The Last Crusader: The Untold Story of Christopher Columbus

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The Last Crusader The Untold Story of Christopher Columbus

D R. G E O R G E G R ANT

Standfast Books and Press

Franklin, TN


Copyright © 2014 by George Grant All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below. Standfast Books and Press, Inc. 211 London Lane Franklin, TN 37067 www.standfastbooks.com Ordering Information: Quantity sales. Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address above. Orders by U.S. trade bookstores and wholesalers. Please contact Standfast Books and Press: Tel: (615) 618-6064; or visit www.standfastbooks.com. Printed in the United States of America Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data Grant, George. p. cm. ISBN 978-1-940443-02-7 1. The main category of the book —Biography —History. HF0000.A0 A00 2010 299.000 00–dc22 2010999999 Third Edition 14 13 12 11 10 / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1


CONTENTS Introduction..........................................................................................................................................vii Chapter One: The New World.......................................................................................... 1 Chapter Two: The Old World..........................................................................................10 Chapter Three: Taking the Cross...................................................................................27 Chapter Four: A Weaver’s Son.......................................................................................51 Chapter Five: The Great Enterprise............................................................................70 Chapter Six: Columbiana......................................................................................................93 Bibliographic Resources.......................................................................................................109 Columbian Extracts...................................................................................................................119



Introduction

in limine “Behold all the leaders who have been handed down to posterity as instances of an evil fate—yet among them the good, the true, and the great.” —Seneca “Tis more honored in the breach than the observance.” —Shakespeare

H

enry Cabot Lodge was a remarkably progressive American politician at the turn of the century. Student of Henry Adams, friend of Theodore Roosevelt, and mentor of Charles Lindbergh, Lodge was one of the most influential advocates of the traditional ethics and family values of Western civilization during that uproarious and unpredictable epoch in our culture. But, he was also a respected academic. In fact, his work as an historian—he was the first to earn a doctorate from Harvard—was perhaps even more impressive than his civil service. He believed that modern social and political agendas— which are, more often than not, ferociously alien to the founding principles of the West—generally demanded a radical and revisionist perspective of history. They manipulated the past in an effort to similarly manipulate the future. So, as an antidote to that kind of dastardly divined despotism, he advocated a very straightforward, back-to-basics, and shirt-sleeves approach to academic and cultural integrity: strip away the layers of vii


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historical waffling and garbling that had begun to veil—or even bury—the truth. Thus, he once asserted, “Nearly all the historical work worth doing at the present moment in the English language is the work of shoveling off heaps of rubbish inherited from the immediate past.” In his many productive years as a biographer and a popular chronicler, that is precisely the kind of work that he did, and it was indeed worthwhile. In fact, it set a precedent for a whole new kind of historical commentary that dominated progressive writing for more than half a century. Along with G.K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, Maurice Baring, Jacob Riis, Francis Parkman, and Thomas Macaulay—all practitioners of that kind of objective historical writing—Lodge helped snap the spell of smothering modernity with a sane backward glance at the great Christian ecology that gave flower to the remarkable liberty, justice, and hope enjoyed by the democracies of the West. Instead of writing original history, fashioned after eyewitnesses like Herodotus, Thucydides, or Villehardouin, reflective history, fashioned after scholastics like Psellus, Livy, or Toynbee, or even directive history, fashioned after propagandists like Hegel, Voltaire, and Nietzsche, those stalwarts of truth and integrity preferred philosophical history, fashioned after functionalists like Eusebius, Vasari, and Carlyle. While philosophical history is primarily concerned with the forest, original history is concerned with the trees, reflective history is concerned with the roots, and directive history is concerned with the humus. Thus, Lodge and the others were concerned first and foremost about the landscape, and only secondarily about the flora and fauna that made up its ecology. Their aim was to preserve the practical lessons and profound legacies of Christendom without the petty prejudice of humanistic fashions or the parsimonious preference of enlightenment innovations. They wanted to avoid the trap viii


Introduction

of noticing everything that went unnoticed in the past while failing to notice all that the past deemed notable. They shunned the kind of modern epic that today is shaped primarily by the banalities of sterile government schools or the fancies of empty theater scenes rather than the realities of historical facts. At the same time, though, they believed that history was a series of lively adventure stories and should thus be told without the cumbersome intrusion of arcane academic rhetoric or truckloads of extraneous footnotes. In fact, they believed that history was a romantic moral drama in a world gone impersonally scientific and should thus be told with passion, unction, and verve. To them, the record of the ages was actually philosophy teaching by example—and because, however social conditions may change, the great underlying qualities which make and save men and nations do not alter, it was the most important example of all. They understood only too well that the past is ever present, giving shape and focus to all our lives— yet it is not the actual past, but whatever seems to have been the actual past, simply because the past, like the future, that is part and parcel of the faith. It is no surprise then that they sought to comprehend events through the same worldview lens as those who wrought the events in the first place. Innumerable serious historical works have been published on the life and discoveries of Christopher Columbus, but virtually all of them have either been original, such as the studies by Las Casas, Don Ferdinand, and Barros, reflective, such as the studies by Irving, Morrison, or Taviani, or directive, such as the studies by Winsor, Madariaga, and Sale. It has always seemed to me that there has thus been a crying need for a philosophical history of the great discoverer written from a Christian perspective. Without it, a terribly distorted picture of the man and his mission inevitably emerges—either as an ethereal and hallowed saint or as a spurious and sinister beast. Without it, we can’t see the forest for the trees. ix


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This book is an attempt to revive that venerable old Christian tradition in order to fill in the gap. It is essentially designed to set the record straight—to chart the topography of that forgotten foreign land called the past. Though, let me hasten to add that I have tried to make certain that this study is not primarily theoretical or esoteric. Rather, like the books of Lodge and the others, it is an attempt to bring the epoch of Columbus, now obviously long past, back to life. It is an effort to make it a narrative worthy to be told at home round the hearth, appealing to the heroic heart of all generations and reinvigorating the eternal infancy of mankind. Thus, it is essentially a story not a study. It is a true tale, to be sure, but hopefully, it reads like a valiant fable and not like a vapid fact. Familiarity breeds contempt—though familiar things are all the more remarkable for their comfortable accessibility. So many of the memorable expressions in Shakespeare’s Hamlet have become so proverbial that once, after attending a performance of the play, Mark Twain was able to satirically complain that, “It was nothing more than a bunch of clichés.” In the same way, certain aspects of the story of Columbus have become so familiar that we are apt to miss their original impact and import—but we ought not and had best not do so. Thus, this book aims at the familiar as much as the unfamiliar in the hopes of exchanging contempt for cognizance. The structure of the study—just like the structure of social memory itself—is progressive but not necessarily chronological: Chapter One argues that the modern problem with Columbus is not so much his performance as his principles; in other words, it is not so much what he did or how he did it as what he was and why. Chapter Two provides a look at the world scene at the end of the fifteenth century—a very unfamiliar scene indeed—with a x


Introduction

particular emphasis on the structure of that great confederation called Christendom. Chapter Three examines one of the primary motivations in Columbus’ life: the desire to launch a new crusade in order to recover the Holy Sepulcher from the hands of the Saracen infidel. Chapter Four surveys the family background and early years of Columbus and how that background ultimately shaped the character and the career of the discoverer. Chapter Five explores how and why he developed the idea for the enterprise in the first place, including who his intellectual influences were and how his practical experiences contributed to his thinking all the way through to the great discovery itself. Chapter Six describes the struggles that Columbus faced following that first voyage. It then surveys the continuing heritage of Columbus in the West—where he continues to be revered by some and reviled by others—focusing particularly on the conflicts and controversies that suddenly surrounded the navigator during the quincentennial celebration of his accomplishment. The book concludes with a chronological survey of the discoverer’s life and times, a collection of extracted quotes concerning his accomplishments, and a comprehensive bibliography of the source materials I consulted during the course of my research and writing. Just as brevity is the soul of wit, so it is the crux of attentiveness. Thus, every effort has been made to keep this study from becoming a tome. Hopefully, however, it has substance enough to provoke some measure of cultural sagacity in these trying times. xi


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G. K. Chesterton once asserted that “The great intellectual tradition that comes down to us from the past was never interrupted or lost through such trifles as the sack of Rome, the triumph of Attila, or all the barbarian invasions of the Dark Ages. It was lost after the introduction of printing, the discovery of America, the founding of the Royal Society, and all the enlightenment of the Renaissance and the modern world. It was there, if anywhere, that there was lost or impatiently snapped the long thin delicate thread that had descended from distant antiquity; the thread of that unusual human hobby: the habit of thinking.” It is my prayer that this small book may be an impetus for a revival of that unusual human hobby—if only in this one small area of historical interest. After all, it has taken a good deal of rubbish-shoveling to uncover even this much—perhaps those who come after me will have an easier time of it and will thus be able to build positively on these slight and diaphanous foundations.

Deo soli gloria. Jesu juva.

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Chapter One

The New World

de clementia “Out of their times, certain mercies appear to be tyrannies and certain virtues appear to be vices. But such revising is utterly vile. Time is the plaything of providence only.” —Seneca “He was but a man of fire-new words and deeds.” —Shakespeare

H

is thick, woolen doublet was sticky against his breast as he labored forward in the sweltering humidity. Briny water sloshed about in his boots. A gritty, sugary sand, whisked by the wind, clung to his skin and found its way between the folds of his clothing. For seventy-one days he had endured the close quarters and meager rations of a tiny caravel out on the open seas. During the last three weeks of that long journey, he had to calm the fears and control the anxieties of ninety restless sailors. Over the past thirty-six hours he had not slept at all. He was hot, dirty, and exhausted. But in this moment of victory, he felt no discomfort—only exhilaration. 1


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At last, he had made landfall in what he believed to be the fabled Indies. In fact, Christopher Columbus had just discovered America—though it would be some time before he fully comprehended the real significance of that feat. It was early in the morning on October 12, 1492. Columbus left his command of the Santa Maria in a tiny skiff. A few yards from the shore, he plunged into the shallows and collapsed on the beach. Prostrate there on the tiny Guanahani island of the Bahamian archipelago, he wept tears of joy. After a few moments, he lifted his head toward heaven and cried out with the words of the traditional dawn-watch canticle— the Bendita Sea la Luz—in exultant thanksgiving: Blessed be the light of day, and the Holy Cross we say; and the Lord of Verity, and the Holy Trinity. Blessed be the immortal soul, and the Lord who keeps it whole, blessed be the light of day, and He who sends the dark away. With several of his crewmen giddily gathered around him—including many of the experience-hardened marineros, grumetes, and oficiales of the expedition—he rose to his feet and unfurled the royal standard of Castile’s beloved Queen Isabella. The two Pinzon brothers—Martin, who captained the Pinta, and Vicente, who captained the Nina—likewise solemnly displayed the banners of the Enterprise. Afterward, Columbus summoned the secretary of his little armada and formalized his perpetration. With whatever pomp and ceremony he could muster in such circumstances, he intoned solemnly the holy decrees and contentions. He claimed the island for his liege lord, and he named it for his 2


The New World

divine Lord. Thus was the thirteen-mile stretch of coral and sand re-christened San Salvador. The men began to celebrate. They danced and shouted and clapped one another on the back. They sang and wept and made gracious amends. Besides grief, there is no other emotion that elicits such free expression as relief. Meanwhile, a small group of natives gathered beneath the low, lush mangrove branches at the edge of the beach and watched this happy spectacle. The handsome tribesmen of the Arawak-speaking Tainos clan were not entirely unused to seeing strange men with strange habits. In fact, they had arrived on these same shores only very recently themselves, driving away or enslaving the primitive Siboney people who were previous inhabitants of the island. Even so, it is safe to say that they had never seen anything quite as strange as this. But then, the European sailors had probably never seen anything quite so strange as them either. They were simple, naked, and curious. Though strangeness is not so relative as modern men are prone to presume, it is more so than what medieval men might. Clearly, habit and fashion color a civilization, but it is providence that governs it. After determining that these Tainos tribesmen were unable to understand Arabic—and thus were probably not allied with the dread Saracens or Moors—Columbus immediately styled them as Indians and offered them a few small tokens of kindness. He did this, he said, “In order that we might win good friendship, because I knew that they were a people who could better be freed and converted to our Holy Faith by love than by force.” Impressed by their apparent guileless innocence and gracious generosity, he ordered his crewmen to take care that they did not yield to the temptation to indulge in crass exploitation: “They are so ingenuous and free with all they have, that no one would believe it who has not seen it; of anything that they possess, if it be asked of them, they never say no; on the contrary, they invite you to share it and show as much love as if their hearts went 3


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with it, and they are content with whatever trifle be given them, whether it be a thing of value or of petty worth. I forbade that they be given things so worthless as bits of broken crockery and of green glass and lace-points, although when they could get them, they thought they had the best jewel in the world.� That kind of gentle evangelistic concern was actually typical of Columbus and leavened his relations with all men everywhere. It would ultimately prove to be the manner of both his doing and his undoing. For the next couple of days, before setting off in their ships for further explorations, Columbus and his men roamed the rest of the island. Apart from the Tainos, it was a rather unsensational place. It was flat, boorish, and honeycombed with rancid salt lagoons. But as is so often the case, the monotonous and mundane generally supersede the splendid and spectacular in this poor, fallen world. And so, it was there, on that rather unremarkable beach that history was forever remarkably transformed. It was with that profoundly unimpressive shoal that Columbus left the most profound mortal impression yet known to men and nations. Those few hours on the Caribbean shore irreversibly tangled the peoples of two continents in a complex knot of culture and captivity that sociologists and politicians have worried over for centuries. But they also inevitably untangled a complex knot of character and consistency that historians and biographers have worried over for centuries. They represent perhaps the clearest exposition of the hopes and dreams, the motives and morals, and the purpose and personality of Columbus himself. A man’s virtue is always best revealed in trauma or in triumph—and in this instance, both trauma and triumph bear witness to an extraordinary man of faith, longsuffering, fidelity, genius, and vision. This is nearly incomprehensible to us. The greatest virtue of the last generation was prudent respectability. The greatest virtue of our generation is brazen boldness. It is difficult for us to imagine any one time when both were virtues 4


The New World

together. Even more, it is difficult for us to imagine any one man in which together both were virtues. But the fifteenth century was just such a time. And Columbus was just such a man.

The Crossing The three little ships in the Discoverer’s expedition caught a strong sea breeze at the Rio Odiel and put out to sea early in the morning on August 3, 1492. After a brief stop at the Canary island of Gomera—in order to make a few last minute adjustments and repairs—the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria sailed west into the unknown on September 7. About ten days later, the ships entered the legendary Sargassa. This vast accumulation of seaweed and rolled fronds in the mid-Atlantic had been known since late antiquity. The testimony of several famous travelers—including Herodotus, Brendan, and Luriao—had carefully documented and plotted the phenomenon, but it was a frightening and disconcerting sight anyway (and still is to this day). It is one of those things that is invariably misunderstood precisely because it is so often described and explained—like the sciences or the sacraments. The sailors imagined all manner of sea-creatures and sundry monsters of mythic proportions. They fathomed horrors out of the deep recesses of their own souls—where indeed the fiercest horrors do dwell. In spite of their terror, though, they somehow mustered the fortitude and determination to stay the course. Thus, despite modern accounts to the contrary, the expedition sailed through that odd, natural obstacle during the next two weeks without incident. In fact, their entire journey passed without much drama to speak of. There were no great storms; there were no real calamities or crises; there was never a serious shortage of provisions; and there were no substantial material or structural failures. Columbus wrote in his log book that the ships glided lightly on waters “always as calm as the river at Seville.” 5


THE LAST CRUSADER

The only bad news was actually the good news: strong trade winds continued to push them ever westward. With such an unvarying draught, the men began to worry about the difficulty of an about-face return. Grumbling and murmuring began to sour the on-board atmosphere. More dangerous even that the fears provoked by the Sargassa, such emotions are a kind of diluted and timorous rebellion—just as sentimentality is a kind of diluted and timorous love. Fortuitously, long before those tensions could ever coalesce into full mutiny, new hope loomed large on the horizon. On the forty-fifth day of the journey—a Sunday—crewmen from two of the ships noticed freshly uprooted vegetation floating on the surface of the water. On Monday, a land-living, white, reed-tailed bird appeared, and over the next three weeks, a plethora of other signs—an unexpected variation in the prevailing winds, the appearance of carved sticks floating in the flotsam and jetsam, and several large flocks of birds flying overhead—gradually convinced them that land was nearby. Each sign indicated that they were nearing the end of their storied quest.

Passing the Time Still, days turned to weeks, and they sailed on. According to the Discoverer’s calculations, land should have appeared at any time. Unease resurfaced. But those long, final hours spent on the vast unchanging seas were not entirely without moment. In fact, the daily schedule of the crew on the three little ships was filled with an almost monastic purposefulness. Because the only timekeeping mechanisms available to seamen of the fifteenth century were the fragile and often unreliable Venetian ampolleta hourglasses, each day was regulated by a careful observance of the liturgical hours. So even though every thirty minutes a turning of the glass marked the 6


The New World

cuartos, the traditional nautical watches were more often than not determined by the unerring spiritual clock of matins, lauds, prime, tierce, sext, nones, vespers, and compline. Interestingly, vestiges of this Christian system still remain on modern ships, with the half-hourly ship’s bells regularly punctuating the eight standard watches. Thus, daybreak was saluted with an antiphonal singing of the Bendita Sea la Luz, a recitation of the Pater Noster, and the unison chanting of the Ave Maria. The sunset was greeted with Bible reading and a singing of the Salve Regina, the Te Deum, the Credo, and the Te Lucis Ante Terminum. Throughout the day, the men would reiterate the mariner’s epithet from Psalm 107: “They that go down to the sea in ships and do business in great waters; these see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep. For at His word the stormy wind arises, which lifts the winds thereof. O that men would therefore praise the Lord for His goodness, and declare the wonders that he does for the children of men.” In addition, they would regularly invoke the Dios Nos prayer: “God give us good days, good passage, and good company; so let there be good voyage. Thus, days on end, may God grant your graces, gentlemen of the afterguard and gentlemen of the forward.” As a man of determined faith, Columbus placed special sanctity on these rituals. They were to him the very clockwork of life.They reinforced and undergirded in his mind the essential moral, practical, and hierarchical mechanics of God’s superintending rule. Though his men may have questioned his wisdom in sailing so distantly from familiar shores, they did not quibble over this. At a time when men were not yet able to cocoon themselves with the false confidence of gadgetry and technology, seamen were the most religious of all the tradesmen. They daily witnessed the splendor of God’s creation. They had firsthand evidence of the workings of His sovereign purposes. They held fast to the clear 7


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signs of divine action. Modern men scoff at the bare relation of such things, but hold fast to anything. The crew of Columbus knew better. They grasped full well the folly of relying on anything but His good providence. So they faithfully passed the time—and to happy consequence.

Land About an hour before moonrise on the evening of Thursday, October 11, Columbus was standing on the sterncastle of the Santa Maria, slightly higher than the prow. From there, he saw— or thought he saw—a light in the darkness along the western horizon. Later, he wrote that it appeared to be “like a little wax candle rising and falling.” Columbus excitedly summoned Pedro Gutierrez—one of the ship’s several experienced and ably trained marineros—who confirmed the sighting. But the lights quickly faded from view. Sometime after midnight, with the moon in its last quarter illuminating the waves, Rodrigo de Triana—a lookout on the Pinta’s forecastle—caught sight of what appeared to be a whitish sand dune gleaming in the half-light. Then he saw another. Finally, he glimpsed a dark mass of rocks connecting the two. “Tierra! Tierra!” he cried out, and land it was. It was not Asia, as they all had hoped. But it was land—lying just six miles ahead. Cascading joy gripped Columbus. Though it was not yet dawn, the white light of wonder shone on the whole business. It had been nearly three months since he had left the familiar realms of Christendom. It had been more than eight years since he had first proposed the expedition and more than a decade since he had first conceived it. He had to overcome the objections of the greatest minds of the day. He had to convince reluctant merchants, courtiers, mariners, and churchmen. He had to outwit men made ignorant by their experience. Again 8


The New World

and again, he had to persevere in the midst of disappointment, humiliation, poverty, frustration, and betrayal. There was thus, glory in this moment—and vindication. But, before he could claim his long-overdue exculpation and make his long-cherished landfall, Columbus had to overcome one final obstacle. He had to find a way through the broad, coral, barrier reefs that completely encompassed the island. No navigator from the West had ever encountered such phenomena before. They were entirely unknown until that very moment. But as with every other impediment thus far, Columbus took it in stride. He ordered the ships to steer clear of the dangers and sail around the island to the leeward side to look for a break in the reef. In the early morning light, he found a small gap just off the western breaks and the three caravels entered the shallow bay and found sheltered anchorage. Interestingly, the windward side of the island is today littered with the wrecks of vessels which came long after Columbus—ships that were piloted by men who failed to exercise either his genius or his precaution. Once the ships were secure, Columbus loaded an armed boat with his most trusted men and aimed for the curving beach of gleaming coral sand. A lump was in his throat, a tear was in his eye, and a banner of Christendom was in his hand. Moments later, he leapt forward into the still waters alone, to claim a triumph that was rightfully his alone. He had set out to restore the fortunes of the Old World and, instead, he revealed the fortunes of the New World. He had sailed west in order to discover the most direct route to a mysterious east and, instead, he had discovered the most direct route to an even more mysterious west. Of such paradoxes is the inscrutability of divine kismet made.

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