Before First Contact - Background History, Part three

Columbus' Other Voyages

Iberian Peninsula, 1493 - geacron.com

Before his second voyage in 1493, Columbus sent a letter to Ferdinand and Isabella with ideas on how he planned on running the Islands. He asked for two thousand settlers to join him and suggested setting up about four colonies on Hispaniola with a mayor and a clerk. He also asked for priests or friars to come and build churches and convert the natives in the island into Christianity. He adds that nobody should look for gold without permission and what gold that is found will be melted down and stamped with a seal. He then goes into details on how to divide said gold.

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As a side note, a letter from the Crown to their secretary, Fernando de Zafra dated May 23, 1493, told him to collect twenty horseman and horses, "caballos" in Spanish, from Granada and to take them to Seville by June 20th.

A little perspective...

Columbus got most of what he asked for and on September 24, 1493, he set sail a second time, now with seventeen ships and two thousand settlers. On the way, they encountered and survived their first hurricane. He further explored the inhabited islands he had previously “discovered”, but this time, he wouldn't be so nice to the natives. Thinking Cuba could now be a peninsula in the Chinese mainland, he further explored it and Jamaica, finding another island called "Burenquen", the future island of Puerto Rico.

When he landed on his first inhabited island, the natives fled their dwellings. On their first Voyage, Columbus ordered his men to leave the huts alone and to take nothing. This time he and his men took all sorts of stuff from the small huts. However, they also found lots of human bones and limbs in the area. I'm assuming this helped to shape the settlers initial views of the natives. On visits to other islands, they took prisoners. One group of natives, while on the boat back to the ship, decided to attack their captives, wounding one of them, but to no avail. The wounded man and a "mortally wounded" native also died.

Columbus's second voyage - Wikipedia

On November 22, he set anchor at Hispaniola and began looking for the men that he left from the first voyage. They were supposed to set up the first colony, La Navidad. Columbus first met with the king on the island, who had offered the men in the colony protection. He asked the King about his men who told him that some "had died from disease, and the others had been killed in quarrels that had arisen amongst them". Then when he found the settlement, he learned that the fort he had built from the first voyage had been burnt down and that all of his men had been killed. The natives claimed that the Spaniards had taken their women and that "they had been killed by Caonabo and Mayreni" - Two native tribal leaders.

He then set up a new settlement called La Isabela, but chose a poor location. Then some more sadness with the natives:

"They all say they wish to be Christians, although in truth they're idolaters, for in their houses they have many kinds of figures; when asked what such a figure was, they would reply that it is a thing of Turey, by which they meant "of Heaven." I made a pretense of throwing them on the fire, which grieved them so that they began to weep."

Eventually they do find the gold they are looking for, but they realize they have to dig for it. I wonder who is going to do the digging?

Among other things, the first horses to walk on the Americas in thousands of years, first walked on November 28, 1493. The natives were in awe of them, but afraid because they thought that they ate humans.

Columbus returned to Hispaniola on August 20th to govern. As governor, he occupied the island, enslaved the native population within those islands and allowed settlers to use them as labor to mine gold and set up some new colonies. To note how bad it got for the natives of the region, a friend of Columbus who went with him wrote the following regarding a “gift” he was given:

"While I was in the boat, I captured a very beautiful Carib woman, whom the said Lord Admiral (Columbus) gave to me. When I had taken her to my cabin she was naked as was their custom. I was filled with a desire to take my pleasure with her and attempted to satisfy my desire. She was unwilling, and so treated me with her nails that I wished I had never begun..."

I’m not going to complete the quote because it just doesn’t feel appropriate to do so. I’ll sum it up instead and say that he then brags about how he successfully whipped the poor woman into submission. It is hard to read some of these accounts at times. It is sometimes even hard to keep an objective mind about it. However, the truth is that the islands inhabitants were not all a peaceful people: they were at war with each other before Columbus ever arrived, and would often do pillaging of their own. A letter from the ship's physician Dr. Chanca says:

"The habits of these Caribbees are brutal... all these are alike as if they were of one race, who do no injury to each other; but each and all of them wage war against the other neighboring islands... In their attacks upon the neighboring islands, these people capture as many of the woman as they can, especially those who are young and beautiful, and keep them for servants and to have as concubines..."

Once again, the rest of the entry is too graphic. I'll just say it's about what they do with the babies these concubines have. Though to be fair, those details are highly disputed.

Columbus' route for his second voyage - Wikipedia

Columbus did some more exploring, still trying to find China and Japan. He was so convinced that Cuba was part of the Chinese mainland, that he had anyone who suggested that it was an island whipped. He sent a letter to Isabella asking to enslave a population of Caribbees, but the Queen decided against it. Despite the Queen's objection, the free work the natives produced began to return profits, so she was ignored.

As Governor, Columbus eventually established a tribute system. Every native above the age of 14 had to pay the Spaniards a certain amount of gold every three months. In exchange for the gold, they received a copper token. They had to wear this token around their necks. If they were caught without one, their hands would be cut off and they would be allowed to bleed to death. Many of the natives, up to fifty thousand according to Columbus, soon began to commit suicide rather than to be tortured, mutilated or violated.

On August 20, 1494, Columbus returned to Spain.

Four years after Columbus' second voyage, rumors began to brew of a whole continent laying southwest of the Cape Verde Islands. These rumors spurred a third Columbus voyage in 1498. This voyage was both a resupply mission and an exploration through the islands in search of the Asia mainland. It was also another gold hunting trip. Six ships left, with three going to the Hispaniola to resupply them and the other three, him included, traveling to the Canaries, then to the Cape Verde Islands, then southwest until July 31, 1498, when he landed on the Island of Trinidad.

Columbus' third voyage - Wikipedia

Columbus did eventually reach the continent, but it was the South American mainland of Venezuela where he met the Maya, who had begun to re-emerge. He believed he had landed on a continent south of the Chinese mainland however. His health was beginnging to fail him, he had bad arthritis, and signs point to him slowly losing his mind, yet on August 12th he set sail for Hispaniola. He arrived on the 19th to angry colonists who then began to rebel against his leadership. He and his brothers responded with an iron fist, allowing people to starve and apparently even had some of his own crew hanged. There were no trials. The punishment for a Christian boy that was caught stealing grain was to have his ears and nose cut off before auctioning him off as a slave. It was even worse for the Indians. Even though Columbus initially intended on converting the natives, that would mean they couldn't become slaves and by then, their work on the colonies had become so necessary that he began to deny baptisms to them so they could be auctioned as slaves.

Columbus' route through his third voyage - Wikipedia

By October 1499, after a year of cruelty, Columbus wore himself out and sent two ships to Spain to ask for a royal commissioner to assist him in governing. This was a mistake. With the ship went angry colonists and their native wives... or slaves, as well as frustrated missionaries and stories of the cruelties in the West Indies. The Crown, angry that Columbus disobeyed her orders with such barbarity, appointed Francisco de Bobadilla to replace Columbus as governor. Bobadilla arrived at Hispaniola in August 23, 1500, and received enough complaints and testimony to arrest Columbus and his brothers and send them back to Spain in chains.

Upon returning to Spain, Columbus and his brothers were jailed for six weeks. Afterwards, the crown summoned them. He was tried for mismanagement, but not for his cruelties. He lost his titles and his standing, but convinced the Crown to allow him one last voyage. Meanwhile, Governor Bobadilla died in 1502 and was replaced by Nicolas de Ovando y Caceres, who also hated Columbus.

Spain, 1503 - geacron.com

Columbus’ last voyage began in May 12, 1502 and had him searching for the Strait of Malacca, which is actually located in the Java Sea, on the other side of the world, but still believing he had found a passage to Asia, Columbus thought it was nearby, confusing the Caribbean for the Java Sea. He had made a lot of promises to the Crown and knew that he had to deliver, but he was otherwise a ruined man. He tried to sail under the Bahamas and around the mainland, but ended up blocked by the Mayan coastline. He sailed south down the coast line for two months before he met with people called the Ngobe who told him of where to fine gold They also told him that there was another ocean just beyond the western mountains, but he chose not to look for it. Instead, he chose to start problems with the indigenous by setting up a fort at the mouth of the Belen River after being told not to do so.

Columbus' fourth voyage - Wikipedia

And of course, they kidnapped the native chief who told them not to explore the Belen. That guy escaped, came back with an army and repelled the Chrisians off the future lands of Panama. Columbus and his men quickly returned to their ships to set sail, but the natives came and attacked the ships and many had to be abandoned. Columbus intended to make it to Hispaniola, but on the way, they encountered a hurricane and so instead became shipwrecked and stranded in Jamaica. The new governor of Hispaniola refused to help him when he learned of Columbus’ misfortune, so he spent the next year stranded in Jamaica, with his health declining.

The only reason he survived through that year was because he was able to horrify the natives there by successfully predicting a lunar eclipse. Throughout history, a lunar eclipse was thought to be a sign of bad luck and so he decided to take advantage of that knowledge. On February 29, 1503, he gathered the natives, told them they had been wicked and the spirits would punish them by turning the moon blood red - and just like he said, the moon turned red. Now terrified and believing Columbus had somehow caused the eclipse, the natives treated him well.

Columbus' route through his final voyage - Wikipedia

After being stranded for a year, the Governor finally sent some relief and Columbus was sent back to Castile, thus concluding his voyages.

Stay Tuned for Background History, Part four coming out on November 1, 2015

Sources:

Letter from Columbus to Luis de Santangel:
http://www.americanjourneys.org/aj-063/index.asp

Letter from Columbus to Ferdinand and Isabella Concerning the Colonization and Commerce of Española:
http://www.americanjourneys.org/aj-064/index.asp

Letter of Dr. Chanca on the Second Voyage of Columbus:
http://www.americanjourneys.org/aj-065/index.asp

If you're REALLY interested in the rest of what Columbus' friend wrote:
http://www.rawstory.com/2014/10/five-scary-christopher-columbus-quotes-that-let-you-celebrate-the-holiday-the-right-way/

The other unrepeatable quote:
http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/columbus/chanca.pdf

Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyages_of_Christopher_Columbus