The True Story of Christopher Columbus [19]
and so we must still say that Christopher Columbus really discovered America and built the first fort and the first city on its shores-- although he thought he was doing all this in Asia, on the shores of China or Japan.
When Columbus had his people nearly settled in their new city of Isabella, he remembered that the main thing he was sent to do was to get together as much gold as possible. His men were already grumbling. They had come over the sea, they said, not to dig cellars and build huts, but to find gold --gold that should make them rich and great and happy.
So Columbus set to work gold-hunting. At first things seemed to promise success. The Indians told big stories of gold to be found in the mountains of Hayti; the men sent to the mountains discovered signs of gold, and at once Columbus sent home joyful tidings to the king and queen of Spain.
Then he and his men hunted everywhere for the glittering yellow metal. They fished for it in the streams; they dug for it in the earth; they drove the Indians to hunt for it also until the poor redmen learned to hate the very sound of the word gold, and believed that this was all the white men lived for, cared for or worked for; holding up a piece of this hated gold the Indians would say, one to another: "Behold the Christian's god!" And so it came about that the poor worried natives, who were not used to such hard work, took the easiest way out of it all, and told the Spaniards the biggest kind of lies as to where gold might be found--always away off somewhere else--if only the white men would go there to look for it.
On the thirteenth of January, 1494, Columbus sent back to Spain twelve of his seventeen ships. He did not send back in them to the king, and queen, the gold he had promised. He sent back the letters that promised gold; he sent back as prisoners for punishment some of the most discontented and quarrelsome of his colonists; and, worst of all, he sent to the king and queen a note asking, them to permit him to send to Spain all the Indians he could catch, to be sold as slaves. He said that by doing this they could make "good Christians" of the Indians, while the money that came from selling the natives would buy cattle for the colony and leave some money for the royal money-chests.
It is not pleasant to think this of so great a man as Columbus. But it is true, and he is really the man who, started the slave-trade in America. Of course things were very different in his time from what they are to-day, and people did not think so badly of this horrible business. But some good men did, and spoke out boldly against it. What they said was not of much use, however, and slavery was started in the new world. And from that act of Columbus came much sorrow and trouble for the land he found. Even the great war between the northern and southern sections of our own United States, upon one side or the other of which your fathers, or your grandfathers perhaps, fought with gun and sword, was brought about by this act of the great Admiral Columbus hundreds of years before.
So the twelve ships sailed back to Spain, and Columbus, with his five remaining ships, his soldiers and his colonists, remained in the new city of Isabella to keep up the hunt for gold or to become farmers in the new world.
CHAPTER IX. HOW THE TROUBLES OF THE ADMIRAL BEGAN.
Both the farmers and the gold hunters had a hard time of it in the land they had come to so hopefully. The farmers did not like to farm when they thought they could do so much better at gold hunting; the gold hunters found that it was the hardest kind of work to get from the water or pick from the rocks the yellow metal they were so anxious to obtain.
Columbus himself was not satisfied with the small amount of gold he got from the streams and mines of Hayti; he was tired of the wrangling and grumbling of his men. So, one day, he hoisted sail on his five ships and started away on a hunt for richer gold mines, or, perhaps, for those wonderful cities of Cathay he was still determined to find.
He sailed to the south
When Columbus had his people nearly settled in their new city of Isabella, he remembered that the main thing he was sent to do was to get together as much gold as possible. His men were already grumbling. They had come over the sea, they said, not to dig cellars and build huts, but to find gold --gold that should make them rich and great and happy.
So Columbus set to work gold-hunting. At first things seemed to promise success. The Indians told big stories of gold to be found in the mountains of Hayti; the men sent to the mountains discovered signs of gold, and at once Columbus sent home joyful tidings to the king and queen of Spain.
Then he and his men hunted everywhere for the glittering yellow metal. They fished for it in the streams; they dug for it in the earth; they drove the Indians to hunt for it also until the poor redmen learned to hate the very sound of the word gold, and believed that this was all the white men lived for, cared for or worked for; holding up a piece of this hated gold the Indians would say, one to another: "Behold the Christian's god!" And so it came about that the poor worried natives, who were not used to such hard work, took the easiest way out of it all, and told the Spaniards the biggest kind of lies as to where gold might be found--always away off somewhere else--if only the white men would go there to look for it.
On the thirteenth of January, 1494, Columbus sent back to Spain twelve of his seventeen ships. He did not send back in them to the king, and queen, the gold he had promised. He sent back the letters that promised gold; he sent back as prisoners for punishment some of the most discontented and quarrelsome of his colonists; and, worst of all, he sent to the king and queen a note asking, them to permit him to send to Spain all the Indians he could catch, to be sold as slaves. He said that by doing this they could make "good Christians" of the Indians, while the money that came from selling the natives would buy cattle for the colony and leave some money for the royal money-chests.
It is not pleasant to think this of so great a man as Columbus. But it is true, and he is really the man who, started the slave-trade in America. Of course things were very different in his time from what they are to-day, and people did not think so badly of this horrible business. But some good men did, and spoke out boldly against it. What they said was not of much use, however, and slavery was started in the new world. And from that act of Columbus came much sorrow and trouble for the land he found. Even the great war between the northern and southern sections of our own United States, upon one side or the other of which your fathers, or your grandfathers perhaps, fought with gun and sword, was brought about by this act of the great Admiral Columbus hundreds of years before.
So the twelve ships sailed back to Spain, and Columbus, with his five remaining ships, his soldiers and his colonists, remained in the new city of Isabella to keep up the hunt for gold or to become farmers in the new world.
CHAPTER IX. HOW THE TROUBLES OF THE ADMIRAL BEGAN.
Both the farmers and the gold hunters had a hard time of it in the land they had come to so hopefully. The farmers did not like to farm when they thought they could do so much better at gold hunting; the gold hunters found that it was the hardest kind of work to get from the water or pick from the rocks the yellow metal they were so anxious to obtain.
Columbus himself was not satisfied with the small amount of gold he got from the streams and mines of Hayti; he was tired of the wrangling and grumbling of his men. So, one day, he hoisted sail on his five ships and started away on a hunt for richer gold mines, or, perhaps, for those wonderful cities of Cathay he was still determined to find.
He sailed to the south