Encounters Unforeseen- 1492 Retold

by Andrew Rowen

  “We can do it,” Cousin replied confidently.

  Bakako and Cousin paddled forward, gingerly crossing the reef, the water’s surface heaving and sinking below them as bubbling water flushed onto and from the reef, seething froth. The canoe entered the ocean, rising and falling on its small waves.

  “How far should we go?” Bakako asked immediately, surprised that the swell topped the hull when the bow descended into the trough, even though the waves were small.

  Father paused a few moments before replying. “This is far enough. It seems rougher here than we thought—don’t you think? The canoe feels smaller. You’d better turn around and get back inside the reef.”

  Cousin veered the canoe to port, and spray flew over the rim as waves smacked broadside to the hull. The boys struggled to make the full turn, and the tip of a wave spat over the bow, coldly slapping and frightening Bakako.

  “Pull harder, boys!” urged Uncle.

  Bakako and Cousin swiped their paddles mightily, but the canoe barely moved forward, the wind and small waves pushing it backward. They pulled harder, panting, but to little avail. Bakako felt the awesome power of the sea and recalled he was a child.

  Father and Uncle let them struggle a few minutes, and then took their own paddles to propel the canoe safely within the reef, gliding toward home.

  Bakako sagged with relief. After hauling the canoe onto the beach, Father grasped him firmly and stared into his eyes. “Remember, when you learn to fish without myself or an adult, stay within the barrier. Always. If you pass beyond, you might never return.”

  CRISTÓBAL, ISABEL, FERNANDO, AND TALAVERA

  Palos, Audience with Sovereigns, and Talavera Commission, 1485–1487

  Cristóvão brought Diogo to Grandmother Isabel’s pension in Lisbon to say good-bye. Isabel held the four-year-old tenderly between her legs, whispered that his aunt Violante in Huelva would love him, and tearfully hugged and kissed him farewell, heartbroken the Lord had endowed her daughter with poor health and destined marriage to a dreamer. Cristóvão hugged her, and they parted with a bittersweet stare, acknowledging that life hadn’t worked out as either planned.

  Cristóvão and son trod sadly to the Carmo church to say farewell to Filipa, and the boy cried before her tomb in the family chapel. Cristóvão held him and swore to Filipa that he regretted his absences, thanked her for taking him as husband, promised that their boy would remember her and her lineage, and humbled himself to pray that the Lord bless her for treating him as an equal. He left the church with his son on his shoulder, and the boy slept as they descended the steep hillside to the port and Bartolomeu’s shop. Defeat enveloped Cristóvão, the departures from Isabel and Filipa sundering his last ties to Portugal.

  That night, as Diogo slept on a mat in the corner, Cristóvão and Bartolomeu agreed to their final preparations. The ship was bound initially for Palos de la Frontera, nearby Huelva, and Cristóvão and Diogo would board before dawn to avoid Cristóvão’s creditors, who would be alarmed to spot him embarking with his son. Bartolomeu would remain in Lisbon as Cristóvão sought an audience with the Castilian sovereigns, closing the shop in a practical manner and then sailing to Guinea as he had committed. They eventually would reunite in Castile, likely in Seville where the Centuriones and di Negros had representatives.

  Bartolomeu had drawn a map of the world for Cristóvão to present to the sovereigns, depicting the coasts of Europe and Africa to the right, the mainland of Cathay to the left, and, in the Ocean Sea, the Canary Islands east of Cipangu, with Cipangu surrounded by an archipelago of islands. Distances were not marked. The brothers would study the ancient and modern learning to credential their plan in a manner that would be convincing to the Castilian court geographers and other supposed learned men. They had resolved never again to be speechless before experts or perceived as ignorant or uneducated.

  Before dawn, Cristóvão and Bartolomeu embraced deeply and parted. Cristóvão and Diego boarded the caravel unnoticed, and by noon the ship was sailing south in the Ocean Sea. At sunset, they leaned on the starboard rail and Cristóvão held Diogo closely, sobered that he alone was responsible for the boy, sad that he hadn’t tutored him as Domenico had tutored himself. Cristóvão softly explained that the Lord had made the sun, moon, and stars to circle the earth, with the sun circling to the west to disappear over the western horizon.

  In the morning, father and son leaned on the port rail as the caravel rounded Cape St. Vincent, and Cristóvão related that Prince Henrique had once lived nearby. As they passed Lagos, he recounted how pirates had sunk him. When he sighted Cádiz, he explained they were in Castile and that Diogo would call himself Diego thereafter and learn Castilian.

  With the tide rising, the caravel crossed the sandbars off Palos, where two rivers met the ocean, and veered north into the Río Tinto, whereupon Cristóvão spied a large white building sitting alone atop a bluff beyond the river marshes. The pilot explained it was the Franciscan Monastery of Santa María de la Rábida, and Cristóvão decided to pray there to honor St. Francis for the safe voyage. The caravel floated up the river to anchor off Palos’s church of St. George, and father and son disembarked in Castile. With Diego at his side, Cristóbal Colón—as he would be known in Spain—set off along a dusty road winding south upon the river bluff to the monastery.

  A porter met them at the monastery’s gate, and Cristóbal requested bread and water for his son, whereupon the porter led them inside to a dining room. Cristóbal let on that they had departed Lisbon where he had dealings with King João, and the porter, surprised by the visitor’s importance, alerted the senior churchman present, Fray Antonio de Marchena, who came to introduce himself.

  Marchena administered La Rábida and other Franciscan monasteries. He also had a keen interest in cosmography and astronomy and was acquainted with the ancient and modern learning regarding the earth’s geography. He was surprised to learn Cristóbal had sought some ships to sail westward to the Indies and indicated that he would be interested to hear the whole story, inviting Cristóbal and Diego to stay the night and providing a cell.

  After vespers, the two men sat alone and Cristóbal recounted the discussions with João. Fascinated, Fray Marchena probed the evidence introduced to support the plan, and Cristóbal recited the accounts of driftwood, dead bodies, and Marco Polo, and boasted of his travels on the Ocean Sea. Marchena asked if he had read Ptolemy or Cardinal Pierre d’Ailly, and Cristóbal admitted he had not. Marchena advised that there were learned men who believed the sailing distance between Spain and the Indies was short, and Cristóbal confirmed he knew that. As the night grew long, the two men felt the growing warmth of a strong mutual respect and trust.

  They continued their conversation the next day. The friar was taken by the Genoese’s practical experience and his enthusiasm, wit, and strong faith. Cristóbal was taken by the friar’s learning and grasp of the idea. Cristóbal revealed that he intended to seek an audience to present his idea to King Fernando and Queen Isabel. As the day passed, he confided more and more of the plan and, by evening, he drew Bartolomeu’s map of the world from his sack to explain it.

  Marchena was astounded his visitor was so bold to produce a map to present to the very king and queen, and he offered to help seek the sovereigns’ audience in Córdoba. Cristóbal, humbled by the confidence and support of a learned man, perceived his chance encounter with the friar a sign of destiny. Marchena also offered to guide him to the geographical learning that supported his plan and to provide Diego board and education at La Rábida while Cristóbal pursued the audience. An enduring bond between the two men was established.

  Within days, Cristóbal took Diego by ferry to meet Violante in Huelva, to whom he explained his situation and intent to depart for Córdoba. Violante welcomed her nephew into her home, pleased that he could be educated at La Rábida. With Marchena’s endorsement, Cristóbal wrote the royal council requesting a sovereign audience. Marchena advised a response would take time, as Fernando and
Isabel were preoccupied with the assault on Ronda.

  Palos and Huelva, and the neighboring Moguer, were sailors’ towns, where most men either fished or shipped on commercial voyages through the Mediterranean or along the European coast. They proudly held the sea was their domain, not the sovereigns’, and had trafficked for decades in gold and slaves from Guinea in violation of King Enrique and Isabel’s recognition of Portugal’s rights to Guinea. They regularly concealed their trade to avoid payment of crown taxes and had even plundered Portuguese vessels for slave cargos. Word spread quickly from tavern to tavern that a Genoese boarding at Rábida had petitioned the king to sponsor a voyage west into the Ocean Sea, and an elderly resident of Palos, Pedro de Velasco, came to Rábida to introduce himself to Cristóbal.

  Pedro had served as pilot on Diogo de Teive’s voyage discovering the westernmost Azorian islands, Corvo and Flores, thirty-three years earlier. He recounted that, after discovering the two islands, d’Teive had sailed to a latitude of approximately 51 degrees, equivalent to the southern coast of Ireland. They had failed to sight land there and had turned back because the season was late. But the sea was relatively calm regardless of stiff westerly winds, indicating a large sheltering landmass to the west. Pedro encouraged Cristóbal to pursue his plan.

  Cristóbal left Diego with Violante and departed for Córdoba to await the royal council’s response. His savings had dwindled and he lived day-to-day on support from Marchena, Violante, and new acquaintances in the Cordovan Genoese community, all while maintaining the pretense of being a successful merchant’s agent. He turned to study ancient and modern geographical texts to amass evidence that the distance from Hispania to the Indies was shorter than Ptolemy’s estimate, to prove that terra firma—Cape St. Vincent overland to Cathay, and then to Cipangu—stretched far longer than presently understood, thereby resulting in an Ocean Sea—Cape St. Vincent to Cipangu—far shorter.

  Cristóbal read works Marchena suggested, including Cardinal Pierre d’Ailly’s Ymago Mundi (Description of the World, ca. 1410) and Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini’s Historia rerum ubique gestarum (Universal History, ca. 1450), jotting down notes of key points helpful to his argument in the margins of the texts.1 The former confirmed Cristóbal’s belief that the earth’s circumference was about 18,800 miles. Cristóbal also marginally noted his own observations—bodies blown ashore, climate, and the like—integrating his experience with these authorities. He studied copies or recountings of John Mandeville’s Travels (ca. 1360), Marco Polo’s Il Milione (Travels of Marco Polo, ca. 1298), and Ptolemy’s Guide to Drawing a Map of the World—the Geography—for the first time.

  The modern French theologian and cosmographer Cardinal d’Ailly was clear: the Ocean Sea had far less breadth than Ptolemy thought because Ptolemy had underestimated the portion of the earth being terra firma. The Cardinal believed that the distance of terra firma from the Orient to Cathay alone—excluding Europe—was half the globe, so the Ocean Sea was far shorter than half the globe. He cited as proof that King Solomon’s mariners had spent three years sailing from the Red Sea to Ophir in India and back. He responded to the tradition that Jerusalem was in terra firma’s center (Ezekiel 5:5) by explaining that it was in the center of the Promised Land, but not the center of terra firma.

  The cardinal found support for his conclusion in a biblical prophet—the Jewish sage Esdras (ca. last decade of the first century AD)—who had taught that the earth was one part water and six parts land. The cardinal argued that the distance from Hispania west to the Indies was consistent with that proportion. He credentialed Esdras by noting that St. Augustine had endorsed Esdras as a prophet, and Cristóbal was taken by the simplicity and sanctity of Esdras’s teaching.

  Cristóbal also discovered that Ptolemy’s predecessor Marinus of Tyre (ca. AD 100) had estimated that terra firma extended farther than Ptolemy thought—five-eighths of the globe’s circumference as opposed to just one-half. As Ptolemy, Marinus had not understood the extent of the Indies discovered by Marco Polo nor the existence of Cipangu. Cristóbal decided to assert that the Indies unknown to Marinus, Cipangu, and other adjustments added about one-fifth of the globe more to terra firma than Marinus’s estimation, resulting in a breadth of terra firma and Cipangu of almost six parts of the globe, and a breadth of Ocean Sea between the Canaries and Cipangu of about one part. This matched and was confirmed by Esdras’s prophecy.

  Taking these arguments, Cristóbal achieved proof for roughly 4,000 miles from the Canary Islands west to Quinsay (Hangzhou) and 2,700 miles from the Canary Islands west to Cipangu, disregarding any islands lying east off Cipangu. The longest open sea sailing distance from Europe to the Indies was thus at most 2,700 miles, a distance clearly traversable by well-provisioned modern caravels. As Esdras had prophesized, the Ocean Sea extended 2,700 miles over a globe with a circumference of 18,800 miles.

  During the summer, the royal council met with Colón to discuss his request for a sovereign audience and denied it. Marchena and Colón appealed. Through friendships at court, Marchena eventually arranged an audience with the sovereigns in January 1486 at their winter court in Alcalá de Henares. The friar offered Cristóbal advice regarding his presentation: the king and queen were deeply engaged in the highest endeavor of a Christian prince—casting the infidel from the realm—and it would be sensible for Cristóbal to commend that and explain his proposal’s import to the Catholic faith, particularly to the queen.

  Cristóbal spent most of his remaining savings to purchase a velvet silk cape and fine woolen garments for the audience, befitting a successful merchant meeting his sovereign. On January 20, he was ushered into the salon in the sovereign’s residence in Alcalá de Henares to meet Isabel and Fernando and some advisers. His heart pounded, but less so than with João, his mind crammed with a presentation— and arguments and counterarguments—well rehearsed.

  Cristóbal knelt and Fernando bade him rise. Isabel handed Catalina to her nurse and invited him to speak, indicating she understood that he had sought to convince King João of a proposal to sail west to Cathay but that João had denied him. He nodded and replied that he had married nobility in Lisbon but had no continuing relationship with King João or Portugal, his wife having died. He related his experience and then revealed his plan.

  “The Portuguese are splendid mariners, but the route circumventing Guinea is not proven, and, if proven, it will be much longer than west across the Ocean Sea. The wealth of Cathay is astounding, and the sovereign to reach it first will realize tremendous gain. Islands may be discovered offshore to Cathay to facilitate trade with the Grand Khan—much as the Genoese colony in Scio facilitates trade with the Orient to the east. Islands or mainlands may be possessed yielding gold in quantities surpassing João’s Mina.”

  Cristóbal turned his gaze directly to the queen. Her visage was harsher than he had imagined, her eyes confident of an ability to discern and judge. “For centuries, the Grand Khans have sought Christian emissaries to teach them Christianity, and it will augment your glory to be the sovereigns that bring the Tartars and Mongols to the Faith. You may use the riches from the trade to complete the Reconquista, further multiplying your fame, and for which I pray fervently every day.” He turned to the king, whose frame was shorter and leaner than his own, and gauged Fernando’s piercing stare, revealing an intent to scrutinize both man and plan. “The wealth will surpass that required for the Reconquista. It will fund your retaking Jerusalem.”

  “My friend João is astute in maritime discovery,” Fernando drily noted. “What’s your plan, and why’s it feasible?”

  “My plan is to sail due west,” Cristóbal responded, inferring by the steel of Fernando’s gaze that, in spite of Marchena’s advice, expressions of faith would not move the king. “My calculations indicate that Cipangu may be achieved in five or six weeks’ afloat, assuming favorable wind and current.” Cristóbal paused to draw Bartolomeu’s map from a pouch, laid it on the floor before the sovereigns, and waited as they studied
it before resuming. “The distance to Cipangu is no more than 2,700 miles, and islands may be encountered before then. This is longer than an unbroken sail from the Cape Verde Islands to Lisbon—which sailors do frequently—but it’s feasible. Cathay is just over 1,000 miles from Cipangu thereafter.” He paused again, encouraged that the map intrigued them, and then finished. “Aristotle and Seneca said the Indies were but a few days’ sail from Spain. It’s more than a few days—it’s a few weeks. The prophet Esdras taught that the Lord created the earth to be one part water and six parts land, and my calculations are consistent with that prophecy.”

  “I thought Ptolemy believed the distance far greater,” Fernando replied. He turned to Luis de Santángel, one of the advisers present.

  “Ptolemy calculated the Ocean Sea covered half the globe,” Luis replied.

  “Ptolemy lived over a millennium ago and didn’t know the extent of terra firma as we know today,” Cristóbal responded. “He didn’t know how far east Cathay extended or that Cipangu existed.” For an instant, he recalled Master Rodrigo’s reaction to being told that Ptolemy was wrong. “Ptolemy wasn’t wrong as to what he knew, he simply didn’t know what we know today.” Cristóvão perceived Isabel’s eyes flicker, perhaps impressed with his prescience.

  “The Portuguese have tried to sail west before and never succeeded,” Fernando replied. “What’s different in what you propose?”

  “They have tried to find Antillia, not sail to the Indies by reaching Cipangu. João understands that the circumvention of Guinea has not achieved the Indies, and I suspect he will try westward again.” Cristóbal wouldn’t reveal his understandings of the wind and current at the Canary Islands or that the Canaries would be his departure point. He held his breath, waiting for Fernando to probe.

  Fernando was disappointed by the response’s brevity but didn’t press, perceiving it calculated rather than unintended. He focused more on the warning as to the stakes involved. “We are engaged in Holy War. What are the resources you request were we to approve this plan?”