Chapter 9

[78-2] It is a remarkable fact that nothing is said in this patent of discovering a route to the Indies. It is often said that the sole purpose of Columbus was to discover such a route, yet it is clear that he expected to make some new discoveries, and that if he did not, the sovereigns were under no specified obligations to him. Patents are usually drawn on the lines indicated by the petitioner. Can we conclude that the complete silence of the articles as to the Indies means that Ferdinand and Isabella refused to make any promises if Columbus only succeeded in reaching the known East Indies and could gain for them no new possessions?

TITLE GRANTED BY THE CATHOLIC SOVEREIGNS TO CRISTOBAL COLON OF ADMIRAL, VICEROY AND GOVERNOR OF THE ISLANDS AND MAINLAND THAT MAY BE DISCOVERED[81-1]

Don Ferdinand and Donna Isabella, by the grace of God King and Queen of Castile, Leon, Aragon, Sicily, Granada, Toledo, Valencia, Galicia, Majorca, Seville, Sardinia, Cordova, Corsica, Murcia, Jaen, Algarbe, Algeciras, Gibraltar, and the Canary Islands; Count and Countess of Barcelona; Lords of Biscay and Molina; Dukes of Athens and Neopatria; Counts of Roussillon and Cerdagne, Marquises of Oristano and Goziano; Forasmuch as you, Cristobal Colon, are going by our command, with some of our ships and with our subjects, to discover and acquire certain islands and mainland in the ocean, and it is hoped that, by the help of God, some of the said islands and mainland in the said ocean will be discovered and acquired by your pains and industry; and as it is a just and reasonable thing that since you incur the said danger for our service you should be rewarded for it, and since we desire to honor and favor you on account of what is aforesaid, it is our will and pleasure that you, the said Cristobal Colon, after you have discovered and acquired the said islands and mainland in the said ocean, or any of them whatsoever, shall be our Admiral of the said islands and mainland which you may thus discover and acquire, and shall be our Admiral and Viceroy and Governor therein, and shall be empowered from that time forward to call and entitle yourself Don Cristobal Colon, and that your sons and successors in the said office and charge may likewise entitle and call themselves Don, and Admiral and Viceroy and Governor thereof; and that you may have power to use and exercise the said office of Admiral, together with the said office of Viceroy and Governor of the said islands and mainland which you may thus discover and acquire, by yourself or by your lieutenants, and to hear and determine all the suits and causes civil and criminal appertaining to the said office of Admiralty, Viceroy, and Governor according as you shall find by law, and as the Admirals of our kingdoms are accustomed to use and exercise it; and may have power to punish and chastise delinquents, and exercise the said offices of Admiralty, Viceroy, and Governor, you and your said lieutenants, in all that concerns and appertains to the said offices and to each of them; and that you shall have and levy the fees and salaries annexed, belonging and appertaining to the said offices and to each of them, according as our High Admiral in the Admiralty of our kingdoms levies and is accustomed to levy them. And by this our patent, or by the transcript thereof signed by a public scrivener, we command Prince Don Juan, our very dear and well beloved son, and the Infantes, dukes, prelates, marquises, counts, masters of orders, priors, commanders, and members of our council, and auditors of our audiencia, alcaldes, and other justices whomsoever of our household, court, and chancery, and sub-commanders, alcaldes of castles and fortified and unfortified houses, and all councillors, assistants, regidores, alcaldes, bailiffs, judges, veinticuatros, jurats, knights, esquires, officers, and liege men[82-1] of all the cities, towns, and places of our kingdoms and dominions, and of those which you may conquer and acquire, and the captains, masters, mates, officers, mariners, and seamen, our natural subjects who now are or hereafter shall be, and each and any of them, that upon the said islands and mainland in the said ocean being discovered and acquired by you, and the oath and formality requisite in such case having been made and done by you or by him who may have your procuration,[83-1] they shall have and hold you from thenceforth for the whole of your life, and your son and successor after you, and successor after successor for ever and ever, as our Admiral of the said ocean, and as Viceroy and Governor of the said islands and mainland, which you, the said Don Cristobal Colon, may discover and acquire; and they shall treat with you, and with your said lieutenants whom you may place in the said offices of Admiral, Viceroy, and Governor, about everything appertaining thereto, and shall pay and cause to be paid to you the salary, dues and other things annexed and appertaining to the said offices, and shall observe and cause to be observed toward you all the honors, graces, favors, liberties, pre-eminences, prerogatives, exemptions, immunities, and all other things, and each of them, which in virtue of the said offices of Admiral, Viceroy, and Governor you shall be entitled to have and enjoy, and which ought to be observed towards you in every respect fully and completely so that nothing may be diminished therefrom; and that neither therein nor in any part thereof shall they place or consent to place hindrance or obstacle against you; for we by this our patent from now henceforth grant to you the said offices of Admiralty, Viceroy, and Governor, by right of inheritance for ever and ever, and we give you actual and prospective possession thereof, and of each of them, and power and authority to use and exercise it, and to collect the dues and salaries annexed and appertaining to them and to each of them, according to what is aforesaid. Concerning all that is aforesaid, if it should be necessary and you should require it of them, we command our chancellor and notaries and the other officers who are at the board of our seals to give, deliver, pass, and seal for you our patent of privilege with the circle of signatures, in the strongest, firmest, and most sufficient manner that you may request and may find needful, and neither one nor the other of you or them shall do contrary hereto in any manner, under penalty of our displeasure and of ten thousand maravedis[84-1] to our chamber, upon every one who shall do to the contrary. And further we command the man who shall show them this our patent, to cite them to appear before us in our court, wheresoever we may be, within fifteen days from the day of citation, under the said penalty, under which we command every public scrivener who may be summoned for this purpose, to give to the person who shall show it to him a certificate thereof signed with his signature, whereby we may know in what manner our command is executed. Given in our city of Granada, on the thirtieth day of the month of April, in the year of the nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ one thousand four hundred and ninety-two. I the King. I the Queen. I, Juan de Coloma, Secretary of the King and of the Queen, our Lords, caused this to be written by their command. Granted in form, Roderick, Doctor. Registered, Sebastian de Olano. Francisco de Madrid, Chancellor.

FOOTNOTES:

[81-1] Spanish text in Navarrete, II. 9-11. We omit the long preamble. Spanish text and facsimile of Paris Codex in Stevens, _Christopher Columbus His Own Book of Privileges_, pp. 49 ff. The translation is that of George F. Barwick. This document is also to be found in English in _Memorials of Columbus_ (London, 1823), pp. 52-57.

[82-1] Audiencia means the king's court of justice; regidores are roughly equivalent to members of a town council. The Navarrete text has _corregidores_, town governors appointed by the king. Veinticuatros were town councillors, so called because commonly 24 in number. Jurats were municipal executive officers in Aragon. The original which is translated "liege men" is _Homes-Buenos_. Further explanations of these offices may be found in Hume, _Spain, Its Greatness and Decay_, pp. 18 ff., and in _The Cambridge Modern History_, I. 348 ff.

[83-1] Procuration=power of attorney.

[84-1] The maravedi at this time was equal in coin value to about two-thirds of a cent.

JOURNAL OF THE FIRST VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS

INTRODUCTION

The contents of Columbus's Journal of his first voyage were first made known to the public in the epitome incorporated in Ferdinand Columbus's life of the Admiral, which has come down to us only in the Italian translation of Alfonso Ulloa, the _Historie del S.D. Fernando Colombo nelle quali s'ha particolare e vera relazione della vita e de' fatti dell' Ammiraglio D. Christoforo Colombo suo padre_, etc. (Venice, 1571). This account is accessible in English in Churchill's _Voyages_, Vol. II., and in Pinkerton's _Voyages_, Vol. XII.

Another epitome was prepared by Bartolome de Las Casas and inserted in his _Historia de las Indias_. This account was embodied in the main by Antonio de Herrera in his _Historia General de las Indias Occidentales_ (Madrid, 1601). It is accessible in English in John Stevens's translation of Herrera (London, 1725-1726).

These independent epitomes of the original were supplemented in 1825 by the publication by the Spanish archivist Martin Fernandez de Navarrete in his _Coleccion de los Viages y Descubrimientos que hicieron por mar los Espanoles desde fines del siglo XV._ of a considerably more detailed narrative (likewise independently abridged from the original) which existed in two copies in the archives of the Duke del Infantado. Navarrete says that the handwriting of the older copy is that of Las Casas and that Las Casas had written some explanatory notes in the margin. This longer narrative, here reprinted, was first translated by Samuel Kettell of Boston and published in 1827 under the title _Personal Narrative of the First Voyage of Columbus_. The next translation was that of Clements R. Markham for the Hakluyt Society in 1893. A third and very exact rendering appeared in 1903 in John Boyd Thacher's _Christopher Columbus_, Vol. I.

The translation given here is that of Sir Clements R. Markham with some slight revisions. When we recall the very scanty and fragmentary knowledge which we have of the Cabot voyages, and how few in fact of the great discoverers of this era left personal narratives of their achievements, we realize our singular good fortune in possessing so full a daily record from the hand of Columbus himself which admits us as it were "into the very presence of the Admiral to share his thoughts and impressions as the strange panorama of his experiences unfolded before him."[88-1] Sir Clements R. Markham declares the Journal "the most important document in the whole range of the history of geographical discovery, because it is a record of the enterprise which changed the whole face, not only of that history, but of the history of mankind."[88-2]

EDWARD G. BOURNE.

FOOTNOTES:

[88-1] Bourne, _Spain in America_, p. 22.

[88-2] _Journal of Christopher Columbus_, p. viii.

JOURNAL OF THE FIRST VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS

_This is the first voyage and the routes and direction taken by the Admiral Don Cristobal Colon when he discovered the Indies, summarized; except the prologue made for the Sovereigns, which is given word for word and commences in this manner_

In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ

Because, O most Christian, and very high, very excellent, and puissant Princes, King and Queen of the Spains and of the islands of the Sea, our Lords, in this present year of 1492, after your Highnesses had given an end to the war with the Moors who reigned in Europe, and had finished it in the very great city of Granada, where in this present year, on the second day of the month of January, by force of arms, I saw the royal banners of your Highnesses placed on the towers of Alfambra,[89-1] which is the fortress of that city, and I saw the Moorish King come forth from the gates of the city and kiss the royal hands of your Highnesses, and of the Prince my Lord, and presently in that same month, acting on the information that I had given to your Highnesses touching the lands of India, and respecting a Prince who is called Gran Can, which means in our language King of Kings, how he and his ancestors had sent to Rome many times to ask for learned men[89-2] of our holy faith to teach him, and how the Holy Father had never complied, insomuch that many people believing in idolatries were lost by receiving doctrine of perdition: YOUR HIGHNESSES, as Catholic Christians and Princes who love the holy Christian faith, and the propagation of it, and who are enemies to the sect of Mahoma and to all idolatries and heresies, resolved to send me, Cristobal Colon, to the said parts of India to see the said princes, and the cities and lands, and their disposition, with a view that they might be converted to our holy faith;[90-1] and ordered that I should not go by land to the eastward, as had been customary, but that I should go by way of the west, whither up to this day, we do not know for certain that any one has gone.

Thus, after having turned out all the Jews from all your kingdoms and lordships, in the same month of January,[90-2] your Highnesses gave orders to me that with a sufficient fleet I should go to the said parts of India, and for this they made great concessions to me, and ennobled me, so that henceforward I should be called Don, and should be Chief Admiral of the Ocean Sea, perpetual Viceroy and Governor of all the islands and continents that I should discover and gain, and that I might hereafter discover and gain in the Ocean Sea, and that my eldest son should succeed, and so on from generation to generation for ever.

I left the city of Granada on the 12th day of May, in the same year of 1492, being Saturday, and came to the town of Palos, which is a seaport; where I equipped three vessels well suited for such service; and departed from that port, well supplied with provisions and with many sailors, on the 3d day of August of the same year, being Friday, half an hour before sunrise, taking the route to the islands of Canaria, belonging to your Highnesses, which are in the said Ocean Sea, that I might thence take my departure for navigating until I should arrive at the Indies, and give the letters of your Highnesses to those princes, so as to comply with my orders. As part of my duty I thought it well to write an account of all the voyage very punctually, noting from day to day all that I should do and see, and that should happen, as will be seen further on. Also, Lords Princes, I resolved to describe each night what passed in the day, and to note each day how I navigated at night. I propose to construct a new chart for navigating, on which I shall delineate all the sea and lands of the Ocean in their proper positions under their bearings; and further, I propose to prepare a book, and to put down all as it were in a picture, by latitude from the equator, and western longitude. Above all, I shall have accomplished much, for I shall forget sleep, and shall work at the business of navigation, that so the service may be performed; all which will entail great labor.

_Friday, 3d of August_

We departed on Friday, the 3d of August, in the year 1492, from the bar of Saltes, at 8 o'clock, and proceeded with a strong sea breeze until sunset, towards the south, for 60 miles, equal to 15 leagues;[91-1] afterwards S.W. and W.S.W., which was the course for the Canaries.

_Saturday, 4th of August_

They steered S.W. 1/4 S.

_Sunday, 5th of August_

They continued their course day and night more than 40 leagues.

_Monday, 6th of August_

The rudder of the caravel _Pinta_ became unshipped, and Martin Alonso Pinzon, who was in command, believed or suspected that it was by contrivance of Gomes Rascon and Cristobal Quintero, to whom the caravel belonged, for they dreaded to go on that voyage. The Admiral says that, before they sailed, these men had been displaying a certain backwardness, so to speak. The Admiral was much disturbed at not being able to help the said caravel without danger, and he says that he was eased of some anxiety when he reflected that Martin Alonso Pinzon was a man of energy and ingenuity. They made, during the day and night, 29 leagues.

_Tuesday, 7th of August_

The rudder of the _Pinta_ was shipped and secured, and they proceeded on a course for the island of Lanzarote, one of the Canaries. They made, during the day and night, 25 leagues.

_Wednesday, 8th of August_

Opinions respecting their position varied among the pilots of the three caravels; but that of the Admiral proved to be nearer the truth. He wished to go to Gran Canaria, to leave the caravel _Pinta_, because she was disabled by the faulty hanging of her rudder, and was making water. He intended to obtain another there if one could be found. They could not reach the place that day.

_Thursday, 9th of August_

The Admiral was not able to reach Gomera until the night of Sunday, while Martin Alonso remained on that coast of Gran Canaria by order of the Admiral, because his vessel could not be navigated. Afterwards the Admiral took her to Canaria, and they repaired the _Pinta_ very thoroughly through the pains and labor of the Admiral, of Martin Alonso, and of the rest. Finally they came to Gomera. They saw a great fire issue from the mountain of the island of Tenerife, which is of great height. They rigged the _Pinta_ with square sails, for she was lateen rigged; and the Admiral reached Gomera on Sunday, the 2nd of September, with the _Pinta_ repaired.

The Admiral says that many honorable Spanish gentlemen who were at Gomera with Dona Ines Peraza, mother of Guillen Peraza (who was afterwards the first Count of Gomera), and who were natives of the island of Hierro, declared that every year they saw land to the west of the Canaries; and others, natives of Gomera, affirmed the same on oath. The Admiral here says that he remembers, when in Portugal in the year 1484, a man came to the King from the island of Madeira, to beg for a caravel to go to this land that was seen, who swore that it could be seen every year, and always in the same way.[93-1] He also says that he recollects the same thing being affirmed in the islands of the Azores; and all these lands were described as in the same direction, and as being like each other, and of the same size. Having taken in water, wood, and meat, and all else that the men had who were left at Gomera by the Admiral when he went to the island of Canaria to repair the caravel _Pinta_, he finally made sail from the said island of Gomera, with his three caravels, on Thursday, the 6th day of September.

_Thursday, 6th of September_

He departed on that day from the port of Gomera in the morning, and shaped a course to go on his voyage; having received tidings from a caravel that came from the island of Hierro that three Portuguese caravels were off that island with the object of taking him. (This must have been the result of the King's annoyance that Colon should have gone to Castile.) There was a calm all that day and night, and in the morning he found himself between Gomera and Tenerife.

_Friday, 7th of September_

The calm continued all Friday and Saturday, until the third hour of the night.

_Saturday, 8th of September_

At the third hour of Saturday night[94-1] it began to blow from the N.E., and the Admiral shaped a course to the west. He took in much sea over the bows, which retarded progress, and 9 leagues were made in that day and night.

_Sunday, 9th of September_

This day the Admiral made 19 leagues, and he arranged to reckon less than the number run, because if the voyage was of long duration, the people would not be so terrified and disheartened. In the night he made 120 miles, at the rate of 12 miles an hour, which are 30 leagues. The sailors steered badly, letting the ship fall off to N.E., and even more, respecting which the Admiral complained many times.[94-2]

_Monday, 10th of September_

In this day and night he made 60 leagues, at the rate of 10 miles an hour, which are 2-1/2 leagues; but he only counted 48 leagues, that the people might not be alarmed if the voyage should be long.

_Tuesday, 11th of September_

That day they sailed on their course, which was west, and made 20 leagues and more. They saw a large piece of the mast of a ship of 120 tons, but were unable to get it. In the night they made nearly 20 leagues, but only counted 16, for the reason already given.

_Wednesday, 12th of September_

That day, steering their course, they made 33 leagues during the day and night, counting less.

_Thursday, 13th of September_

That day and night, steering their course, which was west, they made 33 leagues, counting 3 or 4 less. The currents were against them. On this day, at the commencement of the night, the needles turned a half point to north-west, and in the morning they turned somewhat more north-west.[95-1]

_Friday, 14th of September_

That day they navigated, on their westerly course, day and night, 20 leagues, counting a little less. Here those of the caravel _Nina_ reported that they had seen a tern[96-1] and a boatswain bird,[96-2] and these birds never go more than 25 leagues from the land.[96-3]

_Saturday, 15th of September_

That day and night they made 27 leagues and rather more on their west course; and in the early part of the night there fell from heaven into the sea a marvellous flame of fire, at a distance of about 4 or 5 leagues from them.

_Sunday, 16th of September_

That day and night they steered their course west, making 39 leagues, but the Admiral only counted 36. There were some clouds and small rain. The Admiral says that on that day, and ever afterwards, they met with very temperate breezes, so that there was great pleasure in enjoying the mornings, nothing being wanted but the song of nightingales. He says that the weather was like April in Andalusia. Here they began to see many tufts of grass which were very green, and appeared to have been quite recently torn from the land. From this they judged that they were near some island, but not the main land, according to the Admiral, "because," as he says, "I make the main land to be more distant."

_Monday, 17th of September_

They proceeded on their west course, and made over 50 leagues in the day and night, but the Admiral only counted 47. They were aided by the current. They saw much very fine grass and herbs from rocks, which came from the west. They, therefore, considered that they were near land. The pilots observed the north point, and found that the needles turned a full point to the west of north. So the mariners were alarmed and dejected, and did not give their reason. But the Admiral knew, and ordered that the north should be again observed at dawn. They then found that the needles were true. The cause was that the star makes the movement, and not the needles. At dawn, on that Monday, they saw much more weed appearing, like herbs from rivers, in which they found a live crab, which the Admiral kept. He says that these crabs are certain signs of land. The sea-water was found to be less salt than it had been since leaving the Canaries. The breezes were always soft. Every one was pleased, and the best sailors went ahead to sight the first land. They saw many tunny-fish, and the crew of the _Nina_ killed one. The Admiral here says that these signs of land came from the west, "in which direction I trust in that high God in whose hands are all victories that very soon we shall sight land." In that morning he says that a white bird was seen which has not the habit of sleeping on the sea, called _rabo de junco_ (boatswain-bird).[97-1]