Encounters Unforeseen- 1492 Retold

by Andrew Rowen

  At midday, the garrison’s men sauntered to the fort to await Guacanagarí’s arrival, lounging in their separate bands in the shade of trees, cautiously eyeing the others. Some brought women to display as trophies or to carry the food obtained as porters. Diego conferred with Pedro and Rodrigo, and, for a moment, they surmounted their mutual contempt to sternly warn all the men to behave.

  Diego addressed the entire garrison. “I met this morning with the Lord Guacanagarí. He now will give us food only if we stop looting and abusing the women. The Admiral’s orders are clear and must be observed. We can’t steal the Indians’ food or gold or lie with the married women if we expect to be fed in the future.”

  Chachu stepped forward and interrupted. “You call the shit he gives us food?” Many snickered, and Chachu was emboldened to continue. “It stinks. Unfortunately, it’s the only thing to eat. Your so-called Admiral isn’t here to eat it, and he isn’t here to police his orders, and if he ever comes back, I’ll let him know how much we liked the food.”

  “Silence! I am your captain!”

  “Captain? Captain?!” Chachu spread his arms widely to deride the title. “You’ve never been a captain of anything, not even a rowboat.” The crowd laughed. “You’re the captain of a shabby fort among savages on a beach nobody cares about, appointed by a Genoese charlatan because he sleeps with your whore sister.” Chachu’s followers cheered, Diego’s were silent, and Pedro and Rodrigo winced at the insult, fearing it would lead to blows. Many lounging sat upright, instinctively resting their hands on daggers belted at the hip or ankle.

  “As your captain,” said Diego, raising his voice, “I’m the person charged by the Admiral to maintain this garrison and report to him as to each man’s conduct—which report he will share with the king and queen. You’re violating the Crown’s orders if you loot food or jewelry. We can’t defame Christianity with the women.”

  “Defame Christianity? Defame Christianity?!” Chachu gazed to the sky as if to search for the Lord. “I’ve found some women here, as we all have—including you. But we have fewer women than the king! We have fewer women than Cardinal Mendoza!” There were more cheers. “And we certainly have fewer women than most popes!” The cheers rose to a prolonged applause.

  Escobedo raised his voice. “Hold your tongue! We serve the king and queen! Remember the Admiral’s instruction that we not anger the Lord Guacanagarí. Our purpose here is to initiate Española’s subjugation and colonization. We must treat the Indians kindly so they accept the faith peacefully.”

  “Accept the faith! Accept the faith?! They worships stones and rocks and idols. They couldn’t give a shit about the faith!” Chachu paused and laughed. “The Genoese says we should show them Christian conduct—I agree! Let’s enslave ’em like we do the infidels and barbarians from Africa and the Canaries! They’re naked, stupid, lazy, and liars, and I don’t see any point in showing them the faith. We’re here to find gold, every one of us. We should just enslave ’em to dig for it!”

  “Your disobedience and insolence to the king has been noted by all present,” Escobedo responded. “When the Admiral returns, you will receive swift justice, together with your accomplices. I command you to sit.”

  “Your mother’s a whore.” The gathering was silent. Chachu stood his ground, but was silent, as well.

  Pedro attempted moderation. “We’re here to find gold, for both ourselves and the king, and to show our hosts Christian conduct, so they may be brought to the faith and enrich the sovereigns’ kingdoms. If we’re able to govern ourselves, we’ll all be rich and, for myself and Rodrigo, we will ensure that you leave rich. But we are in Guacanagarí’s kingdom and cannot anger him—more than we have already.”

  “We’ve spent three months collecting the rubbish they call jewelry,” Chachu responded. “I didn’t enlist to trade for this. The Genoese said the roofs and bridges were made of gold—bullshit! We need to find the gold mines he pretends to have found.”

  “We will try to find the mines—as he instructed,” Pedro replied. “You’ll be rewarded. But those who aren’t Christian in their conduct will answer to Fernando.”

  Jácome el Rico rose and, with hesitation, added a thought. “As Señor Gutiérrez well knows, the king will understand what gold has been gathered as compared to what he receives, and it’s best that we gather it first, to be rewarded when we return.”

  There was silence, and then derisive chuckling at the naïveté to make such a remark.

  Guacanagarí then appeared at the forest’s edge, followed by nitaínos and naborias bearing baskets of cazabi and fish, and the garrison’s men quieted. He arrived at the fort with quiet authority. The three lieutenants greeted him courteously, and even Chachu and his band were respectful. Guacanagarí stood before the crowd and pointed to the food. “I give this to you. I ask that you not take what is not given.” His youth translated with gestures.

  “I am the ruler of this land. Your king Fernando will receive my relative as emissary on my behalf. I will advise your Admiral when he returns as to your conduct, man by man. I ask that you not steal food. I ask that you not steal gold, jewelry, or anything else. I ask that you not touch married or unwilling women or any girl. That is how my subjects live, and I expect no less of you, my guests.” The youth translated some portions.

  Escobedo understood little of the words but knew Guacanagarí’s message and spoke sternly to the men. “I believe everyone understands what the Lord Guacanagarí wants. It’s no more than the Lord’s commandments given to Moses on Sinai. We must not steal food or gold or covet other men’s women. And remember, this isn’t only the Lord Guacanagarí’s wish and the Lord’s command. It is Colón’s direct order to you, rendered as admiral on the authority of the king and queen and violated subject to their stern justice! That justice will reign here upon the Admiral’s return!” He turned to Guacanagarí and nodded agreement. “We are Christians and agree.”

  Guacanagarí surveyed the men and perceived a motley rabble of untrustworthy commoners, fearsome only when armed. He remembered how quickly and assuredly he had offered to be their host and doubted his own wisdom. He nodded sternly to the three lieutenants that there had been agreement and then departed with his people into the forest without further conversation.

  The sailors rushed to seize the food baskets. Diego shouted for all to stand back, but none obeyed until Chachu drew his sword, whereupon the three lieutenants and Chachu selected items for their loyalists and all dispersed to their separate camps.

  As the moon rose that night, Pedro and Rodrigo dispatched some sailors armed with knives to find Jácome. In the morning, he was found dead with his throat slit by a Castilian knife, the first European casualty in Cristóbal’s voyage of discovery. Some crewmen feared the Lord’s judgment for the sin, a few felt remorse, and all were sobered that a shipmate had perished at their own hands but none would be punished. They had abandoned the rules of their own civilization.

  Guacanagarí carefully observed how the pale men dug a trench and laid Jácome’s body within, fully clothed and with the face and eyes gazing upward to the heavens. He examined the burial spot over the following days, seeking to ascertain whether the body lived again as they claimed with respect to the Christ spirit. The grave remained undisturbed and the body presumably within, but he could not ascertain what had happened to the soul.

  _______________

  1 Santa María of Belém, the chapel established by Prince Henrique.

  2 Castle of St. George, Guadalquivir.

  3 At the site of the present Puente de Isabel II.

  4 The Cathedral.

  5 Measles?

  XIII

  SPRING 1493

  TRIUMPH IN BARCELONA,

  April–May 1493

  Isabel and Fernando did not wait upon their admiral’s arrival in Barcelona to proclaim the triumph of their sponsorship of the voyage or assert dominion over the lands discovered—wherever they were. They instructed Luis de Santángel to publish
Colón’s public letter promptly, taking care that it be edited to preclude João’s potential claim that the discoveries were Portugal’s pursuant the Treaty of Alcáçovas or the related papal bull1 because they lay in the Ocean Sea south of the Canaries.

  Luis altered Cristóbal’s letter to that end, including by adding a notation to indicate that it had been done offshore the Canary Islands, facilitating the argument that Colón’s discoveries were newly found Canary Islands on the same latitude and thereby Castile’s pursuant to the papal bull. Colón’s assertion of Española’s possession with a fort was of course retained, as were his descriptions of the peoples discovered—their nakedness, timidity, and inclination to conversion—and the claims of the islands’ extraordinary economic potential—gold, spice, mastic, and as many slaves as the sovereigns ordered shipped taken from the idolaters. The edited letter was first published in Castilian in Barcelona on April 1.

  The sovereigns dispatched instructions to their papal ambassador to obtain promptly the broadest possible papal grant to the lands discovered and to be discovered. In mid-April, they received João’s emissary, who did assert that all lands discovered south of Hierro were Portugal’s. They dispatched diplomats back to João offering to discuss the matter but warning that he not send a fleet to the lands discovered. Colón’s public letter was translated into Latin and published in Rome as the sovereigns’ ambassador negotiated with Pope Alexander VI. João also dispatched special emissaries to Alexander, and they sped to intercede in the discussions.

  Over the winter, Fernando had recovered partially and returned to participate fully in ceremonial functions. He had beheld and faced death on the battlefield many times and, unlike Isabel, he was neither shocked by his mortality nor worried he had sinned. His royal demeanor and attire fully obscured the physical frailty he yet felt.

  As Colón approached Barcelona, the sovereigns prepared a grand reception in the throne room of Barcelona’s palace, astride the plaza where the attack had occurred. Cristóbal prepared an equally grand entrance, instructing his Indians to dress themselves with fresh paint and every piece of their gold jewelry. At forty-two, he would wear finery just purchased in Córdoba and comport himself with an authoritative demeanor and airs, confidently exhibiting his sturdy, tall frame and gray hair to cut a figure of a statesman some perceived as august as a Roman senator. Xamabo prepared his finest entrance as well—to bear a large, finely plumed headdress, attended as if a cacique by his younger brethren.

  Cristóbal and his entourage arrived Barcelona in mid-April. They were escorted through streets packed with a multitude of gawking onlookers to the plaza, and then through a throng of nobility, ecclesiastics, and city leadership to the throne room, where the sovereigns awaited seated beneath a gold-cloth canopy. Cristóbal approached their dais engulfed with pride that he had achieved the adulation he had sought his entire life. His Indians followed, bearing caged parrots, spears, and other trophies. Fernando eyed them and grasped immediately they were not from Guinea and appeared closer in color to the sovereigns’ Canarian vassal Fernando Guanarteme. Xamabo was astounded by the enormity of throne room, the ornate clothing worn by the multitudes of people, and the jewels that bedecked Fernando’s and Isabel’s robes and crowns. He fortified himself to be neither cowed nor servile, but proudly sovereign.

  Cristóbal fell to his knees at the dais and kissed the hands of the king and queen. They bid him rise and sit beside them, an honor rarely accorded. He gazed directly into Isabel’s eyes, thanking her for believing in him, and she gazed directly back, thanking him for achieving for her account yet another astounding victory for the advancement of the sovereigns’ realms and reputation. Cristóbal introduced Xamabo, explaining that he was the relative of Española’s Lord Guacanagarí, and Fernando and Xamabo embraced.

  The sovereigns listened as Cristóbal related the triumphs of his voyage, ballyhooing the rivers and mines of gold discovered, as evident by the Indians’ jewelry and some other pieces, and the Indians’ receptivity to the faith, as evident by their civility. He professed that Española likely was the Ophir where King Solomon’s navy had filled their ships with gold and Juana likely the mainland of Mangi, although the Indians said it an island. Everything he said convinced the sovereigns that their triumph was extraordinary and reinforced their conviction to promptly dispatch a second expedition to preclude João from usurping their dominion. They instructed that the Indians be provided religious instruction and baptized before returning to Española. The choristers from the royal chapel entered, and Isabel and Fernando knelt and raised their hands in devotion as “Te Deum Laudamus” was sung.

  The sovereigns afforded their admiral exquisite lodging and favors over the next weeks as they conferred with him on arranging the trading colony and how to resolve the territorial dispute with João. Fernando and Prince Juan took him riding and hunting, and Cardinal Mendoza and other nobility feted, feasted, and claimed to have supported him. Cristóbal basked in the adulation, which exceeded his expectation, but he quickly embraced it as his due entitlement.

  Cristóbal delivered his journal to the sovereigns and advised that the best resolution of the territorial dispute would be to replace the papal bull’s concept of a latitudinal division of the Ocean Sea at Hierro—where Castile was relegated that north—with a longitudinal division of the Ocean Sea at a point west of the Azores, with Castile taking everything discovered to the west of the line. Cristóbal secretly acknowledged to the sovereigns and their closest advisers that the discoveries were south of Hierro and that he expected further discoveries south, so a latitudinal division favored Portugal. He promised he had attained the Indies and argued that a longitudinal line—such as along the western tips of the Azores and Cape Verde islands— could secure the entirety of the Indies for Spain since João had yet to achieve them from the east by circumventing Guinea. He remembered on the voyage when the weed first appeared to carpet the sea, the compass needles shifted, and a milder temperature prevailed, perceived this area as delineating the known and previously unknown Ocean Sea, and advised that this area—while farther west—could also safely serve as the longitudinal division, estimating it lay one hundred leagues west of the Azores.

  As May approached, the Castilian embassy at the Vatican reminded the pope that the sovereigns had fought and shed blood to bring the faith to the Canary Islands, of which these discoveries appeared but an extension, and advanced their proposal for a longitudinal division of the Ocean Sea at the Azores and Cape Verde islands. João’s representatives arrived to protest and clamored that Colón had simply found Antillia, to which Portugal’s right had been recognized for centuries, and that the papal bull was clear that whatever had been discovered belonged to Portugal if south of Hierro. The Aragonese Alexander listened. He derived substantial support for his papacy from Fernando and Isabel and knew this was an appropriate time to suggest that they could provide even more. Fernando was his friend and, as with all Fernando’s friendships, continued friendship relied on doing that which Fernando demanded.

  As Alexander reviewed the matter, Isabel and Fernando received information that João had authorized an expedition to investigate Colón’s discoveries. With trepidation, they ordered a fleet organized to intercept it. While they expected to prevail with the Aragonese pope, João commanded a larger and considerably more expert navy to take possession of lands, regardless of the pope’s declarations. His mathematical and geographical experts might know better that Colón had found the lost Antillia rather than the Indies.

  On May 3, Alexander published the papal bull Inter Catera to recognize Castile’s right to the islands and mainlands discovered and to be discovered thereafter, provided they were not in the actual possession of another Christian prince. He indicated that no right previously granted another Christian prince was thereby being taken away and that the grant of jurisdiction was on the same terms as the grants of Africa, Guinea, and Mina had been to the Portuguese kings. He also prepared two additional bulls—ultim
ately to be dated May 3 and 4—providing that a longitudinal line be established one hundred leagues west of any of the Azores and the Cape Verde islands and granting Castile all islands and mainlands found and to be found from that line west or south in the direction of India or toward any other quarter except those possessed by a Christian prince prior to Christmas 1492.

  The Portuguese ambassadors despaired they had lost Antillia and any antipodal continent that might exist in the southern hemisphere off Guinea. The Castilian ambassadors rejoiced, but they worried that an ambiguity arose with respect to Castile’s entitlement to the Indies themselves in the absence of possession. Fernando and Isabel feared João’s ability to take possession and hand the pope a fait accompli.

  Regardless of any geographic ambiguities, Pope Alexander VI was absolutely clear on two points. The papacy was supreme in determining and awarding the dominion of Christian princes to newly discovered lands previously unpossessed by Christians. Christian princes owed the pope a duty to bring peoples in lands so awarded to the faith.

  Alexander had read Cristóbal’s public letter carefully. His bulls noted that it pleased the Lord that barbarous nations be overthrown and brought to the faith and that Christianity’s beloved son Christoforum Colon had discovered many unclothed peoples who did not eat meat disposed to embrace the faith and good morals. The bulls recounted that a fortress had already been built and equipped on one of the islands discovered and admonished Fernando and Isabel that it was their duty to lead the peoples discovered to the faith.

  Isabel and Fernando spent May intensely engaged in the arrangements necessary to dispatch the fleet to Española promptly. They appointed Juan Rodríguez de Fonseca, then archdeacon of Seville and a protégé of Archbishop Talavera, to administer the project with Colón, as Juan had proven his administrative ability in the conquest of Grenada. They granted Fonseca and Colón broad authority to commission ships and enlist seamen, soldiers, and tradesmen suitable for the colony and to provision them with supplies, weapons, and ammunition, including cannon. Fernando understood the Indians on Española lacked horses and that a small cavalry would constitute an overwhelming force, and the sovereigns commissioned twenty mounted soldiers and their horses to be included among the military contingent, including five additional mares to replenish the mounts. The cavalry also would be critical in the event João forced hostilities in the discovered lands, as he had done once in the Canaries. The sovereigns selected a Catalan Benedictine monk to lead the clerics chosen, Fray Bernaldo Buil. Bernaldo had served on Aragonese warships and as a secretary to Fernando when younger, and more recently as ambassador to France, and the sovereigns sought his designation by Alexander as papal nuncio to the Indies.