Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 2 (of 8): Spanish Explorations and Settlements in America from the Fifteenth to the Seventeenth Century
History
Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 2 (of 8): Spanish Explorations and Settlements in America from the Fifteenth to the Seventeenth Century
America -- Discovery and exploration; America -- History; United States -- History
This is a fac-simile of an engraving in Herrera (Barcia’s edition).
There is a vignette likeness on the title of vol i., edition of 1601.
Navarrete’s Memoir of Bartholomew Columbus is in the _Coleccion de
documentos inéditos_, vol. xvi.]
The pedigree (p. 87) shows the alleged descent of Columbus, as a
table in Spotorno’s _Della origine e della patria di Colombo_,
1819, connects it with other lines, whose heirs at a later day were
aroused to claim the Admiral’s honors; and as the usual accounts of
his immediate descendants record the transmission of his rights. After
Columbus’ death, his son Diego demanded the restitution of the offices
and privileges[358] which had been suspended during the Admiral’s later
years.
[Illustration: GENEALOGICAL TABLE.]
He got no satisfaction but the privilege of contending at law with
the fiscal minister of the Crown, and of giving occasion for all the
latent slander about the Admiral to make itself heard. The tribunal
was the Council of the Indies; the suit was begun in 1508, and lasted
till 1527. The documents connected with the case are in the Archives
of the Indies. The chief defence of the Crown was that the original
convention was against law and public policy, and that Columbus, after
all, did not discover _Terra firma_, and for such discovery alone
honors of this kind should be the reward. Diego won the Council’s vote;
but Ferdinand, the King, hesitated to confirm their decision. Meanwhile
Diego had married a niece of the Duke of Alva, the King’s favorite, and
got in this way a royal grant of something like vice-royal authority
in the Indies, to which he went (1509) with his bride, prepared for
the proper state and display. His uncles, Bartholomew and Diego, as
well as Ferdinand Columbus, accompanied him. The King soon began to
encroach on Diego’s domain, creating new provinces out of it.[359] It
does not belong to this place to trace the vexatious factions which,
through Fonseca’s urging, or otherwise created, Diego was forced to
endure, till he returned to Spain, in 1515, to answer his accusers.
When he asked of the King a share of the profits of the Darien coast,
his royal master endeavored to show that Diego’s father had never been
on that coast. After Ferdinand’s death (Jan. 23, 1516), his successor,
Charles V., acknowledged the injustice of the charges against Diego,
and made some amends by giving him a viceroy’s functions in all
places discovered by his father. He was subjected, however, to the
surveillance of a supervisor to report on his conduct, upon going to
his government in 1520.[360] In three years he was again recalled for
examination, and in 1526 he died. Don Luis, who succeeded to his father
Diego, after some years exchanged, in 1556, his rights of vice-royalty
in the Indies for ten thousand gold doubloons and the title of Duque
de Veraguas (with subordinate titles), and a grandeeship of the first
rank;[361] the latter, however, was not confirmed till 1712.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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