The Life of Columbus: From His Own Letters and Journals and Other Documents of His TimeHale, Edward Everett
History
The Life of Columbus: From His Own Letters and Journals and Other Documents of His Time
Hale, Edward Everett
Columbus, Christopher, 1451-1506
Then Bobadilla came to Santo Domingo while Columbus was at La Vega and
the Adelantado at Jaragua. “The second day of his arrival he declared
himself governor, created magistrates, made offices, published grants
for gold and tithes, and everything else for a term of twenty years.” He
said he had come to pay the people, and declared he would send Columbus
home in irons. Columbus was away. Letters with favors were sent to
others, but none to him. Columbus resorted to methods to gain time so
that their Highnesses could understand the state of things. But he was
constantly maligned and persecuted by those who were jealous of him. He
says:
“I think that you will remember that when the tempest threw me into the
port of Lisbon, after having lost my sails, I was accused of having the
intention to give India to that country. Afterwards their Highnesses
knew to the contrary. Although I know but little, I cannot conceive
that any one would suppose me so stupid as not to know that though
India might belong to me, yet I could not keep it without the help of a
prince.”
Columbus complains that he has been judged as a governor who has been
sent to a peaceful, well-regulated province. He says, “I ought to be
judged as a captain sent from Spain to the Indies to conquer a warlike
people, whose custom and religion are all opposed to ours, where the
people live in the mountains without regular houses for themselves, and
where, by the will of God, I have placed under the rule of the king and
queen another world, and by which Spain, which calls itself poor, is
today the richest empire. I ought to be judged as a captain who for many
years bears arms incessantly.
“I know well that the errors that I have committed have not been with
bad intentions, and I think that their Highnesses will believe what I
say; but I know and see that they use pity for those who work against
them.”
“If, nevertheless, their Highnesses order that another shall judge me,
which I hope will not be, and this ought to be on an examination made
in India, I humbly beg of them to send there two conscientious and
respectable people, at my expense, which may know easily that one
finds five marcs of gold in four hours. However that may be, it is very
necessary that they should go there.”
APPENDIX C.
It would have been so natural to give the name of Columbus to the new
world which he gave to Castile and Leon, that much wonder has been
expressed that America was not called Columbia, and many efforts have
been made to give to the continent this name. The District of Columbia
was so named at a time when American writers of poetry, were determined
that “Columbia” should be the name of the continent. The ship Columbia,
from which the great river of the West takes that name, had received
this name under the same circumstances about the same time. The city
of Columbia, which is the capital of South Carolina, was named with the
same wish to do justice to the great navigator.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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