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By Root 705 0

of 1494, Bartholomew, now known as El Adelantado, a Spanish military title meaning “the Advancer,” was guiding a fleet bound for La Isabela, where he arrived in late June to join forces with the Admiral of the Ocean Sea. Try as he might, he never inspired the confidence or fear associated with his brother. “Since Genoa was Genoa there has never been a man so courageous and astute in the act of navigation as the lord admiral, for when sailing, by simply observing a cloud or a star at night, he judged what was to come, if there was to be bad weather. He himself commanded and stood at the helm. When the storm had passed, he raised the sails while others slept,” marveled his friend Michele de Cuneo, who, unlike Las Casas, doubted the Adelantado’s ability to lead a small fleet, let alone a Spanish colony. But nepotism was nepotism, and there was nothing that Cuneo or anyone else on the voyage could do about it.

In an effort to bring a measure of order to their ragtag outpost of empire, Ferdinand and Isabella dispatched another supply fleet, four ships in all, with instructions to Columbus dated August 16, 1494. Although appreciative in tone, the communiqué revealed widening cracks in the royal façade of confidence. They desired their almirante to be more forthcoming about his actual discoveries. “We have now read everything you say, and although you go into considerable detail, and reading what you write is a source of great happiness and joy to us, we should like to know still more about, for example, how many islands have been discovered to date and named,” they chided, adding that they also desired to know “how far these islands are one from the next, and everything you have discovered on each of them.” Furthermore, “You must already have harvested what you sowed, and so we should like to know more about the seasons over there, and what the weather is like in each month of the year, for it seems from what you say they are very different from here.” They asked, “If you love us, please write at length.”

All reasonable requests, with a common theme: Tell us about our new empire.

Displaying more than perfunctory sensitivity to Columbus’s preoccupation with La Isabela, they acknowledged the responsibility was his: “As to the settlement you are building, there is no way anyone can from here advise you or recommend any changes to your plans, and we leave it entirely up to you; even were we on the spot, we should listen to your opinion and take your advice.”

To Columbus’s dismay, they threatened politely to switch him to a new assignment. Instead of settling the Indies, where the situation was rapidly deteriorating, he could return to Spain to help settle matters with the rival Portuguese concerning trade routes and the Treaty of Tordesillas, whose application was still hotly debated. “If it would be difficult for you to come,” Isabella wrote, would he please send his brother “or some other person there who knows” about the issue, “promptly by the first caravels that come home.” Given the overriding importance to the shape of the fledgling empire, whose boundaries were being tested every day, she needed to hear all his thoughts “so that we can get back to the question of exactly where the demarcation line is to be drawn within the time laid down in the agreement with the king of Portugal.”

Oblivious to these royal requests, Columbus remained at La Isabela, trying to fulfill his grandiose vision of his mission, but his goals were slow to be met. “As each day passed,” Las Casas explained, “the Admiral became more and more conscious that the whole of the land was up in arms—albeit the arms involved were a joke—and that the hatred of the Christians was growing.” Conversions to Christianity among the Indians proved difficult to accomplish, and often temporary. “As for our holy faith,” Columbus wrote of his halting efforts to persuade Indians, “I believe that if the caciques and peoples of this island were called for baptism today all would come running, but I do not believe they would understand or comprehend anything associated