by Andrew Rowen
“My voyage will require three ships with experienced crews provisioned for a year.”
“Why a year if Cipangu is so close?”
“Your Majesty, one can never predict what trials the Lord destines in the Ocean Sea, particularly where unexplored. He may bring winds and currents that are contrary or unanticipated. As I said, the voyage should take but a few weeks in each direction, but a mariner must be very cautious. This I know from experience.”
Martin Behaim’s 1492 world globe reduced to a Mercator projection.
The sovereigns permitted their advisers to ask questions, which focused as much on the mercantile potential as the geographic considerations, as none of the advisers had the geographic sophistication of João’s Junta. As the audience drew to an end, Isabel asked the final questions.
“Do you still have family ties to Portugal?”
“No, Your Majesty. My only child, my son, is with me, living with relatives in Huelva.” Cristóbal added, “My mother-in-law is at the end of her life, in a pension in Lisbon.”
“How old is your son?”
“Five years.”
“Doesn’t all knowledge indicate this idea is fantastical?”
“Your Majesty, I have sailed to islands that were unknown to men before my birth, some discovered by Italian merchants much as myself. The prophets foretell that this can be done. I believe it’s the Lord’s wish that it be done, that Christianity be brought to Cathay.” Cristóbal discerned a slight nod of Isabel’s head, likely unintended. “The Lord needs instruments to that end—myself and a willing sovereign.”
The sovereigns thanked Colón for his proposal and dismissed him.
“We barely have the funds necessary to reclaim Grenada,” Fernando said, addressing his wife and advisers. “The council rejected the idea as senseless. If we sponsor this and fail—which seems more than likely—it would be a wasteful diversion from the war.”
“Which we can’t afford,” Isabel agreed. But she had liked Colón. He appreciated that knowledge came from the scriptures. He was self-taught and unafraid to challenge prevailing wisdom. While obviously a commoner, he was not afraid to express views contradicting the men of the royal council, who frequently thought they knew better than her. “But, even though chimeric, we should study the proposal before rejecting it.”
Fernando concurred. Colón had impressed him enough to study the plan. The sovereigns directed Fray Talavera to chair and select a commission to study Colón’s proposal and advise the sovereigns’ response. Fernando asked for a copy of Ptolemy’s Geography.
Colón was permitted to live and travel with the sovereigns’ court pending the commission’s decision. The sovereigns’ chief accountant took pity on him, seeing him penniless, and arranged food and shelter. In April, the court headed south to Córdoba, resting at Guadalupe for three days, and Cristóbal prayed to the renowned Virgin.
After arriving in Córdoba, Cristóbal was joined by Bartolemeu—Bartolomé in Spain—and they restarted the mapmaking business. Together, the brothers read and reread the learned works they obtained to demonstrate the soundness of their plan, and Bartolomé recorded his own notes with Cristóbal’s in the margins of the same books, consolidating their knowledge. Cristóbal also bought and sold books and worked for the Genoese merchant houses, locally and in Seville. He lived at the edge of poverty.
Cristóbal now had achieved introductions to the sovereigns’ senior advisers, including Talavera and Cardinal Mendoza. Cristóbal’s wit and courtesy impressed some, and his boastfulness and self-assurance put others off.
One impressed was Luis de Santángel, who appreciated the commercial benefits that would result from a successful voyage, and Luis and Cristóbal became friendly. Luis was the leader of a wealthy, prominent converso family that had converted from Judaism in response to the pogroms of 1391, as well as one of Fernando’s closest confidants, serving as chancellor of the royal household in Aragón and as Aragón’s comptroller. Luis had directed the family’s mercantile, sea-borne operations in València and Barcelona, trading with the Genoese and Portuguese, and served as a farmer of royal customs.
It was rumored that Luis had lent support to converso conspirators who had assassinated the chief inquisitor for Zaragoza2 in September 1485, and some said the conspiracy had been hatched at the home of Luis’s uncle in Zaragoza’s aljama, just a few blocks from the crime site. Within two years of the murder, two of Luis’s relatives would burn at the stake for complicity in it and adherence to Judaism, including Luis’s uncle whom Fernando’s father had knighted for military service against the Catalans decades before. Two more Santángels would burn at the stake soon thereafter, and two more would flee abroad to escape that punishment.
Having been baptized, Luis had no choice but to prove his Christianity whenever questioned, and he feared the attitudes and actions of members of his extended family would expose him to charges of heresy. He understood that Fernando protected him, his wife, and children from the Inquisition Fernando controlled, and he served Fernando with utmost loyalty.
In March 1486, João authorized Fernão Dulmo, the captain of Jesus Christo (Terceira, one of the Azores), and a partner3 to discover islands or mainland west of Jesus Christo, sailing at their own expense in return for a hereditary donation of lands discovered and reasonable titles of honor. João agreed to send troops if lands discovered required subjugation of the inhabitants.
During the summer, a second expedition led by Diogo Cão (1485– 1486) returned from Africa, although Cão had died. The captains reported that Cão had placed a second stone pillar almost twenty-two degrees south (Cape Cross, Namibia) and that the southern projection of the coast was slanting east. João and the Junta grew excited and, in October, João engaged Bartolomeu Dias to explore past this second pillar. Dias had sailed to Mina and served as superintendent of Lisbon’s royal warehouses and as patron of a royal warship, the São Cristóvão. The Crown would fund the voyage of two ships and a supply vessel and pay Dias an annuity.
Talavera was slow to convene his commission to study Colón’s proposal. Given its unlikely prospects, there was no urgency. He had many responsibilities, dominated by the tasks to oversee the church’s financial contribution to the Granadan war and its establishment in conquered territories, as well as serving as Isabel’s and often Fernando’s confessor. He believed the Reconquista and the evangelization of the sovereigns’ kingdoms to the Catholic faith were the most important tasks the Lord destined for him and devoted the spring, summer, and fall of 1486 to them.
Cristóbal’s hope for prompt review faded and he became anxious he was wasting his time, if not his life. But he traveled with the court as it moved north to winter in Salamanca, where Talavera—now bishop of Ávila—finally established the commission. Talavera chose royal advisers, scholars, and mariners, including cosmographers and geographers from the university at Salamanca and Rodrigo Maldonado, the sovereigns’ senior adviser who had negotiated the Treaty of Alcáçovas.
Talavera and Maldonado appreciated their kingdom’s competition with Portugal to secure wealth and new Christian subjects through overseas conquest. They remembered that the Treaty of Alcáçovas effectively gave João an exclusive right to circumvent Guinea to reach the Indies and that Castile’s opportunities for empire were constrained. They understood the sovereigns’ difficulties in subjugating the Canary Islands. Talavera recalled St. Augustine’s teaching—that water covered the globe’s Southern Hemisphere, not land antipodal to the Northern Hemisphere’s terra firma4—and he puzzled over whether this teaching implicated a voyage west in the Northern Hemisphere. Talavera and Maldonado would be pleased if Colón’s proposal actually were achievable. Talavera called the commission’s first meetings that November.
The geographers on the commission thought Colón’s assertion— that only 4,000 miles separated the Canary Islands and Cathay—was absurd. They felt geographic knowledge had advanced beyond the biblical prophecies and ancient theories on which Card
inal d’Ailly relied. If one accepted Ptolemy, it was more than twice that distance. If one accepted Eratosthenes (ca. 276–195 BC), it was almost 10,000 miles.
The mariners on the commission were just as skeptical. Every sailor knew stories of dead bodies, carvings, and debris of sunken boats washed ashore. Who could possibly proclaim from where they had floated? Colón had told the sovereigns bodies of Tartars had washed onto Flores, but they likely were just drowned fishermen from Faial or Jesus Christo.
Talavera invited Colón to present his proposal to the commission in the university’s audience chamber and, when he entered, the two men greeted each other courteously. The bishop observed that Colón didn’t appear cowed in the slightest, perhaps hiding anxiety well, but more likely entirely convinced he knew truth. It was obvious he lived on meager resources.
Cristóbal began his presentation extolling the wealth of the Indies and its use to complete the Reconquista and recapture of Jerusalem. While many on the commission perceived pandering, the bishop did not rush to that judgment, and he saw an underlying faith in the Lord. As all expected, Cristóbal presented Bartolomé’s map and explained that Cipangu could be achieved within four or five weeks’ sail and other islands possibly sooner, drawing support from Esdras, Aristotle, Seneca, and Cardinal D’Ailly—as well as Marco Polo—and reconciling Ptolemy and Marinus of Tyre.
“Marco Polo wasn’t a geographer—he was a merchant,” interrupted a geographer, quickly revealing the geographers’ collective distaste for Marco Polo. “His descriptions of places he boasts of visiting provide no indication of latitude or longitude, only days traveled between places and estimates of mileage and direction. But you rely on him to conclude terra firma is more than fifty percent greater than Ptolemy’s analysis!”
Cristóbal was prepared. “Aristotle, Esdras, Seneca, and Cardinal D’Ailly all would say Ptolemy’s estimate of terra firma is too short. None relied on Marco Polo. One might view Marco Polo’s observations as corroborating them.” He shied from invoking Toscanelli, apprehensive João’s rejection of Toscanelli rendered his view unpersuasive and that João would view the Toscanelli correspondence as Portugal’s property.
The geographer persisted. “Other than Marco Polo, who writes of your Cipangu?”
“I believe Marco Polo was the first.”
The geographers began to murmur in disappointment. Some chortled that Marco Polo was also the last to so write. Cristóvão fought to conceal the blush that crept over his face, stricken by a revulsion to ever mention the Venetian to geographers again.
A second geographer spoke. “Putting aside the fact they are Portuguese possessions, wouldn’t it be best to sail from the Azores? Flores and Corvo are considerably west of the Canaries.”
“As all recognize, the Azores are Portuguese. I’m committed to sail for King Fernando and Queen Isabel. King João certainly can be expected to attempt to sail from the Azores, if he hasn’t done so already. He might also attempt from the Cape Verde Islands.” Cristóbal resolutely withheld divulging his plan to sail from the Canaries, lest it be usurped.
The room became silent, as the assembled remembered their accountability either way for their determination. If they lightly dismissed Colón and King João succeeded in an attempt sailing west to Cathay, the sovereigns would remember their failure.
“There’s no need for the Azores,” Cristóbal continued. “My plan is based on sailing from Castile or its possessions alone.”
“Suppose you’re correct as to Cipangu and the distance to it,” a mariner interrupted. “Commencing a voyage into 2,700 miles of uncharted ocean is fraught with peril. If the winds and sea are adverse you will never make it there, correct? And if you do make it, how will you ever get back?”
“These are questions every mariner rightfully asks. My experience with the Ocean Sea is that, over an extended period, one can find the right wind to make progress, in almost any direction. The ships will need to be provisioned for one year’s sail.”
“Your drinking water won’t last half that long,” another mariner interrupted. “And the crew will toss you overboard well before then to return home—if they still can. Even if you convince this room that Aristotle’s or whoever’s observations justify an attempt to cross the Ocean Sea, how will you recruit a single man whose life depends on it?”
Cristóbal sensed hostility and was affronted, certain his experience at sea dwarfed that of the mariners present. Talavera perceived the condescension and watched Colón respond in a manner he and many other commissioners found arrogant and evasive. Soon, the bishop wearied that the frictions weren’t producing new information, and he introduced another issue. “How many ships do you need, and what are the rewards you request?”
Cristóbal replied without hesitation. “I request the sovereigns sponsor three ships and crews. If I discover or acquire islands or mainland, I would be knighted and entitled to their hereditary governorship and a portion of their profits in perpetuity. If I don’t, the sovereigns have lost the expense of the voyage.”
Talavera was astounded, as were the other commission members, and the room was silent. Cristóbal anticipated the surprise and unabashedly addressed the reward’s justification, reviewing the genius, expertise, and courage involved and—above all—the wealth and aggrandizement of the faith to be attained. As Colón spoke, Talavera cringed at his own assessment of Colón’s religious sincerity, disturbed that Colón appeared but an adventurer. Talavera would not entertain or discuss these terms. He indicated the committee would consider Colón’s presentation and dismissed him.
When spring arrived, the sovereigns returned to Córdoba to commence the campaign to take Málaga, and the commission completed its review in Córdoba after Fernando departed for the battlefield. It unanimously recommended that Colón’s proposal was not feasible. The expense of the effort would be a waste, Castile’s wealth would not be increased, the sovereigns’ reputation would be tarnished, and the crews likely would perish.
Pending the sovereigns’ final review, Talavera authorized a small sum dispensed to Colón in reimbursement of his expenses at court. Cristóbal’s utter disappointment was transparent to all. His boastfulness had made many enemies at court, and they mocked his ideas and failure.
GUACANAGARÍ, MAYOBANEX, AND GUARIONEX
On the Border of Marien, Ciguayo, and Magua
Ciguayan fishermen were trolling along Haiti’s northern coast when they spotted Caribe canoes far offshore speeding west. They alerted the local cacique, who dispatched smoke signals to be relayed west to their cacique Mayobanex at his highland village and farther to Guacanagarí in Marien. Mayobanex received the warning that day and departed to the coast with his most experienced general and warriors, and Guacanagarí would receive it the following morning, concerned but pleased for a valid opportunity to lead warriors.
Mayobanex encamped at the coast in the evening, too late to sight the raiders, and his general, a short, elderly man, studied the ocean current through the night. He viewed hunting the Caribes as similar to hunting a shark whose fin surfaced and then vanished. Each was capable of traveling a certain distance from where sighted—the Caribes being significantly affected by the surf. Each returned to familiar hunting grounds—the Caribes to villages nestled in forest close to the sea, permitting surprise attack and quick escape.
Mayobanex rose before dawn and dispatched his swiftest scouts ahead west along the coast to inquire of local caciques whether their subjects had noticed anything unusual—perhaps a freshly broken campsite, smoke in an uninhabited area, or the sound of paddling at night. Late that evening, after trekking the entire day, Mayobanex entered a coastal village, where the local cacique reported two fishermen missing. The general questioned him. Were the fishermen healthy? Were they expert at sea? The cacique affirmed they were both. The sea claimed fishermen occasionally, but the Caribes executed anyone they encountered to prevent exposure of their position. Mayobanex had a premonition of their presence and honored Yúcahu to
reveal more.
Guacanagarí then stood atop the high plateau beyond the Yaque on Haiti’s northern shore (Cabo del Morro), having transported his troops there by canoe in but one day. He gazed east into the nighttime gloom over the ocean, proud of his troops’ readiness and eager to prove their mettle. He recognized Mayobanex likely was closer to the Caribes and honored Yúcahu to reveal the enemy to him first.
Yúcahu answered neither man the next day. Their scouts’ vigil seaward was futile, and nothing was learned from the local caciques. They continued to trek toward each other, each retiring at night with a premonition of failure—that shortly he would learn that a raid had occurred and, in Guacanagarí’s case, that Mayobanex had vanquished the Caribes alone.
Both men and their warriors converged to meet the next afternoon in a small village in a border territory between their two cacicazgos and Guarionex’s Magua. Guacanagarí knew enough Macorix, and Mayobanex enough Taíno, for simple conversation, and the local cacique interpreted when necessary. Guacanagarí greeted the older Mayobanex deferentially, remarking that it was an honor to witness feared Ciguayan warriors in the field with their bows and arrow. Mayobanex was surprised to meet Guacanagarí so far east so soon and complimented his troops.
After dinner, as daylight faded, one of Mayobanex’s scouts entered the village with the report all had sought—in a nearby village, the scout had heard reports of whispers in a mangrove thicket and, upon investigation, surmised at least a hundred warriors camped within. Mayobanex bid his general propose a plan to Guacanagarí.
“Tonight, I will dispatch scouts to study where our warriors should be positioned to attack at dawn’s twilight, marking the positions with cocuyos [fireflies as large as beetles],” the general advised. “If the Caribes hear us, they will flee, so it may not be possible to get so close.”