Columbus_ The Four Voyages - Laurence Bergreen [196]
They could redeem themselves, Columbus told his Sovereigns, by punishing “those who did this and stole my pearls”—a blatant reference to the turncoat Alonso de Ojeda, who poached on the pearl fisheries that Columbus had discovered off the coast of Venezuela. If the Sovereigns put matters right, “the greatest virtue and exemplary fame would redound” to them. Descending into melodrama, he confided, “I am desperate.”
I used to weep for others; now may heaven show me mercy, and the earth weep for me. As for temporal things, I do not possess even a penny to give to charity; as for spirituality, I have been stranded here in the Indies . . . isolated in this torment, sick, expecting death every day and encircled by a million savages—filled with cruelty, our enemies—so far from the holy sacraments and Holy Church that she would forget this soul if it were separated from the body here. May whoever possesses charity, truth, and justice weep for me. I did not set out on this voyage to earn honors and riches; that is certain because hope of that is already dead. I came to Your Highnesses with an honest intention and good zeal, and I am not lying. Humbly I beseech Your Highnesses, if God be pleased to release me from here, to permit me to go to Rome and other places of pilgrimage. May the most Holy Trinity preserve and increase your life and high state.
—Written in the Indies on the island of Jamaica, July 7, 1503.
CHAPTER 13
February 29, 1504
Columbus fretted and hallucinated about his shattered career in the privacy of his quarters. The other men stranded on Jamaica, no less isolated and desperate, tormented themselves by imagining the favored few who had departed in canoes arriving to a royal welcome in Spain, where they would “enjoy the favor of Bishop Juan de Fonseca and the High Treasurer of Castile,” Ferdinand commented.
At this moment of maximum vulnerability, two of the castaways, Francisco Porras and his brother Diego, decided they could no longer endure Columbus’s infirmity and tyranny. Lives were at risk, and something had to be done as quickly as possible. They were an influential pair of traitors—one was Santiago’s captain, the other comptroller of the fleet—and together they cajoled forty-eight men to affix their signatures to the articles of mutiny. The uprising was scheduled to commence on the morning of January 2, 1504.
Captain Francisco Porras burst into Columbus’s makeshift cabin, demanding, “What do you mean by making no effort to get to Castile? Do you wish to keep us here to perish?”
As calmly as possible the Admiral said that no one wished to leave the island more than he did, but they needed a ship. If Porras had another plan, he should propose it to the other captains to consider; Columbus would convene them as often as needed. Talk of meetings merely annoyed Porras. Either Columbus decided to leave the island immediately, or the others would abandon him. He turned his back on the Admiral, a sign of profound disrespect, and shouted, “I’m for Castile. Who’s with me?”
The other mutineers cried out, “We’re with you!”
At that, they overran the makeshift cabins and roundtops, or masthead platforms, aboard the two shipwrecks, bellowing “Death to them!” and “To Castile! To Castile!”
A few loyalists, their voices drowned by the madmen, inquired, “Captain, what do we do now?”
Crippled by arthritis, Columbus was barely able to stand. Ferdinand reported that he “hobbled to the scene of the mutiny; but three or four honest fellows, his servants, fearing the mutineers might slay him, forced him with great difficulty to return to bed.”
With Columbus safe for the moment, the loyalists