Columbus_ The Four Voyages - Laurence Bergreen [171]
Columbus’s fleet consisted of just four ordinary ships leased by the Sovereigns. The flagship was known as La Capitana, under the command of Diego Tristán, a Columbus loyalist who received 4,000 maravedís a month for his labors. Ambrosio Sánchez served as master, his brother Juan as chief pilot, each receiving exactly half the captain’s salary. They supervised a crew of thirty-four, including fourteen sailors, who received 1,000 maravedís per month, and twenty ship’s boys. Specialists included a cooper (to protect barrels holding water and wine), a caulker, a carpenter, a pair of trumpeters to sound alarms and perform music appropriate to maritime events, and two gunners. Afflicted with gout and the poor vision that tormented him on his previous voyage, Columbus assumed a less definite role in the enterprise, in case he again became incapacitated, but he was unquestionably its most important personage.
Santiago de Palos, nicknamed Bermuda after her owner, Francisco Bermúdez, was a more compact vessel. Bartholomew Columbus functioned as her captain, without pay, while the nominal captain, Francisco Porras, earned a salary of 3,666 maravedís per month. His brother Diego Porras earned slightly less, serving as the crown’s comptroller and representative on board ship. Columbus had not wanted either Porras brother on the voyage, but he was compelled to take them along by the crown’s treasurer, Alonso de Castile, who maintained the Porrases’ sister as his mistress. This ship’s crew consisted of eleven sailors, a boatswain (in charge of the crew and equipment), a dozen or so cabin boys, along with a cooper, caulker, carpenter, and gunner, and six escuderos (gentlemen)—volunteers motivated by a combination of greed, lust, and thirst for adventure.
A more reliable crew operated Gallega (“the Galician”), with Pedro de Terreros as captain, earning the going rate of 4,000 maravedís per month. A diehard Columbus loyalist, he was sailing with the Admiral for the fourth time. The second-in-command, Juan Quintero, earning half that amount, had been boatswain aboard Pinta during the first voyage and, as the ship’s owner, had at least as much clout as the captain. A complement of sailors, a boatswain, cabin boys, and an escudero completed the roster.
The fleet’s smallest ship, Vizcaína (“the Biscayne”), boasted a captain with a famous name: Bartolomeo Fieschi came from a renowned Genoese family. Columbus was so determined to keep the fleet under his control that he bought the ship from her owner after sailing. Vizcaína carried several Genoese, a chaplain, and a page.
Whatever the flotilla lacked in size and status, it made up for in ambition.
“On May 9, 1502,” Ferdinand wrote, “we set sail from the harbor of Cádiz and made for Santa Catalina,” a fortress at the port’s opening, “whence we sailed again on Wednesday, the 11th of the month, for Arzila,” a city sometimes known by its older name, Asylum, situated on the Atlantic coast of northern Morocco, distinguished by stark white walls rising above the sea. In 1471, the Portuguese had wrested the city from Arab control.
Encouraged by King Ferdinand, Columbus attempted to repair his frayed relationship with Portuguese interests by offering to support the city in its struggle to ward off the foe, but by the time he arrived, “the Moors had already raised the siege,” wrote his son, for whom the spectacle of greeting one civilization after another assumed dreamlike clarity.