Columbus_ The Four Voyages - Laurence Bergreen [173]
Nicolás de Ovando, a decade younger than Columbus, was a son of the Extremadura. Bordering Portugal, this Spanish province served as the cradle of conquistadors—Vasco Núñez de Balboa, Hernán Cortés, Francisco Pizarro, Gonzalo Pizarro, Juan Pizarro, Hernando Pizarro, and Hernando de Soto—those soldiers of fortune, adventurers, conquerors, and narrowminded visionaries who succeeded Columbus. All carried the region’s affinity for the rigors of adventure and exploitation with them.
On the strength of his father’s political connections, Ovando joined the Order of Alcántara, devoted to fighting infidels and obeying strict monastic vows. Distinguished by outstanding ability and loyalty, he had won the Sovereigns’ appointment to succeed Columbus and reform the administrative shambles left by Francisco de Bobadilla. As governor, Ovando was charged with performing sweeping tasks: transfer powers of government from Columbus to the Spanish crown, establish the church, promote economic development, extend Spanish rule over all laborers and towns, and convert Indians to Christianity, which, in practice, meant teaching them to live as Spaniards in Hispaniola. Although his responsibilities were clear, the way to fulfill them was not. Many colonists, having been brought to Hispaniola by Columbus, remained loyal to the Admiral of the Ocean Sea, while others developed ties to their Indian wives and mistresses. The oppressive climate, the spread of disease, and the strangeness of the setting challenged Ovando. His legacy of making Hispaniola more Spanish than Spain consisted of constructing public buildings of stone, as well as an opulent stone palace for himself. Like Columbus and Bobadilla before him, he fell under the illusion that he ruled the island, and all its inhabitants, the moment he set foot there, so he banned the Admiral of the Ocean Sea.
The Admiral glumly summed up his situation: “I was commanded from Spain not to touch or land there.” But land at Santo Domingo he did. It was Wednesday, June 29.
Columbus dispatched one of his captains, Pedro de Terreros, to Ovando, the knight commander, to convey the Admiral’s respects and to explain that one of his ships had to be replaced, or lives would be endangered. Adding to the urgency of the situation, he warned of a “great storm” approaching the region, and for this reason if no other, “he wished to take shelter in port.” At the moment, the port was witnessing the final preparations of Bobadilla’s convoy of ships bound for Spain. As Columbus knew, one of those ships, the fragile Aguja, carried his personal treasure. So he used the storm both as a pretext to return to Santo Domingo and supervise his personal wealth and to deliver a necessary warning. Drawing on his experience in judging weather, he advised Ovando “not to permit the homeward-bound fleet to sail for eight days because of the great danger.”
Ovando stubbornly resisted Columbus’s prudent, if self-interested, warning. He “would not permit the Admiral to enter the port,” said Ferdinand, “much less would he detail the fleet that was homeward bound for Castile” even though the roster included such important personages as Francisco de Bobadilla and Francisco Roldán, “and all the other rebels who had done the Admiral so much hurt.” If Ovando and the others had heeded Columbus’s warning, matters would have turned out very differently. The fleet would have reached Spain only a few days later than planned. Instead, a calamity occurred.
Defying Columbus, Ovando ordered the fleet to depart, regardless of the storm warning. Ferdinand recorded that when the ships “reached the eastern end of Hispaniola, the storm assailed them with such fury that the flagship carrying Bobadilla and most of the rebels went down.”
Columbus recalled the calamity with biblical intensity and resonance: “The storm was terrible, and on that night my fleet was broken up. Everyone lost hope and was quite certain that all the rest were drowned. What mortal man, even Job himself, would not have