Columbus_ The Four Voyages - Laurence Bergreen [222]
Las Casas’s remarks on the voyage are mentioned in Hugh Thomas, Rivers of Gold (2003), page 304.
For a thorough discussion of Fernández de Oviedo, Las Casas, and Martyr, among other Spanish historians who have written about Columbus, see Oviedo on Columbus, vol. 9, Repertorium Columbianum (2000), pages 9–27. Details of Fernández de Oviedo’s biography have been drawn from Oviedo, pages ix–xvii.
The Discoverers (1983) by Daniel Boorstin presents a concise overview of this transformative era of exploration on pages 248–59.
Coma’s description of the raucous departure from Cadiz can be found in “Syllacio’s Letter to the Duke of Milan 13 December 1494” in Morison, Journals and Other Documents on the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, pages 229–30. The “huntress” description appears on page 231.
Animals on the ships are described in Christopher Columbus: Accounts and Letters , vol. 6, Nuova Raccolta Colombiana, page 17.
Fernández-Armesto discusses festivities in Columbus, page 53.
The report about Doña Beatriz de Peraza can be found in Morison’s Admiral of the Ocean Sea, page 399.
The tale of the friar and the cannibals is related in Admiral of the Ocean Sea, page 405. In general, the evidence presented by Columbus and other participants in the voyages is more reliable than subsequent efforts to reinterpret their experiences. For a scholarly discussion of this fraught subject, see Myers, “Island Carib Cannibalism.”
Peter Martyr is believed to have based his description of areítos on the observations of Santiago Cañizares, who had witnessed them. And information about Taíno music and instruments has been drawn from Lynne Guitar, “New Notes about Taíno Music and Its Influence on Contemporary Dominican Life.” Peter Martyr is also known as Peter Martyr d’Anghiera.
Peter Martyr’s letter to Cardinal Ascanio Sforza is in The Discovery of the New World in the Writings of Peter Martyr of Anghiera, vol. 2, Nuova Raccolta Colombiana (1992), page 229.
The remarks by Guillermo Coma are from Morison, Journals and Other Documents on the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, page 236.
Fernández de Oviedo expounds on poison apples on page 91 of Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, Natural History of the West Indies.
The term “buccaneer” derives from the French term for the rack, boucan, used for barbecuing meat, an early occupation of such “freebooters,” another word of piratical origin, referring to plundering and booty.
Columbus’s remarks about the city of La Isabela are in Kathleen Deagan and José María Cruxent, Columbus’s Outpost among the Taínos (2002), pages 48–50, 54.
Chapter 6: Rebellion
The list of requested supplies can be found in Deagan and Cruxent, Columbus’s Outpost among the Taínos, page 137.
Ferdinand and Isabella’s kingdom of Castile was only the most recent empire to claim the endlessly contested city of Cadiz, believed to have been founded by Phoenicians as a trading center, who called it Gadir, for “walled city.” In AD 711, the Moors seized it, and held it until 1262, when it was conquered by Alfonso X of Castile. Under Spanish rule, the city assumed the name Cadiz. As exploration grew, Cadiz attracted mariners from across Europe, especially Genoa. By one estimate, nearly half the city consisted of Genoese in search of opportunity, and they were about to greet one of their own.
Columbus’s advice to the Sovereigns is quoted in Christopher Columbus: Accounts and Letters, vol. 6, part 1, Nuova Raccolta Colombiana, pages 13–39.
The letters of Ferdinand and Isabella beginning April 13 are quoted in Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea, page 436.
Fernández de Oviedo discusses mining for gold on pages 106–9 of Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, Natural History of the West Indies (1959).
Las Casas’s description of Ojeda can be found in Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea, pages 432–33.
On page 36 of Deagan and Cruxent’s Columbus’s Outpost among the Taínos, the authors write that the Indians ate, in addition to hutias, “iguanas, birds, snakes, giant beetle grubs, and insects.