Columbus: Triumph and Ruin
The Second and Third Voyages
Welcome to Cosmographia — histories of the earth and the stars. For the full map of posts, see here.
This post is the fifth in a series on Christopher Columbus. If you missed them, read Part I here, Part II here, Part III here, and Part IV here.
As the battered and beleaguered Niña limped into Lisbon harbour on 4th March 1493, Columbus must have felt both terror and triumph. He had survived the impossible. He had crossed the Ocean Sea, found the Indies, and returned alive to tell the tale. The Atlantic storms that seemed bent on sending his ship to the depths had failed to kill him. God had preserved him. He was sure of it.
But now he found himself in the capital of his enemy. Years earlier the Portuguese court had rejected his proposals, mocked his theories, dismissed him as a crank. And now here he was, delivered by tempest to their doorstep, carrying news that would forever change the world’s map. Columbus’ paranoia, never far from the surface, was in overdrive. He suspected (wrongly) that the Portuguese had sent ships to intercept him. He feared (correctly) they would claim his discoveries as their own. When officials came aboard to inquire about his voyage, he refused to cooperate, waving his Spanish royal commission and demanding to see the King. Perhaps surprisingly, João II offered to receive him at Vale do Paraíso, north of the city.
The meeting was a tense affair. The Portuguese monarch had twice spurned Columbus a decade earlier. Now here was that same obstinate Genoese claiming to have achieved what João’s own advisors had deemed impossible. Columbus, ever lacking in tact, seems to have rubbed salt in the wound. According to one account, he boasted of his discoveries and chastised the King for not backing him when he had the chance. João reportedly listened with impressive patience, then informed Columbus that, according to the Treaty of Alcáçovas, signed with Spain in 1479, whatever lands lay south of the Canary Islands belonged to Portugal. Columbus’ discoveries, therefore, were Portuguese.
We can imagine Columbus’ horror. All that effort, all that risk, and now at the moment of triumph he was to have it taken away by those that had once laughed him out of Portugal. He couldn’t bear it. He insisted his voyage had been sanctioned by the Spanish crown, that his discoveries belonged to Ferdinand and Isabella. The two men parted on civil terms, though neither trusted the other. Columbus stayed over a week in Portugal before finally setting sail for Spain. It would later emerge that João immediately began preparing a fleet to claim the new lands for himself, only to be stayed by urgent Spanish diplomacy. The subsequent Treaty of Tordesillas prevented war between the Iberian powers by dividing the world between them.
Columbus finally made anchor at Palos on 15th March 1493, almost exactly seven months after he had departed that same port with three ships and a crackpot theory. Now he returned with two ships (the Pinta, presumed lost in the storm, had limped in separately), a handful of bewildered Taíno captives, some gold nuggets, exotic birds, strange plants, and tales of lands beyond the sea.
The news spread like wildfire.
The court of the Catholic Monarchs was then sitting at Barcelona. Columbus made his way across Spain in a manner approaching a Roman triumph. Crowds gathered to see the strange Indians he had brought with him — naked, bronze-skinned people adorned with gold jewellery, who looked at the Spaniards and their cities with as much curiosity as the Spaniards looked at them. For Columbus, who had spent a decade being laughed at, dismissed, and patronised, this must have been intoxicating. He was finally being treated as the visionary he had always believed himself to be.
In mid-April, Columbus entered Barcelona for his audience before Ferdinand and Isabella. Here was the sailor, son of a woolweaver from a poor Genoese family, being welcomed as a hero by the most powerful monarchs in Christendom. He displayed his treasures: the gold, the cotton, the parrots, the curious arms, the mysterious fruits, and of course the Taíno themselves.1
Columbus was permitted to sit in the presence of royalty, an extraordinary honour for a man of his birth. He recounted his voyage, described the islands he had found, the docile natives, the rumours of gold. Ferdinand and Isabella listened. When he finished, they smiled.2 All his honours and privileges were confirmed. The title of “Don” was bestowed upon him and his brothers. He rode at the King’s bridle. He was saluted as a grandee of Spain. A magnificent new coat of arms was blazoned for him, combining the royal castle and lion of Castile and León with his own anchors.
This was the greatest moment of Columbus’ life. If ever there was a time when the man who had staked his life on a dream could savour his vindication, this was it. The courts of Europe buzzed with news of his discoveries. Within weeks, printed copies of his letter announcing the voyage were circulating across the continent. The Pope himself issued bulls recognising his discoveries. Columbus was, for a brief shining moment, the most famous man in Europe.
But the chip on his shoulder, carved from decades of rejection and mockery, would not abate with but a few weeks of adulation. Columbus remained fundamentally the same man: jealous, paranoid, status-obsessed. In his letters to the sovereigns, he spent as much ink reminding them of his promised privileges as he did describing his discoveries. He was incapable of simply enjoying his triumph. Even now, at the peak of his fame, he was already fretting about those who might try to diminish it.
And there was the small matter of what, exactly, he had found. Columbus had promised the monarchs a route to the Indies, access to the fabulous wealth described by Marco Polo. What he had delivered was a handful of small islands, some naked natives, and a modest quantity of poor quality gold. Ferdinand and Isabella had invested heavily in his voyage. They expected returns. The pressure was already building on the proposed second expedition — the one that one that would find the great cities of Cathay, the gold-roofed palaces of Cipangu, the spices and silks of the Orient.
Columbus assured them it was all just around the corner.
