Columbus_ The Four Voyages - Laurence Bergreen [115]
Antonio de Torres, by now making a specialty of leading these intermediate transatlantic crossings, proved less adept than Columbus at bringing the fleet swiftly home. The Admiral had neglected to advise him of the optimal route, which involved sailing on a northerly course to a latitude approximately that of Bermuda before heading east to the Canaries or Cape St. Vincent on the Portuguese coast. With his tragic burden of captives, Torres drifted around the Lesser Antilles for several weeks before working his way far enough north to catch the trades; after that, he reached the island of Madeira in little more than three weeks.
It was a hellish crossing. “About two hundred of these Indians died, I believe because of the unaccustomed air, colder than theirs,” Michele de Cuneo wrote. “We cast them into the sea.” Half the surviving Indians were seriously ill by the time they disembarked at Cadiz. “For your information,” he informed the authorities, “they are not working people and very much fear cold, nor have they long life.”
Desperate to demonstrate the value of the vulnerable human cargo he sent to Spain, Columbus, at a safe distance, put aside his reservations about the Indians to extol their qualities to Ferdinand and Isabella. “I believe they are without equal in the world among blacks or anywhere else,” he declared. “They are very ingenious, especially when young,” he noted. “Please consider whether it might be worth it to take six or eight boys, set them apart, and teach them to write and study, because I believe they will excel in a short time; in Spain they will learn perfectly.” The educational program never came about. Instead, the fleet’s overall manager, Juan de Fonseca, sent the survivors to Seville to be auctioned off. Columbus’s confidant Bernáldez witnessed the Indians’ final degradation at the hands of the Spanish. They were “naked as the day they were born, with no more embarrassment than wild beasts.” As if reaching for an even more callous observation, he complained, “They are not very profitable since almost all died, for the country did not agree with them.”
As Columbus’s plan to establish a slave trade with Spain self-destructed, the Indians of Hispaniola battled Spanish forces, especially in the vicinity of La Isabela. The fugitive Guatiguaná, who had chewed his way out of Spanish bondage, rallied his warriors, and began to kill off the Spanish invaders or force them back onto their ships. The Indians had the advantage of overwhelming numbers and familiarity with their homeland, but Guatiguaná was unable to unite the disparate tribes in this quest. Some leaders wished to remain safely apart, and others, especially Guacanagarí, retained their loyalty to the forces of Spain.
Columbus was still suffering from exhaustion, so weak that his crew carried him from the flagship to the shore. There he spent the winter months recovering, until the end of February 1495. He suffered from the combined effects of several ailments, some more apparent than others. The reliable Las Casas specified arthritis, by which he probably meant the painful and debilitating condition of rheumatoid arthritis, and it appeared that Columbus had begun to deteriorate mentally as well as physically. He was particularly distressed to hear that the Indians had risen in revolt against Pedro Margarit, whom Columbus had appointed to supervise the mines of the Cibao. With his petty authoritarian ways, Margarit had made a mess of things, having “paid no heed to the Admiral’s wishes,” says Ferdinand, and seemed hell-bent on making himself the new leader of the expedition.
Right after Columbus’s departure with his three ships, Margarit had ignored his orders to occupy large swatches of the island, and instead took his men, nearly four hundred strong, to the Vega Real, ten leagues away, where he devoted his energies to “scheming and contriving to have the members