Contrary to his intentions, Columbus did make several more stops, on one of which he encountered the Caribs. They were better armed than the other tribes and extremely aggressive, attacking a shore party with no apparent provocation. The white men, who numbered only seven as opposed to the Carib’s 50, killed two of their attackers, whereupon the rest fled. Columbus was saddened by this ‘unpleasantness’, but thought on the whole that a good example had been made. ‘The people here are clearly evilly disposed; I believe ... that they eat human flesh. It is as well to leave them in fear, so that they will think twice before harming the crew of the boat which I have left with the thirty-nine men in the town and fort of Navidad.’ Nevertheless, he was impressed by the contrast they made with the ‘ridiculously cowardly and defenceless’ people of the other islands. ‘I should like to capture a few of them,’ he added thoughtfully.
The crossing of the Atlantic was unpleasant. Both caravels leaked badly, the Pinta’s mast was faulty, and on the night of 13 February they were hit by a ferocious storm. The two ships became separated, and as he drifted helplessly before the wind Columbus put his trust entirely in God. Producing a bag of chickpeas, he cut a cross in one and ordered the crew to draw lots: if they were saved, whoever drew the marked pea would make a pilgrimage with a five-pound wax candle to the shrine of Santa María de Guadalupe. When the weather worsened, they drew again to send a pilgrim to Santa Maria de Loreto in Italy. Then, upping the stakes, they made a third draw for a pilgrim not only to spend a night’s vigil in Santa Clara de Moguer but to pay for a mass. Finally, they swore together that if they landed safely they would put on their best clothes and make a procession to the first church they could find. ‘As well as these communal vows, each man made his own personal ones, for none of us expected to survive,’ Columbus wrote, ‘we had all given ourselves up for lost, so terrible was the storm.’ The crew’s resentment, never far from the surface, now became vocal: ‘Seeing themselves so beset, they cursed not only the fact that they had come but also the fear, or the restraint, which in the face of my persuasion had prevented them from turning back, as they were often resolved to do.’ While the men raged, Columbus took steps to ensure that at least some record of his voyage would be preserved. He made two (very) abbreviated copies of his journal, wrapped them in waxcloth and placed them in barrels. One he threw overboard – ‘everyone thought it was some kind of devotional offering’ – the other he placed on the sterncastle so that if the Niña foundered the package would float free.
Their prayers were answered on the 15th when the storm finally blew itself out. With little idea where they were, they sailed north-east for three days until, by luck, they reached the Azores. Even here, however, they were not safe. Suspicious at the arrival of a Spanish ship, the Portuguese governor seized several of Columbus’s men and sent armed boats to arrest their leader. Having come so far, and endured so much, Columbus’s temper snapped. Unveiling the cannon that had hardly been used in the last six months, he explained that he had a letter of safe passage from the Spanish Crown, and ‘gave them my solemn personal promise not to disembark from this vessel until I had taken a hundred Portuguese to Castile and laid waste the entire island’. The threat worked – as did a judicious distribution of gifts – and on the 24th, revictualled, repaired and with its full complement, the Niña resumed its journey.
Their trials were not over. On 3 March they were hit by another storm, as fierce as the first, which tore away their sails and left them running under bare poles. ‘[We] thought that we were sure to founder, with heavy conflicting seas and winds which seemed to pick the caravel out of the water,’ Columbus wrote. ‘There was heavy rain, with lightning on all sides.’ Again they drew lots for a pilgrimage – this time the loser was to go in his shirt to Santa Maria de la Cinta in Huelva – after which ‘we all vowed to eat only bread and water on the first Saturday after we make port’. And again their prayers worked. The next day they reached Lisbon, where Columbus had the great satisfaction of informing the king that he had completed for Spain the project that Portugal had turned down. They then continued to Palos, ending their extraordinary voyage on 15 March 1493.
They were beaten narrowly by the Pinta, whose captain was so ill that he died within a week, leaving the victorious Columbus to present his case before Ferdinand and Isabella. He did so persuasively, presenting them with gold, new plants, seven Indians and a journal that oozed promise. ‘Rest assured, Your Majesties, that this land is the finest, most fertile, level, rich and temperate on the face of the earth,’ ran one sentence. ‘Do not be surprised, Your Majesties, that I am so lavish in my praise; I assure you that I do not think I am telling you a hundredth part of it all,’ went another. Again, ‘I assure your Majesties that there can be no finer lands under the sun for their fertility, their freedom from extremes of heat and cold, and their abundance of healthy water; not like the rivers of Guinea, which are full of disease, for praise be to God not a single member of my company has had so much as a headache or taken to his bed ill, except one old man with the stone, which he has suffered from all his life, and he recovered in a couple of days. I am writing here of all three ships. So it will please God, Your Majesties, to see learned men come here or be sent by you, for they will then see the truth of it all.’
Their Majesties did more than send learned men. In 1494 they ordered the despatch of 17 ships containing 1,500 sailors, soldiers, courtiers, nobles and priests, who were to invest the new territories, convert the natives, seize all available gold and find the Chinese mainland. Admiral Columbus was to be their leader. The fleet reached Navidad on 27 November to discover an empty, ruined fort. From Guacanagari they learned that the garrison had gone wild, stealing gold and molesting women, until they met the Caribs, who promptly slaughtered them. Of the original 39, the Spanish found only 11 bodies. Constructing two new forts, Isabella and Santo Tomás, in which he left sizeable garrisons, Columbus left for Cuba to establish whether it was joined to the mainland. He charted its southern coast within 100 miles of its western tip, then, feverish, exhausted, his eyes failing, and depressed by a battle with the natives, he gave up. He announced that it was part of the mainland, forced his men to sign a statement to that effect – the penalties were dire: according to one record he threatened to cut out the tongue of anyone who later recanted – and returned to Espaniola, where he spent most of 1495 in a coma. When he recovered in December it was to the news that one of his commanders had run amok, had repeated the crimes of the Navidad garrison and, convinced that there was nothing worth finding, had left for Spain with a party of like-minded malcontents.
Columbus was not the same man who had left Palos in 1492. Then he had been an energetic and forceful explorer with a reasonably open mind. Now he was a white-haired, vengeful despot. The goldmines having proved mythical, he turned to slavery. He corralled 1,600 Caribs, of whom he selected 350 men and women for transportation to Spain. The rest were let free, the women so terrified that they ‘left their infants anywhere on the ground and started to flee like desperate people; and some fled so far they were removed from our settlement of Isabella 7 or 8 days beyond mountains and across huge rivers’. When he was finished with the Caribs, he enslaved Guacanagari’s people. Then he instituted taxes. Every month, on pain of death, every male over 14 had to pay a certain amount of gold dust, or cotton to an equivalent value. It was an impossible demand, but one that he enforced rigorously. Those who fled were hunted down with dogs; those who stayed often took poison. When word reached Spain, he was recalled in 1496 to stand trial – though on the grounds of incompetence rather than brutality.
He not only acquitted himself but was awarded a new commission, eight more ships and an increased share of the profits. He returned to Espaniola in 1498, this time making a sweep past South America, where he sighted, but failed to investigate, the mouth of the Orinoco River. Two years later, however, reports of his tyranny became so constant that Spain sent a commissioner to investigate. Columbus was brought home in
irons to face charges. Astoundingly, he was again acquitted. He sailed once more for the Far East on 9 May 1502 with four caravels and 150 men. He discovered Honduras and a few small islands before losing most of his fleet; the last ship fell apart on Jamaica. It was another year before he caught a passage home to Spain, where he died on 19 May 1506.
He went to his grave still clinging to the belief that he had found Cathay. Of course, he had not. In fact, he had failed in almost every task he set himself. Moreover, he had instigated the annihilation of the indigenous Caribbean population: in 1492 Espaniola had 300,000 inhabitants; after 15 years of Spanish rule there were only 40,000; soon there would be none, a pattern that was followed throughout the Caribbean. However, in terms of European exploration his failure had been very successful. Within a few decades Spanish and Portuguese navigators would complete his journey to the mainland, and in doing so would discover not China but a continent of even greater wealth, America.
EAST TO THE INDIES
Vasco da Gama (1497–9)
While Columbus was sailing west to America, the Portuguese were advancing on the Indies via Africa. In the belief that the continent might be round – or at least might not extend far south – King John II of Portugal despatched a number of expeditions to chart its coast. Equipped with caravels, commanded by extremely capable navigators, and carrying stone columns that they were to erect at prominent positions along the way, these were voyages of pure discovery. The first, under Diogo Cão, left in 1483, depositing its first column at the mouth of the Congo before continuing to Cape Santa Maria, at 13° S. It returned the following year with a number of Congolese natives as proof of its success. Cao made a second journey between 1485 and 1487, this time crossing the Tropic of Capricorn to place a third column at Cape Cross, just north of Walfisch Bay in modern Namibia. On the voyage back, he returned the Africans to their homes and explored the Congo, travelling some 200 miles upstream before his way was blocked by the Yellalla rapids. With 1,450 miles of newly explored coastline to his credit Cao had done well; but his successor, Bartolomeu Dias would do even better.
Dias departed in 1487, the year of Cão’s return, with orders to ‘sail south-wards and on to the place where the sun rises, and to continue as long as it [is] possible to do so’. This time, given the expected length of the voyage and the uncertainty of finding food along the way, Dias took not only two of the standard caravels but a larger supply ship whose hold contained food as well as three more stone columns. Depositing the supply ship at a place where the natives seemed friendly and the fishing was good – possibly Luderitz Bay (Namibia) – he reprovisioned the caravels and sailed south. For a short while he followed the coast, then, bravely, struck out into the Atlantic. The water grew colder and at 40° S, where Dias turned east, the gales were so fierce that the crew were in ‘mortal fear’. After a few days they sailed north, and after 500 miles landed at present-day Mossel Bay on the South African coast. Dias already suspected he had rounded the tip of Africa, but he could not yet be sure. So, having taken aboard food and water – and having, too, had an unpleasant confrontation with the natives, during which he shot a man with his crossbow – he sailed east again. The caravels landed at Algoa Bay, the site of modern Port Elizabeth, where they erected a huge wooden cross and then, despite the crews’ growing discontent, continued to the Great Fish River. Here, where the sea was warmer than before, and with every indication that the coast ran north – and, in Dias’s mind, with India almost within sight – he at last agreed to turn back. During the return journey they landed at the Cape, which they had missed on the way out and where they erected another stone pillar, and after nine months were reunited with the supply ship. Of the nine men Dias had left as caretakers six had been killed in disputes with Africans, and the remaining three were so ill that one of them died – reportedly from joy at seeing his commander again – shortly after the caravels landed. Burning the supply ship to recover its nails, they stopped at West Africa to take aboard gold and slaves ‘so as not to return home empty-handed’, and reached Lisbon in December 1488.
They had been away for sixteen and a half months and had made tremendous inroads into the unknown. Dias apologized profusely for not having found the Indies, but the king was delighted with his efforts. Dias’s map of his discoveries was incorporated into the official chart of the world, with the words: ‘This is the true shape of modern Africa, according to the description of the Portuguese.’ And, as a further mark of approval, the king added his own personal touch: crossing out the name Dias had given the tip of Africa – Cape of Storms, after the frightful conditions he had encountered – he rechristened it Cape of Good Hope.
With such long and hazardous distances yet to be traversed, King John’s alteration might have seemed optimistic. However, much of the uncertainty and danger was dispelled by an ingenious man named Pedro de Covilhan. A 40-year-old professional spy, Covilhan had worked in France, Spain, Algeria and Morocco. He had a near-photographic memory, could speak Arabic and could pass as a Muslim, and was ordered in 1487 to work his way overland through the Middle East to India. He was to report on the wealth and nature of the regions through which he passed – paying particular attention to the availability of spices – and above all he was to make contact with the kingdom of Prester John. This mythical Christian monarch, of whom little was known save that he had written to the Pope offering his help against the Muslims, was supposed to reign somewhere to the east of the Tigris. If that was the case – and there was no reason to believe it was not: Marco Polo, informed by the same rumour, had written extensively about Prester John’s battles with the Mongols – and if his descendants still wielded power, the kingdom could help break the Muslim stranglehold on the spice trade. Covilhan was given a brass medallion to present to the king when he found him: it was inscribed, ‘King Dom John of Portugal, brother of the Christian monarchs’.
Accompanied by a lesser spy, Alfonso de Paiva, Covilhan left Portugal on 7 May 1487, travelling via Spain, Italy and Rhodes before entering Egypt disguised as an Arab merchant. The two Portuguese then travelled from Alexandria to Cairo – where Paiva was sent to investigate rumours that Christianity flourished in Ethiopia – and Covilhan proceeded to Arabia, where he caught a dhow to India, landing at the southern port of Calicut. Here, he reported, Muslim traders met ships from the spice islands to the east and, despite the town being predominantly Hindu, they formed a powerful and influential group. He sailed north, investigating the ports along the Malabar coast, amongst which was Goa, the centre of the horse trade with Arabia. From Goa he returned to the Persian Gulf, where he went down the east coast of Africa, describing Arab trading stations – Mombasa, Zanzibar and Sofala – that had been established as far south as the Island of the Moon (Madagascar). On reaching Cairo in 1490, he learned that Paiva had died, but he also met two Jewish travellers in the pay of King John, to whom he delivered a full account of his discoveries. The good news was that he had crossed the Indian Ocean and had learned that the east coast of Africa not only existed but had settlements where ships could reprovision. In case Dias was still within contact, he wrote: ‘If you keep southward, the continent must come to an end. When your ships have reached the Indian ocean, let your men enquire for Sofala and the Island of the Moon. There they will find pilots to take them to India.’ The bad news was that he had not yet found the kingdom of Prester John. It was not in Asia, of that he was certain, but it might be in Africa – probably Ethiopia. He would go there next.
Travelling via Aden, Mecca and Medina, he finally reached Ethiopia in 1492 or 1493. It was more primitive than he had expected, but it was Christian and therefore must be the lost realm of Prester John. In the mountains around the Blue Nile he presented the king with the medallion he had concealed in his luggage for the last six years. The king accepted it with pleasure, and pressed Covilhan to stay awhile as a member of his court. When Covilhan refused, the invitation became an order. Placed for many years under virtual house arrest, he eventually acc
epted his fate and became a trusted advisor to the king of Ethiopia, married a local woman and settled down with his new family. He sent letters home at regular intervals with Jewish traders, some of which must have reached Lisbon because in 1520 a Portuguese ambassador arrived in Ethiopia. By now in his seventies, Covilhan was too old to uproot himself, but he sent his 23-year-old son home to collect the reward he had been promised and to carry a supply of gold to his Portuguese wife. Covilhan died shortly after the party set out, to be followed four years later by his son.
It took a long time for the Portuguese to act on the discoveries made by Dias and Covilhan. For five years the Cape of Good Hope remained just that – a hope. Then, in March 1493, Christopher Columbus arrived in Lisbon with news that he had found the Indies in the west and had claimed them for Spain.* King John’s fury was intense – and not just because he had earlier rejected Columbus’s scheme. A treaty had already been signed in 1479 giving Portugal dominion over all lands, discovered or not, to the south of the Canary Islands. Its purpose had been to protect Portugal’s interests in West Africa, but theoretically it could be argued that it included America as well. War between the two nations was prevented only by the intervention of the Pope. With divine insouciance he divided the world in two, the split running north-to-south 370 leagues west of the Canaries. By the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas it was decreed that everything to the west of the line was Spain’s, while everything to the east belonged to Portugal.** Unfettered, the Spanish began to colonize the islands Columbus had discovered. Portugal, however, was slower to respond. King John II died in 1495, and it was not until 1496 that his successor, Manoel, authorized a new expedition to the east. The man he chose to lead it was a nobleman named Vasco da Gama.
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