Columbus_ The Four Voyages - Laurence Bergreen [200]
It had been eight months since Fieschi and Méndez set off to Santo Domingo on their rescue mission. By this time they should have returned or sent word of their whereabouts, but there was nothing—no canoe, no Indian, no Spanish survivor of the mission, and no sail on the horizon to indicate their fate. Rumors spread that they had drowned, or been slaughtered by Indians, or, in Ferdinand’s words, had “died on the way from sickness and hardships. They knew that from the eastern end of Jamaica to the town of Santo Domingo in Hispaniola stretched over one hundred leagues of very difficult navigation by sea on account of contrary winds and currents and of travel over very rugged mountains by land.” Indians whispered about a ghostly shipwreck that had been spotted “drifting down the coast of Jamaica,” but its substance remained a mystery.
Yet another mutiny broke out, this time led by an unlikely candidate, the apothecary Vernal. It grew unchecked until late March 1504, when a sail appeared on the horizon. The ship, a little caravel, had been dispatched by Nicolás de Ovando, and it anchored close to the hulks of Columbus’s shattered flotilla.
“The captain, Diego de Escobar, came aboard and informed the Admiral that the Knight Commander of Lares, the Governor of Hispaniola, sent his compliments and regretted that he had no ship large enough to take off all the Admiral’s men.” He hoped to send one soon, and as a token of his goodwill, Captain Escobar gave Columbus a “barrel of wine and slab of salt pork,” both welcome luxuries in this isolated outpost, before returning to his vessel, raising anchor, and sailing that night “without even taking letters from anyone.”
The caravel’s appearance, to say nothing of the gifts of food and wine, so astonished the stranded mariners that the mutineers immediately “covered up the plot they had been hatching,” although the alacrity with which Captain Escobar departed inspired a new set of conspiracy theories. The men speculated that Nicolás de Ovando had no intention of rescuing his despised rival Columbus, whom he wanted to perish in his obscure Jamaican refuge. As Ferdinand saw matters, Ovando “feared the Admiral’s return to Castile,” and worried that the Sovereigns would “restore the Admiral to his office and deprive him (Ovando) of his government.” For this reason, Ferdinand theorized, Ovando had sent the little caravel not to assist the Admiral but “to spy on him and report how he might be totally destroyed.”
Another rumor, mentioned by Las Casas, held that Columbus was plotting a “rebellion against the king and queen with some notion of handing these Indies over to the Genoese or to some other country apart from Castile.” Even Las Casas dismissed the allegation as “false and invented and spread by his enemies as a wicked calumny,” but the chronicler could not resist discussing it, especially because the claim gained enough currency to reach the Sovereigns. Not knowing whether he would ever be rescued, or whether his words would ever reach Ferdinand and Isabella, Columbus demolished this theory in a passionate self-defense: “Who could entertain the notion that a poor foreigner would, in such a place, dream of rebelling against Your Majesties, for no reason whatever, with no support from any foreign ruler, surrounded by your subjects and countrymen?”
Even if those arguments held the Sovereigns at bay, Columbus still had to assuage his rival Ovando, whom he tried to lobby and flatter in equal measure. “When I left Castile, I did so to the great rejoicing of Their Majesties, who also made me wonderful promises, and in particular that they would see all my assets restored and would heap still more honors on me; these promises they made both by word of mouth and in writing.” Having put Ovando on notice, Columbus shifted his argument. “I ask you, my lord, not to entertain any doubts on that score: please believe that I shall obey your orders and instructions in every particular.” Not only that,