1493_ Uncovering the New World Columbus Created - Charles C. Mann [233]
In the United States, Greg Garman of Virginia Commonwealth University took me on a marvelous boat tour of the James River. Caleb True obtained permissions to reproduce the images in this book and began the arduous process of straightening out the endnotes. I shuddered to see the time stamps on the e-mails from Nick Springer and Tracy Pollock, who put together the maps in the incredibly short time they were allotted. Alvy Ray Smith created the amazing family tree in Chapter 8; the color version, available at alvyray.com, is even better. Peter Dana helped me understand area calculations and cartographic software, digitized a map of Cortés’s estate, and much else. Faith d’Aluisio and Peter Menzel let me use photographs, provided instruction in photo-editing software, and, again, much else. Ellis Amdur told me interesting things about Japanese swords and the people who used them. James Fallows and Richard Stone helped me get material from Beijing. Neal Stephenson, a patient traveling companion in Xiamen, opened his immense contact list on my behalf. My thanks, too, to the bloggers and other online commenters who have discussed my work, sometimes with amazing acuity.
It is a pleasure to tip my hat to the editors who published, over the years, bits and pieces of this book: Barbara Paulsen at National Geographic; Jennifer Sahn at Orion; Richard Stone and Colin Norman at Science; Cullen Murphy at Vanity Fair; and (last but far from least) Corby Kummer, Cullen Murphy (again), and William Whitworth at The Atlantic. At Knopf, Jon Segal was patient beyond measure with a slow and wayward author; I am grateful for his support and advice on this, the fourth (and most difficult, from my point of view) project we have worked on together. Also at Knopf, Kevin Bourke, Joey McGarvey, Amy Stackhouse, and Virginia Tan performed all of the organizing, arranging, and tidying tasks that smooth out bumps in the reader’s progress and make books and their authors look good. My thanks, too, to Henk ter Borg in Amsterdam, Francis Geffard in Paris, and Sara Halloway in London. Rick Balkin, my agent, has been a good friend almost since I began writing. Many other people gave me their good offices; I can’t possibly thank them all or even acknowledge them, except to say that I hope they believe the investment was worthwhile.
NOTES
CHAPTER 1 / Two Monuments
1 Location of La Isabela: Colón 2004:314; Léon Guerrero 2000:247–51; Las Casas 1951:vol. 1, 362–63; Anghiera 1912:87; Chanca 1494:62–64; Colón, C. 1494(?). Relation of the Second Voyage. In Varela and Gil eds. 1992:235–54 (“a very suitable area of high land … not a closed port, but rather a very large bay in which all the vessels in the world will fit,” 247 [my thanks to Scott Sessions for helping me with the translation]). As Morison noted, though, the harbor is open to the north, “rendering the anchorage untenable” in winter storms, and potable water was about a mile away (1983:430–31).
2 Description of La Isabela: Author’s visit; Deagan and Cruxent 2002a:chap. 3; 2002b:chap. 4 (esp. fig. 4.2).
3 Colón’s life: Recent biographical studies include Abulafia 2008; Wey Gómez 2008; Fernández-Armesto 2001, 1991; Taviani 1996; Phillips and Phillips 1992. Useful but dated is Morison 1983. Biographies by contemporaries are Colón 2004; Las Casas 1951:vol. 1; vol. 2:1–200 (the two frequently are identical). See also the notes to p. 12.
4 Shuttle flight: I owe this simile to William Kelso.
5 First and second voyages: Abulafia 2008: 10–30, 105–212; Colón 2004:chaps 13–63; Fernández-Armesto 2001:51–114; Léon Guerrero 2000; Las Casas 1951:vol. 1 (“bailiff posthaste,” 170; Colón’s share of budget, 175–76); Phillips and Phillips 1992:120–211 (ship lengths, 144–45); Varela and Gil eds. 1992:95–365 (Colón’s and other letters); Gould 1984 (Colón’s crew); Oviedo y Valdés 1851:bks. 1–4; Cuneo 1495:50–63. Las Casas says the second voyage had “1,500 men, all or almost