afri ca The arrangements which the King and

.
Queen made seem to S how that they d i d not altogether

trust him They sent along a man by the name of Porras
.
,
whose duty i t was to keep a complete list of all the pearls ,
gold and other valuable articles which Columbus m i ght

,
n d This Porras had a shr ewd cunning little mi nd He

.
,
.
w as a mischief maker by nature and we shall see that he

caused Columbus no end of trouble before they came back .
They also instructed C olumbus that h e sh ould not take

a single slav e .
Columbus was now no l onger as strong and vigorous

as in his younger days ; he had led a hard life and he was ,
gradually growi ng weaker He no doubt felt this himself

.
,
and anxio u sly hoped that thi s tim e at last he might , ,
succee d in doing something really great A s he started .
out he wrote in h i s Journal :

N owm y vo yage wi ll be m a de in t h e name of t h e Ho ly T rin i t y and I
h ope fo r success .

There seemed to be in his mind a feeling that after all he , ,
had not succeeded B ut in spite of bodily weakness ap

.
,
pr oac hin g old age and misfortune his

,
sp t was unbroken
I ri ,
.
13 7
13 8 THE ST ORY O F C OLU MB US
his way from Spain to the C anaries C o lum bus

On ,
touched on the c oast of A frica to help some Portuguese

who were being hard p ressed by the Moors ; but on reach
ing the place he found the M oors had gone and so he ,
continued his voyage westward and reached the island of

M artinique in the West I ndies on June fteenth The
.
, .
course of hi s 'ourney will be seen from the map shown here .
MA P S H O W I N G C O U R SE O F F O U R T H O U T WARD VO Y AG E
9 6 At S.an t o D o min go .

We h ave already stated that
the King and Queen refused Columbus permi ssion to stop
at S anto Domingo on his way out This request w as made .
in a very polite and considerate form and reads as follows :

I t i s no t t t h at y o u s h ould l o se s o m uc h time ; i t i s m uc h better t h at

y ou s h o u l d g o an o t h er w a y t h o ug h if i t s h o u l d be necessary a nd G o d is
,
willing y o u ma y stay t h ere 'in H a i ti'a li tt l e whil e o n yo ur return

, .

Co lu mbus now decided to disobey this instruction and

sail northward along pretty much the same course that
he followed in his second voyage O n June twenty ninth- .
his ships arrived Off the p ort Of Santo Domingo in the ,
I sland of Hait i He gave as his reason that one of hi s

.
140 TH E ST ORY O F C OLU MB U S
97 . On t h e C oast of H o n d u ras
C olu mbus now l eft
Haiti and sailed westward He touched at a small island .
near Jamaica and then for four days sailed directly west .
F inding no l and he began to be doubtfu l where to go He

, .
M A P S H OW I NG C O UR S E A L O N G C E NT RA L AM E R I C A O UR T H
, F V O Y AG E
t u rned northward and touched the shore Of C uba in t h e
l ocality Of the Queen s G ardens and then southwest again to

an island a bout forty miles north of Honduras F rom this .
place he could s ee the mountains of what we now know

a s Central Am eri c a Two weeks later he landed on the
.
,
no rt h co a st o f Honduras a t the pl a ce sho wn in the m a p

,
.
THE F O U R T H VOYA GE 14 1
O n t h e co a st of Hondur a s Columbus f ound a hi gher

typ e of people than any he had met on his ear lier v oyages .
They were more skillful i n making the ir imp lements and
P
WE A O N S USE D BY NA T IV E S 0F V E R AG U A
thei r c l oth in g and i n b u il d ing t h e ir h ouses They had .
ner canoes than he had seen before They made the .
nest of cotton cloth an d they knew h ow to work copper

into bells hatchets and other th ings they needed They
, ,
.
h ad swo rd s and c lu b s t ipp e d wi t h a pecu li ar kind o f rock

,
.
1 42 THE STORY O F C OLUM B U S
Wi th these weapons the y l ater became dangerous enemi es

Of the S p ani ards .
O ne o f the canoes whi ch came out to meet them was

ei ght f eet wi de and very l ong I t was covered in the
.
middle wit h a canop y and belonged to a nat i ve K i ng who

apparentl y came from the north T h ese people had many
.
gold ornaments and wh en C olumbus asked t h em where

,
they got the gold they p ointed to t h e west C olumbus .
believed t h at this rich country was t h e same India that

Da G ama h a d found a few y ears earlier and that by going
farther south h e wou l d come to a strait wh ich he thought
would lead him dir ectly into the I ndian O cean and which
be supposed the nat i ves had told him about on his t hird
voyage F o r t hi s reason he sailed east rat h er than west
.
,
f ollowi ng t h e coast as shown on the map I f he had gone .
to t h e west and nort h h e would hav e found the rich coun

try o f Mexico whi ch in l ater years gave to Spain great
treasures Wh en C o lumbus turned east h e believed that
.
the coast w ould soon turn south and lead to a strait .
When at l ast i t did turn to the south he named t h e cap e

around whi ch h e sa il ed G rac i as a D i os whic h means, ,

Thank s be to G od .
We o f course know t h at t h ere w as no suc h strai t at

, ,
all as the one he was loo ki ng for The nearest to a strait

.
now is the Panama C anal whi ch the Am ericans have

,
constructed across the Isthm us Of Panama along wh i ch ,
we shall soon n d Columbus sailing C olumbus might .
have gured out however that the great current owing

, ,
westward al ong the coast Of Honduras could reasonably

b e supposed to lead to a strai t if there was one B ut .
,
instead o f go ing with t h e current C olumb us sailed against

,
144 THE STO RY O F C OLUM B U S
9 8 . Th e V a Wh en C olumbus
S et t lement at er gu a
gave u p hop e of nding t h e strait he began to g ather

gold . He sent h is brot h er B artholomew to hunt for
gold mines and he al so sent people up and dow n the
,
coast but nowh ere cou l d t h ey nd as muc h go l d as in

,
V era gua Here t h en C o lumbus thought must be the

.
, ,
place from whic h all the go l d from the east really came ,
and he decided to make a settlement here They took .
all sort s of necessary things ashore and started to build

a small vi llage E i ghty men were to live here and
.
co llect go l d w hi le C olumbus sh ou l d go to Spai n for

more suppl i es Then the ri ver went down j ust as sud
.
d enly as it had ri sen f or t h e dry season h ad set in and

, ,
the ship s whi c h w er e lyi ng in t h e r iv er cou l d not b e

gotten out to sea .
While t h ey were t rying to get t h em out Of t h e riv er t h ey ,
f ound that t h e nat i ve Kin g was making p l ans to kill all

the Spani ards who were to be lef t beh i nd B artholomew .
at once attac k ed the nat ives with a number of armed

men This was done so suddenly that the Ki ng and his
.
men were made prisoners B y thi s time C olumbus had .
gotten the ships out of the mouth of the river and B ar

t ho lomew sent the K i ng and the other pr i soners i n a canoe
to be taken to the ships lyi ng outside The pr i soners .
were tied so they could not escape The King begged to .
h ave his hands t i ed less tightly because they hurt him , ,
and the Spaniards loosened the rope This was a trick Of .
the K ing for when it got dark he slipped the rope Off hi s
,
h ands jum ped out o f the c anoe and dived under the
, ,
surface of the water The Spaniards thought he h ad .
drowned and the rest o f the prisoners were tak en to the

THE F O U R TH VOYA G E 14 5
ships and p l aced in pri son O ne night t h e pr i soners broke

.
loose and very nearly escaped They were caugh t how .

,
ever and put back into prison B y th e next morning

,
.
they had all ki ll ed t h emselves C olumbus now discovered

.
that these were not the same kind of people he had

found on the other i slands ; that they were erce and
determin ed and very dangerous He thought however .
, ,
that he had taught them a lesson and that h e need no

l onger hav e great fear of them So he decided to go ahead
.
with th e settlement ; but as had happened so O ften before

, ,
some of the Spaniards who were to be left behind refused

to O bey their leader and real trouble start ed A gain the .
natives tried to attack them and the danger was all the
,
while growing great er for the Spani ards F o r some time .
the weather was so bad t h at the men in the ships were

unable to visit the settlement Wh en at last a boat did
.
get through the captain determined to go on u pthe river

,
beyond the settlement though he was warned that there

,
were native warriors on both sides of the river who would

li kely attack him . He had not gone far when the natives
killed all of his party except one .
The situation now looked so dangerous that it was

decided to give up the settlement The food and other .
things which had been brought ashore for the settlement

were taken to the ships on rafts O ne shi p was so worm .
eaten that it was left to lie in t he mouth of the V eragua

.
R iver Columbus now sailed away from the place where

.
,
he had spent about three and a half months This .
place is worthy of note since it was the rst spot on the

,
mainland of t h e new world where people from E urope

tried to make a settlement This too is the place from
.
, ,
10
14 6 THE ST ORY O F C OLUM B U S
whi c h t h e f amily Of C olumbus l ater got i ts t i t l e H i s .
descendants are now called Dukes Of V eragua .
F or a long time C olumbus had thought that h e saw

vi sions While waiting for B artholomew and his men to
.
come to the ships h e believ ed h e saw more visions wh i ch

, ,
he described i n a l ong letter to the Queen He said that .
a voice came to h im and to l d him to take c ourage for he ,
was in the service of G od What G od had done said the .

,
v oice for men like Moses and David that would G od

, ,
now do for him C uriously enough th i s voice also spoke

.
,
of the name Of C o lumbus as being known throughout the

earth Curiously also it spoke Of the country where he
.
, ,

was as India and no t as a new continent R emember .

David said the voice how he was a shepherd and was
, ,
made king R emember Abraham how he was a hundred

.
,

y ears Old when his rst son was born And sai d the .
,

voice ,
there is use stil l for those who are old I t is .
h ard to believ e that the man who wr ote this was not
half mad .
Af ter h i s terrible experiences with the erce natives

h e wrote T h ere is not in the world a country whose
,
people are more timi d there is a very good harbor a , ,
beautiful river and the whole place may easily be put

,

into a state Of defense We cannot now think that all
.
this man said should be fully trusted He said one thing .
at one time and exactly the opposite at another time .
Surely the memory of Columbus was bad or he did not ,
at all times tell the truth .
99 F.r o m V e ra gu a t o 'am aic a

C olumbus dec i ded to
g O to Haiti as his ships
,
were in such bad condition that
it w as not safe to try to cross the A tlantic in them He .
so badly t h at t h e pumps were kept go i ng all t h e wh il e ,
and they used pots and kettles to bai l the water out of
them T h e sh ips were in such bad condition that it was
.
with t h e greatest d if culty that they cou l d be made to

sail at al l Wh en t h ey approached the west end of Jamaica
.
i t was no l onger possible to go on and the ships were run up

on the beach They were placed side by s i de so they could
.
be tied together with ropes The place where the ships were
.
run ashore has ever s i nce been called Don Christopher s
C o v e Here Co lumbus and h i s crew stayed one long year

. .
1 00 Livin g On e Ye ar on S t ran d e d S h ips

.

Whi le
C olumb us rem ained in Jamaica h is most im port ant h elper
was a daring young Spaniard by the name Of Diego
Mende z He h ad already showed his cour age and ability
.
earlier on this j ourney Wh en the sh ips were lying in

.
t h e river at V eragua Mende z went alone into the camp of

,
th e savages and found out that they were getting ready

to attack the Spaniards I t was h e who made the plan
.
for attackin g them by ni ght and th i s we have seen was so

,
successful that the King and his men were taken prisoners .
He took part in some of the erc est ghting in V eragua

and was always the r st to act whenever there was danger .
Mendez was very much like that other young Spaniard ,
O j eda ab out whom we have heard before Wh en Colum

,
.
bus found himself stranded o n the coast of Jamaica he

sent Mendez in comm and of a party to search for food .
A s soon as they collected as much food as one man could

carry they sent him back to the ships and t he rest Of the ,
part y went on to collect more food I n this way the men .
nally had all been sent back and Mendez went on alone .
He soon found a nat ive K ing wit h whom he became ,

THE F O U RTH VOYAGE 14 9
fr i endly and t h ey got toget h er muc h f ood Nati v es w ere

,
.
sent to carry it bac k to the ships T h en Mendez got a .
large canoe on the eastern end Of J amai ca and some nativ es

to help him paddle it bac k to the ships From th i s t ime on .
food came in plentifu lly A s soon as they h ad secured foo d

.
Columbus began to make plans to get away from t h e i sl and ;

but he was to l iv e a whole year on the stranded ships .
101 .M en d e z Go e s t o H ait i T h e nearest place where

.
he cou l d get h el p w as Haiti but between Jamai ca and

,
Haiti there is forty mi l es of open sea T h e only means .
by whi ch they cou l d go were I ndian canoes but these were ,
built to padd l e around in qu i et waters and w ere v ery

danger ous on a rough sea C o lumbus asked f or v olunteers
.
to undertake the j ourney and Mendez was t h e o nly one

,
who o ffered to go They got another Spaniard and six

.
,
Indians to help padd l e t h e single canoe in wh i ch they

started A s they passed al ong the sout h coast of Jamaica
.
,
they were continually threatened by natives along the

shore At last the whole party was captured but Mendez
.
,
got away and returned alone to the ships They decided .

,
however to try again S ome other S paniards Offered to

, .
go along and they too k two canoes and enoug h I ndians

to paddle them .
B artholomew wi t h a p arty of men fo ll owed t h em along

the shore to guard against attacks by the natives Wh en .
they reached the east end of Jamaica he tu rned back and

the canoes started out over the open ocean I t took them .
four days to paddle over this forty miles of open water .
N O one could sleep eas i ly in the open canoes and the ,
water Splashed in and spoiled their food They could .
not carry enough drinking water and one of the In ,

d i ans died o f t hirst . T h ey nally reac h e d t h e west ern

co ast Of Hait i .
1 02 . A L e tt e r of C olu mbu s
B efore Mende z st arted
on this j ourney C o lumbus to ld h im that i f he were to reach '
Ha i ti he S hould get one o r more s hi ps and send them to

Jamai ca and that he h i msel f should go on to Spai n He
, .
wrote a v ery c u r i ous l etter wh i ch he gav e Mende z to ,
c arry to t h e C ourt Of S pain This letter began .

,

I send t h i s l etter b y means Of and by t he h ands of I ndi ans I t will .
be a mirac l e if i t reac h es i ts dest in at io n

.
He must of course have had in min d the n at iv es wh om

, ,
they got to help paddle the canoes I n th i s let t er h e tel ls .
about the fourth v oyage and he al so goes over again the ,
disc ouraging days of his early life He refers to the . .
years in Spain when he was tryi ng to get s hips for hi s r st

v oyage He talks about th e p eop l e w h o then made fun
.

of h im ; but now he says ev erybody ev en the tailors
, , , ,

are try ing to become disco v erers He speak s about t h e .
neglect of h im in Spain af ter he h a d been sent bac k in

chains and t h en goes o n
,
The twenty years of servi ce
through which I h av e passed with so much toil and danger
h ave proted me nothing and at this v ery day I do not
even h ave a roof i n Spain that I c an call my own I f I .
wish to eat or sleep I have nowhere to go except to a poor

hotel and most t imes I do not have the money wit h whic h
to pay my bills I t wrings my very heart strings when I
.
t hi nk of my son D i ego whom I hav e l eft an orphan in

, ,
Spain without a house or property which is due him on

my account although I h ad thought i t certain that the
,
King and t h e Queen as j ust and faithful Princes w ould

give back to h im all o f t h ese t hi ngs wi th i nterest .
152 THE STORY O F C OLU MB U S
cont i nue to bring food He therefore pun i shed t h ese

.
unruly Spani ards rather sev erely and they became angry
and rebellious .
We now recall t h e man Porras wh o was sent out wi th

Co lumbus to keep a record of all the valuable th ings which
they might nd on the voyage Porras placed himself.
at the head of that part Of the crew who were ready to

j oin in open rebellion He said that C olumbus had been
.
sent away from Spain and would not be allowed to return .
He told the i gnorant crews that the King and Queen had
forbidden him to come back to Spain and that Mendez
had been sent on to try to get them to permi t him to do so .
The rebels tted up canoes stored them with food and

,
started for Hait i C olumbus was s i c k as were many Of

.
,
the crews and these stayed beh i nd along with others wh o

,
remained l oyal The rebels were good sailors on large

.
sh i ps but did not know how to hand l e canoes They h ad .
gone a few miles from the east end of Jamaica when a

storm came up and they did not dare go on They found .
that the canoes were loaded too heavily and threw the ,
provisions overboard Then they threw out some Of the

.
Indians These were very good swimm ers and they would
.
sw im after the canoes and take hold of them Then the .
Spaniards chopped o ff their hands I n t hi s way they

.
disposed Of all the natives except those that were abso

lu t ely necessary to paddle the canoes Porras turned .
back and waited a month for a calm sea and then tried
once more to cross over B ut another storm arose and
.
they gave up all hope Of reaching Haiti .
1 04
. Th os e L e ft on t h e S h ips Not al l the men who
st ay ed wi t h C o lumbus on the ship were weak and sick .
THE F O U R TH VOYAGE 15 3
There were some strong true men who would not l eave
,
him and they now had all t h ey could do to get food for
,
the sick and to take care of them During this time of

.
great danger the people on t h e ships came to understand

that they must not quarrel among themselves but must
work together lik e brothers if they were to live at all .
The natives soon grew tired of bringing food I n t h e .
beginning they would trade a good deal of food for simple

things such as bells and other sh ining trinkets but they
, ,
soon had enough of these I t was now learned that Porras

.
and his men were roaming over the i sland and that the
nat ives who had been sending food to C olumbus were
now compelled to give their food to t h e reb els The men
.
on t h e Shi ps were very near starvation .
1 05 Colu mbu s Pre dict s an E c lips e

.

I t was in t h e
month of F eb ruary 1 5 04
,
C olumbus knew from his
.
calendar that there would be an ec lipse of the moon on

F ebruary twenty ninth of that y ear so he decided to
,
make u se of that fact to scare the natives in to bringing

food He sent out messages to have all the native Kings
.
come to the shore where his ships were on that day Then .
he told them that the G od of the Spaniards no l onger

liked the Indians because they would not br ing food to
,
hi s people ; that this G od had decided to take away the

moon so it would no longer shine for them by night A s .
the evening came on the terried natives began to see a

,
black shadow creep over the face of the mOo n This .
sh a dow crept farther and farther over the moon and the
bright shining part became smaller and smaller This .
terried the natives so much that they began to call upon

Columbus telling h im that t h ey w ould do anything h e
,
15 4 THE STORY O F C OLUM B US
wanted them to do i f he only would save t h e moon for

,
th em C o lumbus replied that h e would go into his little

.
h ouse on the Ship and call to the G od of t h e Spaniards

to see if he could not get him to give back t h e moon to
the Indians A fter staying in the cabin for a while he
.
came out and said that t h e G od of the S paniards h ad to l d

him he would g ive back the moon to the Indians if they
would pro mise to giv e to C olumbus and his men all the
food that they needed and to treat them well in ev ery
w ay . This they promised readily for they were now ,
thoroughly frightened S oon the moon which had become

.
,
entir ely blac k and invisible began to get light on one side
,
.
The light streak grew wider and wider as we now know ,
it does w h en an eclipse is going away and after a time ,
the moon was shining as ful l and bright as before the

eclipse After this C olumbus h ad no troub l e i n getting
.
all the food that he needed .
1 06 M en d e z in H ait i Wh en Mendez reac h ed Haiti

.
.
h e went to the governor O vando and told him the story

, ,
of Columbus on the stranded ships O vando however .

, ,
did not want to h elp Columbus and he told Mendez that

he had no ship large enough to go for t h at big crew N O .
I ndians could be found to go bac k w i th the l one Spaniard

who had come over with Mendez so i t was impossible ,
to get word bac k to Columbus Final ly O vando decided .
to send a ship to Jamaica to see if Columbus and his men

were still alive but not to help them Th i s little ship
,
.
ap p eared off the coast Of Jamaica j ust eight months after

Columbus s ships had stranded A boat was sent to the

.
shore wi th some provisions b ut as soon as these had been

,
pu t on bo a rd t h e ships of C olumbus it s udden ly rowed

15 6 THE ST ORY O F C OL UMB U S
were all owed to come back but were sep arated and put
,
under comm anders whom Columbus could trust T h en .
he gave them litt l e trink ets which they cou l d trad e for
,
food and l et t h em w ander around t h e i sland prom i s ing

, ,
to call them a s soon as t h e sh ip s f or whi c h h e w a s wai t in g

should arri ve .
1 08 Th e S h ips of R e sc u e
.

I n t h e spr ing of 1 5 04 thr ee
.
sh i ps arrived from Sp ain at S anto Domingo an d Mendez , ,
who w as still in Hai ti bought one of them and sent i t to

,
r escue C o lumb us and his crews About t hi s time O vando

.
also sent a ship to Jamai ca f or C o lumbus T h e people Of.
Hait i really f orced O v ando to send th i s ship for they kn ew

,
that i f C olumb us and his men were not rescued t h ey would

soon per i sh O ut o f sym pathy f or h im they forced t h e
.
cruel and brutal O vando to do what h e had refused to do

for nearly a y ear SO one day about noon t h e strande d
.
crews of Columbus saw two ships coming toward the shore .
Af ter returning to Spain Colum bus said that he had

,
not in his wh o l e li fe had so j oyful a day as the day when

these two ships appeared off the coast of Jamaica for he ,
had never expected to leave that place alive L ater on .

,
a town called C hristopher s C ove was founded at the

place where C olumbus and his followers lived that l ong

year I t was on June twenty eighth that everything w a s
.
-
ready and C olumbus left Jamaica for Haiti We h ave .
seen that Mendez pushed his canoe over the open waters
from Jamaica to Haiti in four days C olumbus and his .
two ships now too k sev en weeks to go from the west end
of Jam aica to Santo Domingo I ll luck seemed to be wi th
.
them on this j ourney and the winds were constantly

,
against t h em .
THE F O U R T H VOYAGE 15 7
1 09 . E n s laveme nt Nat ive s We wi l l now repeat

of
some Of the stories about Haiti which were told to

C olumb us during these seven week s It was about four .
y ears s ince C olumbus had been taken from Haiti to S pain ,
and during that tim e the management of the island had

been in the hands of B obadilla and O vando I n these .
years t h e work of ens l avi ng the nat i ves which had been
starte d b y C olumbus went on rapidly It is true that for .
a while t h e complaints about the evils of this system had

become so great that the Ki ng and Queen had ordered it
stopp ed altogether However O vando arranged matters
.
,
so t h a t h e could go on wi th i t He wrote to the Kin g and

.
Queen that the nativ es woul d not do any work at all

unless they were compelled to do it and that some work ,
was necessary to keep up their health The King and Queen .
replied that while they did not want the natives treated as
S l aves t h ey wanted them to be given as much work as would
,
b e good for their health T h is gave O vando what he wanted

.
,
because h e could easily see to it that in his reports the

natives were made to work on account of their health .
The natives were now compelled to work very hard

in the mines and on the farms from six to eight months
each year The food given them w as poor and t h ere was
.
not nearly enough of i t I f they ran away they were

.
,
nearly sure to be caught and when caught were severely

,
punished and set to work again The paths from the .
mines to the homes of t h e natives were strewn with the

dead and dying Starvation and overwork killed them
.
by the hundreds and by the thousands .
Thus if we blame Colum bus for enslaving t h e nat ives

, ,
we see t h at oth ers wh o w ere sent o ut t o th e i sl ands w ere

no better t h an h e and many Of t h em were worse T h ere

,
.
was one thing which these S paniards were all after and ,
that was go l d and riches and to obtain them t h ey wou l d

,
go to any length in their cruelty and brutalit y .
I I o Wars Again st t h e Nat ive s I n a p art o f t h e

.

western end of the i s l and of Hai t i Anacaona the wi dow, ,
Of C aonabo was now reigning

,
R umors came to S anto
.
Domingo that a rebellion was being prepared in her

domini on and so O vando dec i ded to start out and take
,
care of it earl y He too k wit h him three hundr ed so l diers

.
,
and sevent y men on h orsebac k Wh en he came into the .
dominion of Queen Anacaona she h ad no idea t h at th e

Spani ards were going to attac k her peop l e S h e treate d .
them as well as she could gave them the best lodg ings
, ,
called in some I ndian chiefs and prep are d a f east and

,
games in h onor o f her guests O vando on h is part said

.
, ,
he wanted to Sh ow the Queen how t h e Spani ards carried

on their ghts so he arranged a mock ght between h i s
,
men Wh en they were ready t h e S p aniards on a S i gn

.
, ,
from O vando fell upon the poor nat i ves and killed al l
,
wh o could not escape into the woods They drove a .
number o f native K in gs into a house set re to it and ,
burned them alive The Queen was taken prisoner and

.
brought to S anto Domingo and later hanged The excuse .
for all this was that A nacaona was supposed to be planning

a rebellion against the Spaniards but the reasons for ,
believing this were not very good The truth seems to .
be that O vando wanted to show t h e natives what they

might expect i f they did not O bey wi thout any question
whatsoev er S O h e stooped to t hi s mean low trick of
.
,
going to t h e h ome of the Queen and t h en betraying h er

C HAPTE R V I
T H E LA S T Y E A R S OF C OLU MB U S
1 12 . Lett e r s from C olumbu s t o H is S on

Columb us .
h ad been in bad h ealth duri ng the who l e o f hi s j ourney ,
and he was never rea lly well dur in g the rest o f his life .
When he reached Spain h e had to remain in t h e city of

S ev ille for ve months D urin g this time h e wr ote a
.
S I GN A U R E A ND M O N O G R A M
T 0F CO L U MB U S
series of letters to hi s so n Diego which are of great value

to u s for through them we learn a great deal about hi s
,
thoughts and feel i ngs It wi ll be remembered that Diego

.
was a page of the Queen and w as constantly at the C ourt ,
and s o C olumbus wr ote to him about t hi ngs whi c h h e

hoped Diego might tell t h e Queen C olumbus also hoped .
to get some of his friends to help him at the C ourt .
S hortly after he landed i n Spain he asked Mendez to

help him b y talking with the King He writes t h at O vando
. .
had kept him from getting hi s Share of the gold found in

Haiti. If the K ing and Queen would have O vando keep
an account of all the ri ches wh i ch have been found they ,
woul d gain j ust a s mu c h a s I w ou l d

H e susp ects that .
16 0
THE LA S T YEAR S O F C O LU MB US 16 1
P orras ,the man who rebe ll ed at Jamaica h ad inuenced ,

the K in g and Queen against him He writes : R ecall
.
thro u gh all this m y own sickness and the pay that is due me

for my services He also hopes that the King and Queen
.

would see to i t t h at his sailors are paid He say s : They
.
are p oor and h ave been gone three y ears They b ring .

home good news from the gold elds of V eragua O ne .
week later he complains about his illness He sends his .
love to Mendez and hopes that he wi ll have inuence

wi th the C ourt to overcome that of Porras .
Two days before this last letter was written t h at i s ,

on November twenty sixth Queen Isabella died S h e had .
,
been the best friend that Columbus had at t h e C ourt .
The K ing had been less w illing to help hi m and no doubt ,
had always been sorry that they promised h im such great

powers as they did before h e sailed on hi s rst voyage .
During the absence of Columbus on hi s last voy age the

Queen h ad shown her interest in him by maki ng hi s son
one of her bodyguards and She had naturalized his brother
,
Diego so that he might be promoted to higher of ces in

the church .
Columbus indeed was to see the Court once more

, , ,
but hi s rights were never to be given him and he w as to

the day of his death to receive no encouragement whatso
ever from the King .
O n December rst he writes to his so n blaming him ,

for not writing : I have no pleasure now but in a l etter

from y ou . A gain he complains about his sickness and
hi s want of money He tells Diego to stick close to his
.

younger brother Ten brothers would not be too many
.
for you ; in good fortune as in bad fortune I have never

11
1 62 THE ST ORY O F C OL UMB US

f ound b etter fr i ends t h an m y brothers He exp l ains that .
h e cannot wr i te to his friends because he h ad to wr i te by

ni ght since by day h i s hands are weak and p aI nfu l
, .

Two days l ater he writes : E v erybody ex cept myself

i s receiving l etters Then h e speaks about the Queen
.
,

of wh ose death he h as h eard O ne must believe she is
.
now clothed w i th a sainte d g l ory no l onger regr etting t h e ,

bitterness and weariness of thi s lif e He mentions the .

King say ing :
,
He deserved all our sympathy A gain .
he goes back to hi s own p l ans He says t hi ngs are go ing

.
badly in Hait i and that the righ t person cou l d restore

order there in thr ee months All of w hi c h I can do in
.
the K i ng s service and any one el se n ot ha ving my p ersona l

in t eres t cou ld n ot do it s o well He says h e had wr i tten
.
a l etter to t h e King about th i s but had received no reply .
O n December twenty nint h he writes again complain

-
,
ing that he had received no news He again speaks of .

hi s sai l ors wh o h ad not been paid
,
They are poor h e .
,

says . They are going to the C ourt to press their c l aims .

Ai d t h em in it .
B y reading t h e l etters whic h h e wrote du ring t h ese

l ong months in Seville we can see what C olum bus was
thi nking most about He was all the w hi le trying to bring
.
p ressu r e to bear upon the K i ng to have hi s r i ghts in the

W est I nd i es gi v en back to him He believed that he .
should now be treated as one of t h e greatest men of the

times I nstead he w as left alone and unnoticed in the
.
,
port Of Sevi lle He did not even receiv e l etters he was

.
,
ill and in as pitiful a condition as h e wel l could be

,
.
1 13 E arlie r L et t er t o B ank of G e n o a
.

We h ave
alr ead y stated that b efore his fourt h v oy age C o lumbus
1 64 TH E ST ORY O F C OLU MB US
l ong time Now C olumbus t h ough t t h e bank w as not

.
even decent enough to answer his letter Th i s made him .
bitter and dissatised The truth was that the ban k had
.
answered the letter promptly and that much n otice was

taken of i t in G enoa but the news Of this never reached
,
Columbus Such th i ngs helped to make his last years

.
more bitter .
1 14
. Am e ricu s V e spu ciu s
During the last mont h s
.
at Seville C olumbus wrote an interest i ng letter about

,
Am ericus V e spu c iu s after whom the continent Of America

,
was nally named V espu c iu s had sailed along the north

.
coast Of S outh America on two different voyages O n his .
return from the second of these vo y ages he w rote a clear

and simple story about it which came to be widely read ,
while the stories of Columbus about his voyages along the

same coast were not generally known Hence the land .
came to be called America after Am ericus V espu c iu s

, .
Surely Columbus had no idea of this when he wr ote a

very kindly letter about V espu c iu s to his son V ery .
naturally t h e continent of Am erica mi ght have been called

,
Colu mbia and probably would have been so called i f

,
Columbus had wr itten a story Of his voyage as simple

and clear as that of V e spu c iu s .
The letter about V esp u c iu s written to his son Diego

,
and dated F ebruary fth 1 505 runs in part as fol l ows :

, ,
Within the past few days I have talked wi th Am ericus

V e sp u c iu s who will bear this letter to you
,
He has been .
called to the Court about matters of navigation He has .
always appeared to be friendly to me F ortune has not .
always fav ored him and in this h e i s not different from

,
many others His undertakings have not al ways been as

.
C O LU MB U S 16 5
THE LAS T YEARS OF
do anythi ng for me
which is in his power .
I hardly knew what to

tell him would be help
ful for him to do for
me because I did not
,
know why he h a d been

called to the C ourt .
F ind out w hat he can

do and he will do it
,
.
The whole thing can
pay I have had Show

.
this letter to my brother

B artholomew S O that
he may help V esp u c iu s ST AT U E O F COLUM B US A T S A N T O D O M I NG O

to be of service to u s .
1 66 THE ST ORY O F C OLUM B US
p rom i ses . F inall y a n o l d fr i end o f C o l umbus now o ne ,
of the Bi s h ops in S p ain was ap po i nted as a j udge to

,
decide between C olumbus and the Court C olumbus

.
would not give u p a s ingl e one Of t h e ri ghts and powers

which he had received from the Ki ng and Queen before he
sailed in 1 49 2 and these rights and powers the King would
,
not give back to him It looked as though the King

.
believed that Columbus was not t to govern the colonies

in the west The Ki ng was
.
willing to give C olumbus

l arge properties in Spain ,
p rovi di ng he would give up

the rights under the old
promises but this C olumbus
,
would not do This was the .
same man who before he

made his rst voyage ins i sted
M AP O F S PA I N S W I N G A LL A D O L I D S O hard on what he wanted
HO V
t h at he l eft the C ourt of Spain and started for F rance '

Diego Mendez about whom we h ave read a good deal
,
i n this story remained a true friend of Columbus until

,
the end He did all he could fo r Columbus at the Court

.
and elsewhere Columbus now remained about the C ourt

.
,
following it from city to cit y f or about a year but , ,
nothing was done for him .
1 16 . Th e E n d
.I n May 1 5 06 in the c i t y o f V alla
, ,
d o lid he began to feel that hi s end w as near

,
On May .
nineteenth he signed a w il l which he h ad w ritten i n hi s

own hand about a year before I n thi s will be made his .
so n Diego h is heir both to his property and to his title
o f A dmir al Of the I ndies I f Diego should die with out

.
1 68 THE STO RY O F C OL UMB US
that all of these bequests could be made only when his

rights are acknowledged Hitherto I neither have had
.

nor hav e I now any positive income .
A copy of this will was made in 1 5 24 b y his so n Diego

and is now in existence I t is k ept among the family
.
papers in t h e h ands of the Duke of V eragua .
O n the next day May twentieth in the city of V a lla

, ,
d olid Columbus died

,
.He died at house number seven ,
on a street called C alle de C olon 'S treet of C olumbus' ,
and this house is still shown to travelers .
1 17 C olumbu s D ie d U nn ot ic e d
.
I t i s surprising
.
almost beyond belief how little notice the world took of

the death of C olumbus The historian Peter Martyr
.
, ,
who frequently mentioned C olumbus at this very time ,
wrote ve long l etters from the city of V alladolid which

have come down to us but in them h e did not say one
,
word about the s i c kness or death Of C olumbus B ooks .
written two or thr ee years later about hi s voyages did

not mention that he was dead The man who in 1 4 93
.
h ad been received li ke a king at the C ourt of Spain was

now so forgotten that not even his death was mourned .
N O more attention was paid to his burial than would

be paid to that of any other poor person whose body is
carried to its last resting place unnoticed by all except
,
the close personal friends and the near relatives S O died .
one of the most remarkable of all men one to whom
fame h as later giv en one o f t h e hi ghest pl aces among the

v ery great .

The Story of Columbus

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THE

ESS H I STO Y I N STATE UN I E R SITY NTA NA

' B LI PPI N C OT T COMPA N Y

PH I LAD E LPH I A A N D LON D ON

P rinted by ' B L ippi nc ot t Comp an y

The Washington S qu are Press , P hi la delphia , U S A . . .

ON E o f t h e two men Who made t his boo k i s an hi stor i an.

I t i s hi s bu s in ess to try to nd out W hat people did a long

fu lly to make sure that everything in it i s a s nearly true

boys and girls I n his house t h ere i s a big r ep l ace and

in front of i t a bearskin rug I n the evening he lies down

he tells them to his dictating machine the stenographer

copies them and the pr inter makes them into books

N OW he i s telling other stories to these boys and gir ls and ,

you will hav e a c h ance to read t h em i f y ou s h ould want

4 . Map S h o win g I ta ly F rance S pa in Po rtuga l and N o rt h Afri ca

5 . Map S h o wi ng Med i terranean .

6 . Map S h o wing I s l ands D i sc o v ered b y t h e Po rtuguese

10 . Map S h owi ng Po rtuguese E xp l o rat i o ns A l o ng Co a st of Afr i ca .

11 . Map of Arag o n C ast il e and M oo ri s h S pa i n

29 . O ut li ne Map of F i rst V o y age S h owi ng Ma i n D ates

3 9 Map S h o wi ng Co urse of S ec o nd V o y age

and to we ar t h e most curious clothes wh i c h co v ered a ll

never seen people wear ing such clothes The Indians .

themselves were almost naked These strange white .

people were C hristopher Columbus and his followers who ,

h ad come across t h e A tlant i c O cean from E urope in three

prised for up to that time not a single white person l i ved

in all of what is now called America .

Why did C olumbus go across a wide ocean on a j ourney

because i n his small ships the j ourney was very dangerous .

It was not the kind of a sailing trip that people would

or was h e t rying to go to some ot h er land about which he

di d know ? I f you read this book you will nd answers ,

to these quest i ons .

We wi ll now tell the story of C olumbus where he was ,

great ocean what he was trying to nd and what he really

2 . Wh ere C olu mbu s C ame From

Co lumbus nearly all the wh i t e people of the world lived

in E urope The parts of the world about which they

knew are shown in the shaded portion of the map We .

trying to work along the west coast of A frica to see how ,

far land extended in that direction O thers had made .

long j ourneys overland eastward to India and China and ,

while there had even learned something about Japan .

Co lumbus decided to go straight out into the ocean ,

and the path along which he sailed is shown by the dotted

years when he started on his great j ourney .

this reason we give here a map which shows the countries

the cities of G enoa and Savona in Italy and the town

mentioned again in the story which follows .

It is surprising how little is known about the life of

likely in the city of G enoa The year of his birth is now

generally believed to have been 144 6 If this is true .

C olumbus was forty six years old when he started on his

j ourney from Spain across the A tlantic His father w as .

a poor man who made his livi ng by weaving cloth It is .

known that C olumbus worked wi th his father combing ,

wool and weavi ng and that people called him a wool

comber or weaver as long as he lived in Italy .

We do not know how long Columbus went to school ,

if indeed he went to school at all but we do know that in

He read and wrote L atin with ease as well as hi s own

I talian language and also Portuguese and Spanish He .