Encounters Unforeseen- 1492 Retold

by Andrew Rowen

  Without mentioning the Santa María’s demise, Cristóbal explained that he had taken possession of a large town on Española in the best location for the island’s gold mines and trading with both the Grand Khan and Spain. He had constructed a fort and left a sufficient number of crewmen there, with arms and provisions for a year and a great friendship with a friendly king who called Cristóbal a brother. Even if this king were hostile, the men left could defend themselves and destroy the land—assuming they knew how to govern themselves. Cristóbal promised he would provide the sovereigns as much gold as they needed—provided the sovereigns lent further assistance—as well as spices, cotton, aloe, and mastic, and as many slaves as they ordered shipped, who would be taken from the idolaters.

  Cristóbal remembered his queen, her abiding faith, and their special bond and included in the private letter much the same information, but emphasizing spiritual triumphs and divine and personal aspects. The expedition had placed very large crosses in many harbors discovered throughout the journey. The Lord had ordained the discovery of innumerable peoples and gold mines, and, from Española, would give the sovereigns gold, pepper, mastic, cotton, and aloe, as well as immumerable slaves from the idolaters. When the sovereigns ordered slaves, Cristóbal would send Caribes for the most part. Cristóbal indicated Bakako had taken his friendship, without naming the boy, and related how Guacanagarí distributed food among his subjects, characterizing it as a very singular manner of existence.

  Cristóbal also pronounced that, in seven years, he would be able to pay the sovereigns for 5,000 cavalry and 50,000 foot soldiers to conquer Jerusalem, asserting that was the purpose for underwriting the voyage. Subsequent profits would pay for doubling those numbers. He warned against delays—as suffered with respect to the first voyage—and he implored that the church send prelates to evangelize the Indians, admonishing that those the pope provided should be free of greed. Bitterly, Cristóbal reminded the sovereigns that he had languished seven years, borne a thousand indignities, and suffered much hardship to achieve the voyage, which happened due to his importuning them. His purpose was to serve the Lord and them and to bring the business of the Indies to perfection—for which he was due honors according to his service. He requested they seek a cardinalate for his son when they wrote the pope.

  As Cristóbal wrote his letters, on February 4, the Niña and Pinta encountered the northwesterly gale he had anticipated at the Azores and veered east to Spain, with the wind astern. Two days later, Vicente believed they were south of Flores. The wind shifted to the east for two days and progress slowed but, by February 10, Vicente, Pero Alonso, and Sancho agreed they had passed east of the Azores and were approaching Madeira and Porto Santo. Cristóbal disagreed, believing that Flores now lay to the north and that they were 150 leagues farther west.

  On February 12, the seas grew high and the weather stormy. Cristóbal and his officers weren’t surprised, for that was typical of the Ocean Sea at this latitude in the winter. Cristóbal stored his letters and turned to brave the Ocean Sea.

  VIOLENT STORM, OFF AZORES,

  February 12–15, 1493

  Bakako and Yutowa huddled on the stern deck, helping to tend a signal lantern’s fire and coveting its warmth, yet shivering naked in the gale howling from the southwest. Bakako grimaced as an enormous wave curled into the ship below him and broke along the starboard rail, propelling the stern violently upward as the wave crested and then precipitously downward into the trailing trough as the bow jutted to the sky. Sailors on deck clutched masts, ropes, and bulwarks dearly to avoid being swept overboard, and sailors in the hold secured everything movable lest they be impaled as objects careened about. Bakako studied the Pinta labor to stern and remembered that, unlike canoes, the pale beings’ vessels could shatter and sink. He realized that Guabancex was furiously approaching and honored her, assuring her he hadn’t ignored her power and authority.

  At dusk, the crew sang the customary hymn to the Virgin with extraordinary conviction. Every man—crew and captive—was bone cold, wet, and hungry. The provisions had dwindled to support but one meal a day. Bakako joined the crew to worship the Virgin. But he had studied Admiral’s statuette being or depicting her many times, and he dismissed her understanding of the wind and sea. The memory of Father invoking Yúcahu when the squall drove them west from Guanahaní flickered through his thoughts, and Bakako also honored Yúcahu, pledging reverence surpassing that offered the Virgin so Yúcahu not be jealous.

  As night fell, the sea grew more turbulent, and waves and harsh spray swept the deck frequently, drenching all. Admiral’s servants offered Bakako and Yutowa clothing and Admiral joined them in the halo of the lantern to study the weather. An enormous lightning bolt forked broadly across the heavens to the north-northeast. Bakako understood that Guabancex’s herald Guataúba had arrived, undoubtedly to warn that his master’s anger grew severe. Within moments, Guataúba struck twice again, and Admiral explained that the storm would grow worse.

  Cristóbal watched the Pinta’s lantern disappear and reappear in the tumult and reminded Bakako and Yutowa that maintaining their lantern’s fire was essential for keeping the ships together. He ordered sails furled, abandoning forward progress in the darkness to focus singularly on safely floating the towering waves. He esteemed the Niña’s seaworthiness and remained on the stern deck most of the night, frequently conferring with Juan Niño as to the ship’s integrity and Pero Alonso as to her bearing within the onslaught.

  Dawn emerged from darkness slowly on February 13, as thunderclouds blanketed the sky to all horizons, and Cristóbal ordered some sails unfurled. Bakako recognized that the wind had abated slightly but the sea was more tormented, engulfing the Niña in a fashion he had never beheld. Enormous pyramidal swells arrived from the west, as if propelled by another spirit, crossing violently and unpredictably with the waves blown by the southwestern gale. Ceaselessly, every wave now curled and crashed onto the deck. The day’s only meal— cazabi and sweet potato—was dispensed at midday to the men at their posts, and all gulped it down lest it be lost to the sea.

  Cristóbal asked his page Pedro to call out the seamen’s verses of Psalm 107. From memory, Pedro shouted above the howl that the Lord raises the stormy wind to lift the waves, mounting sailors to the heavens and dropping them to the depths, melting their souls and reeling them to and fro like drunken men until they cry at wits end to the Lord in their trouble—whereupon the Lord hears them, calms the storm, and stills the waves to bring them from distress to their haven. The crew prayed to the Lord, and Bakako and Yutowa joined them, believing it could only help. They then appealed fervently to Yúcahu, with faith in his greater stature.

  Cristóbal feared the hulls would buckle. As dusk arrived, he ordered the sails furled again but for a portion of the mainsail reefed and hung low to leave the ship sufficient power to weave between the cross waves. He observed the Pinta had parted considerable distance and pitched and bruised worse than the Niña, and he ordered additional lanterns fired so the ships maintained contact.

  The storm strengthened into the night, and Cristóbal and Juan Niño determined Niña could no longer withstand the beating of the waves to starboard. They ordered Pero Alonso to abandon the eastern course and let the ship run with the wind farther northeast, its high stern bearing the brunt of the sea. The Pinta did the same and soon disappeared from sight. The waves broke relentlessly through Niña’s rudder port, washing over the deck and crew below. All were freezing numb. All confessed their sins.

  At dawn on February 14, the men on the Niña and Pinta awoke to see the other had vanished. Each crew surmised the other likely had perished and a pall of gloom, despair, and death overcame both ships. Sailors writhed that their private stashes of gold were for naught and bitterly regretted having enlisted upon the Genoese’s entreaty of riches. They cursed that the Genoese had cajoled them to continue the voyage when they had wanted to turn back.

  Cristóbal had brushed death at sea before and accepted th
at the Lord gave life and took it according to his design. While Cristóbal felt no charity toward the crew, he confessed that he had promised riches, not death. He ached that death would rob him of the glory of his triumph and the sovereigns of the victory due their support. His detractors would never concede his geographic theory was correct! His nobility would never be acclaimed!

  Cristóbal grimly realized he had done all worldly that could be done to save Niña and that the only resort was an extraordinary appeal to divine providence. He summoned the crew to prove their devotion by vowing that a pilgrimage be made on their behalf to worship at the shrine of the revered Santa María de Guadalupe. A chickpea was carved with a cross and placed in a sailor’s cap with unmarked peas. Shouting to be heard above the gale, Cristóbal gravely explained to the men huddled about him that, if the Virgin heard their vows and saved the ship, the man who drew the crossed pea would serve as the pilgrim to Guadalupe and present the Virgin a five-pound wax candle.

  Bakako watched the shivering pale men—far paler now than he had ever seen them—fervently pledge the pilgrimage if selected. Admiral put his hand in the cap and drew the crossed pea. Admiral, and each crewman and captive, prayed fervently to the Virgin that their devotion be heard and rewarded with Niña’s salvation. Bakako and Yutowa honored Attabeira in case she could help.

  The storm did not abate, and the Niña continued to scud with the sea, seemingly doomed on a course northeast to a landless horizon. Cristóbal’s faith wavered, and he asked why the Lord had enlightened him as to the certainty of the voyage and crowned it with victory, aggrandizing the sovereigns and squashing his opponents—only to have all hindered by his death!

  Cristóbal summoned the crewmen together to prove their devotion again. They gathered numb and forlorn midship to vow a second pilgrimage to the renowned Santa María di Loreto in the Papal States, where it was said the Virgin performed miracles (Loreto, Italy). A sailor drew the crossed pea, and Cristóbal promised to pay his expenses. They pledged a third pilgrimage to the Niña’s namesake and patron saint, Santa Clara, at the church of Santa Clara de Moguer, committing to pay for mass and that the pilgrim selected would pray for an entire night. Cristóbal drew first and selected the crossed pea. They vowed yet a fourth pilgrimage to be made together—barefoot and wearing only shirts in the cold—to the first church dedicated to the Virgin they encountered. As the crew worshipped the Virgin, Bakako and Yutowa returned to honor Guabancex, believing the only remaining hope was to assuage her anger, the source of the fury.

  As night fell, Cristóbal’s faith wavered again. He asked whether the Lord intended to allow the voyage’s completion or to humiliate him for his faults so that he not enjoy worldly fulfillment. He cried that Diego and little Fernando would be orphaned in Córdoba without a legitimate mother and that the sovereigns would have no reason to support them, believing the voyage a failure.

  As the sea convulsed about the Niña, Cristóbal retired alone to his space in the hold and by candlelight hastily composed a final message on parchment to the sovereigns summarizing his discovery, the peoples encountered, and the men left at Navidad. He inscribed its outer fold with the instruction that a thousand ducats be paid to the person who delivered it unopened to the sovereigns, whereupon the parchment was set in a wax cake and sealed in a barrel. The crew beheld the barrel thrown overboard, unaware that the Admiral had prepared for their death and perceiving it an additional measure of devotion.

  But the Virgin still did not hear! Driving rain enveloped the ship, and Cristóbal’s legs stiffened so he labored walking.

  On the Pinta, the situation was as dire. Martín tried bravely to lead his crew, but he was feverish. The cold, wet violence of the storm and his hunger compounded his illness. He anguished that he had recruited everyone, their children would be orphans, and their gold would lie on the sea’s bottom.

  During the night, the sky cleared, the rain ceased, and the wind slowly abated. While the seas remained high, Cristóbal set a course again, east-northeast. When dawn broke, the cold, dazed, exhausted, sleepless, and hungry crews of both ships beheld a navigable sea and were humbled beyond expression. They fell to their knees on the deck, crying and adoring the Virgin for her intervention. On Niña, Bakako and Yutowa adored Guabancex, Yúcahu, and Attabeira, as well.

  A sailor on Niña sighted land. Some thought it Castile, others Portugal, and others Madeira. Cristóbal thought it one of the Azores, where he had never intended to call. Cristóbal realized the hunger and exhaustion of the crew and damage to the ship left no choice but to harbor on Portuguese territory. He considered that there might be occasion to dispatch a copy of his public letter, and he dated it as done February 15. He feared the sovereigns would misinterpret harboring on Portuguese territory as disloyalty and that João might treat it as a willful trespass.

  SANTA MARÍA, AZORES,

  February 15–24, 1493

  Vicente, Pero Alonso, and Sancho peered into the fog toward the landmass, perhaps fifteen miles east-northeast. The wind reversed to blow from that direction, requiring the ship to tack against the wind, and heavy waves continued to roll from the west. The Niña labored in the swell and failed landfall—to the crews’ bitter chagrin. By dusk, the three recognized the land to be an island, possibly Madeira. The next day, they sighted another island to the west and understood that consistent with sailing among the Azores. Yet again the Niña failed to reach landfall, and the crew was distraught. A day later, the Niña navigated dense fog to anchor at the first island sighted, only to have the anchor chain—and the crew’s faith—torn asunder in the heavy seas.

  But, after quartering the night at sea, the Niña finally made landfall at dawn on February 18 and the crew rejoiced. Cristóbal dispatched the launch and three locals returned on it for the night, bringing chickens and fresh bread, which enraptured everyone. The island was Santa María, the easternmost of the Azores.

  Pero Alonso admitted to himself that the Admiral had been correct. He reflected on the journey—south from Palos to Hierro, west to San Salvador, south to Juana, east to Española, and then last northeast to this site—and was astounded by the Admiral’s uncanny sense of location on the globe earth. Juan Niño and Vicente were humbled, too. Juan realized that the Admiral had understood the strengths and weaknesses of Juan’s own ship at least as well as himself. Vicente reflected on the decisions made to navigate the tempest—as terrible as he had ever witnessed—and confessed to himself that the Genoese was as good a mariner as Vicente had met, ruefully acknowledging that the ignoble, conceited, vainglorious, impoverished Genoese in truth had conquered the Ocean Sea as no man had before. That night, less charitably, Cristóbal wrote to his sovereigns in his journal that he had exaggerated the distance traversed on the voyage to confuse his pilots so he would remain the master of the route to the Indies.

  At dawn, Cristóbal dispatched the three locals back ashore to fetch a priest to open a nearby hermitage to the Virgin so the crew could fulfill the fourth pilgrimage vowed. He sent half the crew ashore, barefoot and without pants, retaining the other half on board with himself to mind Niña until it became their turn. He recalled his last Mass in Gomera over five months before and yearned for the Holy Communion.

  Cristóbal’s yearning was unfulfilled, as he soon learned the townspeople had seized the crew onshore as they marched to the hermitage, suspecting that the Niña had been poaching in Guinea. The village leader approached in the Niña’s launch but refused Cristóbal’s invitation to come aboard to talk, tartly pronouncing that the citizens of Santa María didn’t recognize or fear the king and queen of Castile. Cristóbal protested that King João would be offended by this treatment, offered to produce his royal letters of recommendation and passport, and demanded his sailors be released, warning that King João would severely punish the locals and threatening to capture one hundred of them. But the leader departed back to shore and the conflict remained unresolved.

  On February 20, the weather worsened, and Cristóbal ha
d no choice but to take the Niña to sea with half a crew until the storm abated. He returned to Santa María two days later, and the locals sent two clerics and a notary to make amends and peace—which he accepted—and the crewmen held captive were released and put their pants back on. On February 24, at midnight, the Niña sailed east for Cape St. Vincent and then Seville. Cristóbal now brooded the Pinta might have survived and that, owing to the insulting delay on Santa María, Martín was already contacting the sovereigns to take credit for Cristóbal’s triumph.

  TO BAYONA, GALICIA (CASTILE),

  February 14–Early March 1493

  At dusk on February 14, the Pinta lurched and plunged forlornly in the violent storm northwest of the Niña, passing in the ocean between São Miguel and Santa María without landfall, driven farther north. As the sea calmed the next day, the ship returned to sail east, continuing to be tossed by the same inclement weather battering the Niña at Santa María. But, by late February, the Pinta made landfall at Bayona, a Galician town just north of the Portuguese border, where Castilian ships frequently harbored when traveling to northern European ports.