The term “buccaneer” derives from the French term for the rack, boucan, used for barbecuing meat, an early occupation of such “freebooters,” another word of piratical origin, referring to plundering and booty.
Columbus’s remarks about the city of La Isabela are in Kathleen Deagan and José María Cruxent, Columbus’s Outpost among the Taínos (2002), pages 48–50, 54.
Chapter 6: Rebellion
The list of requested supplies can be found in Deagan and Cruxent, Columbus’s Outpost among the Taínos, page 137.
Ferdinand and Isabella’s kingdom of Castile was only the most recent empire to claim the endlessly contested city of Cadiz, believed to have been founded by Phoenicians as a trading center, who called it Gadir, for “walled city.” In AD 711, the Moors seized it, and held it until 1262, when it was conquered by Alfonso X of Castile. Under Spanish rule, the city assumed the name Cadiz. As exploration grew, Cadiz attracted mariners from across Europe, especially Genoa. By one estimate, nearly half the city consisted of Genoese in search of opportunity, and they were about to greet one of their own.
Columbus’s advice to the Sovereigns is quoted in Christopher Columbus: Accounts and Letters, vol. 6, part 1, Nuova Raccolta Colombiana, pages 13–39.
The letters of Ferdinand and Isabella beginning April 13 are quoted in Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea, page 436.
Fernández de Oviedo discusses mining for gold on pages 106–9 of Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, Natural History of the West Indies (1959).
Las Casas’s description of Ojeda can be found in Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea, pages 432–33.
On page 36 of Deagan and Cruxent’s Columbus’s Outpost among the Taínos, the authors write that the Indians ate, in addition to hutias, “iguanas, birds, snakes, giant beetle grubs, and insects. This versatility did not commend them to the Spaniards,” who were disgusted by the practice.
Andrés Bernáldez’s vivid and appealing description of the Indians of Jamaica is reproduced in Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea, pages 474–76.
Columbus’s remarks about the second voyage come from Christopher Columbus: Accounts and Letters, vol. 6, part 1, Nuova Raccolta Colombiana, written February 26, 1495, pages 267–325 passim.
Chapter 7: Among the Taínos
Michele de Cuneo on La Bella Saonese is quoted in Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea, page 478. His other observations can be found in Admiral of the Ocean Sea, pages 482–88.
Columbus writes about converting Indians to Christianity in Christopher Columbus: Accounts and Letters, vol. 6, part 1, Nuova Raccolta Colombiana, pages 340–41. And he explains his ideas about educating Indians on page 355.
Las Casas discusses greyhounds and Indians in Christopher Columbus: Accounts and Letters, vol. 6, part 2, Nuova Raccolta Colombiana, pages 113, 152. And he explores Columbus’s increasingly tormented relations with the Indians on page 492 of Admiral of the Ocean Sea.
In addition to Peter Martyr, Columbus himself refers to the massive number of Indian deaths in a letter to Ferdinand and Isabella dated October 15, 1495, in Christopher Columbus: Accounts and Letters, vol. 6, part 1, Nuova Raccolta Colombiana, page 337. Here he says the famine killed two-thirds of the region’s 50,000 inhabitants, and “it is not over yet, nor do we know when to hope the end.” For more statistics about the depopulation of the Indians, see Admiral of the Ocean Sea, page 493.
The Dominican Republic (1998) by Frank Moya Pons reviews the political structure of the Indians, pages 22–23.
Aguado is quoted in Deagan and Cruxent, Columbus’s Outpost among the Taínos, pages 63–64, relying on Las Casas.
Ramon Pané and his Indian investigations receive a thorough consideration in Antonio M. Stevens-Arroyo, Cave of the Jagua [sic] (2006), pages 41–83.
The anecdote about the headless people at La Isabela appears in Columbus’s Outpost among the Taínos on page 72, quoting Las Casas. I have adjusted the translation slightly for syntax.
Interlude: The Columbian Exchange
The starting point for considering the Columbian Exchange is Alfred Crosby’s 1972 work, The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (republished in 2003). Related studies of this resonant subject include the following: Woodrow W. Borah and Sherburne F. Cook ’s The Aboriginal Population of Central Mexico on the Eve of the Spanish Conquest (1963); Noble David Cook’s Born to Die; The Native Population of the Americas in 1492 (1992), edited by William M. Denevan; Bernal Díaz del Castillo’s Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España (1956); William H. McNeill’s Plagues and Peoples (1976); Elinor G. K. Melville’s A Plague of Sheep (1994); Redcliffe N. Salaman’s The History and Social Influence of the Potato (1993); and Russel Thornton’s American Indian Holocaust and Survival (1987).
The following chart suggests the extent of the Columbian Exchange as it affected both the Old World and the New:
Chapter 8: “A Great Roaring”
Columbus’s impassioned complaints about his detractors at court and the heat he endured on the third voyage can be found in Christopher Columbus: Accounts and Letters of the Second, Third, and Fourth Voyages, vol. 6, part 1, Nuova Raccolta Colombiana, pages 66–67.
For more on Columbus’s flamboyant ideas concerning biblical sites, see Delno C. West, “Christopher Columbus, Lost Biblical Sites, and the Last Crusade.”
The Dragon’s Mouth is mentioned in Las Casas on Columbus, page 46. Meanwhile, references to the earthly paradise and the characteristics of the people he encountered appear in Christopher Columbus: Accounts and Letters of the Second, Third, and Fourth Voyages, vol. 6, part 1, Nuova Raccolta Colombiana, pages 87 and following.
Columbus’s observation that “the world is small” appears in the Letter Rarissima, quoted in Nuova Raccolta, vol. 6, part 1. Columbus wrote this letter in Jamaica in July 1503.
For more about Columbus and the Guaiqueri Indians and chicha, see Morison and Obregón’s The Caribbean as Columbus Saw It (1964), beginning on page 160. This work contains photographs of vistas as they might have appeared to Columbus, but five hundred years of erosion and other changes have altered the land- and seascapes. Nevertheless, this document remains an evocative view of Columbian harbors and ports.
Chapter 9: Roldán’s Revolt
For full accounts of the back-and-forth between the two sides as related by Ferdinand Columbus, see Fernando Colón, The Life of the Admiral Christopher Columbus by His Son Ferdinand (1959) and The History of the Life and Deeds of the Admiral Don Christopher Columbus, Attributed to His Son Fernando Colón (2004). Also, Las Casas delivers his own stinging assessment in Las Casas on Columbus: The Third Voyage, vol. 11, Repertorium Columbianum (1999). Las Casas lamented that Roldán was never brought to justice in Spain—his lineage worked in his favor, just as Columbus’s worked against him.
Chapter 10: “Send Me Back in Chains”
The letter to Doña Juana appears in Cecil Jane, The Four Voyages of Columbus (1988), vol. 2, page 54.
Letters from Bobadilla read aloud: Las Casas on Columbus: The Third Voyage, pages 24–128. Here, as in many other places, Las Casas shows his mettle as a historian when he refrains from strident editorializing and learned digressions to focus on the matter at hand.
Background about Bobadilla’s inquiry is drawn from the corrective study by Consuelo Varela, La caída de Cristobál Colón, el juicio de Bobadilla (2006).
In Las Casas on Columbus: The Third Voyage, page 136, Las Casas writes that Vallejo was “my good friend.” The letter in which Columbus avows that he has been diligent, and says “I swear,” appears in the same work, page 43.
The Royal Mandate restoring Columbus’s possessions is contained in Morison, Journals and Other Documents on the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, pages 300–302.
Chapter 11: El Alto Viaje
John Noble Wilford’s The Mysterious History of Columbus offers an absorbing discussion of the mystical Book of Prophecies on pages 217 and 223.
Ferdinand’s extensive l
ibrary emphasizes the bookish, scholarly side of the Columbus family. Although Christopher, as a mariner, is considered primarily a man of action, he was thoroughly educated in the sea, and throughout his life he was eager to absorb (if not apply) new information and lore. His brother Bartholomew was, of course, a map and book dealer, and his son a historian and bibliophile.
Ferdinand Columbus never married.
Chapter 12: Castaways in Paradise
Columbus’s striking description of ascending his ship and hearing the voice of God appears in Christopher Columbus: Accounts and Letters of the Second, Third, and Fourth Voyages, vol. 6, part 1, Nuova Raccolta Colombiana, pages 143 and following. The entire letter is an extraordinary cri de coeur that would be easy to dismiss were it not so self-dramatizing and nakedly poignant.
The “Account by Diego Mendez of Certain Incidents on Christopher Columbus’s Last Voyage” can be found in J. M. Cohen, The Four Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1969), pages 305–17.
Chapter 13: February 29, 1504
Las Casas’s first crossing: quoted in David Boyle, Toward the Setting Sun (2008), page 264.
Details of the death of Isabella can be found in Hugh Thomas’s authoritative study, Rivers of Gold, page 236. Thomas appears much less troubled by Columbus’s humanitarian failings than other contemporary historians, and encompasses a wide swath of the age of discovery in his sturdy account.
Isabella’s reputation for piety lived on after her death. A movement took shape to have her canonized for sainthood on the basis of her protection of the poor and of the Indians of the Caribbean, despite her fervent support of the Inquisition and the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, the year of Columbus’s first voyage. As recently as 1974, Pope John Paul VI nominated Isabella I for beatification, the third of four steps toward canonization. A person who is beatified has been recognized by the Catholic Church to have ascended to heaven, and can intercede on behalf of the faithful who pray to her. She was survived by her husband, Ferdinand II, who lived on for another eight years, until 1512.
For a review of Columbus’s numerous health issues, see Wilford, The Mysterious History of Columbus, pages 240 and following. And details of Columbus’s burial can be found in “Burial Places of Columbus,” in Silvio Bedini, The Christopher Columbus Encyclopedia, vol. 1, pages 77–80.
Epilogue
The dedication of the Columbus Fountain at Union Station in Washington, DC, to name one prominent example of many, occasioned a tremendous outpouring of official public recognition. The Columbus Fountain was designed by Lorado Taft, an American sculptor who enjoyed celebrity status as a speaker and educator. One hundred fifty thousand people attended the ceremony on June 8, 1912, which was sponsored by the Knights of Columbus, the world’s biggest Catholic fraternal organization, founded in 1882 and named, inevitably, for Christopher Columbus. (Its knights, incidentally, do not belong to a chivalric or sovereign order such as the Knights of Malta; the organization is devoted to charitable service.) During the celebration, General Robert K. Evans, chief of military affairs, served as marshal, leading 15,000 troops, 50,000 representatives of the Knights of Columbus, horsedrawn floats, participants in so-called knightly costumes, and several thousand automobiles as President William Howard Taft watched from the stands. Among other large-scale public events was a Mass with Cardinal James Gibbons, attended by about 10,000 individuals.
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