2
IN PERIL ON THE SEA
Reluctantly Columbus turned from the window to face the other two captains—and reality. With a sigh he nodded imperceptibly. He agreed to turn back; he had no choice, really. But he did extract a promise from them: three additional days. If they had not sighted land by the dawn of October 12, they would come about and head home. Not at all sure they had three days of goodwill remaining among their crews, the Pinzón brothers left.
We can imagine Columbus sitting alone in his cabin after their departure, staring at the last entry in his journal, the quill pen motionless in his hand. Outside, the masts groaned—she is pulling well, he thought. Not that it mattered anymore. It was all over. The specter of defeat seemed to stand by his side, resting a bony hand on his shoulder. Columbus shuddered. Glancing down, he noticed that he had absently written his name, Christopher—Christo-ferens—Christ-bearer.
He might then have recalled the legend of the giant pagan named Christopher who sought to know Christ. To please him, he lived as a hermit beside a swift river, at a place where there was no bridge or boat to carry wayfarers across. Instead, he would carry them on his shoulders, with the help of a large staff. One night, asleep in his hut, he was awakened by the voice of a small boy, asking to be carried across. Christopher shouldered his young charge easily enough, but as he went farther and farther into the current, the burden grew progressively heavier, until it seemed as if he was carrying the whole world on his back. It was all he could do to keep from going under.
When he finally reached the far bank, he fell exhausted on the ground, gasping for breath and wondering what had happened. “Marvel not, Christopher,” said his small passenger then, “for indeed you have borne the world on your back, and Him who created it. I am the Christ, whom you serve by doing good. As proof, plant your staff by your hut, and in the morning it will be covered with blossoms and fruit.” And it was.
Columbus rubbed his eyes. The weight of his own burden had become more than he could bear; the difference was, he couldn’t see the far bank. Three more days . . . But three days were still three days. And God was still God. He was the same God who had answered his prayers so often in the past, sometimes at the last moment when all hope was gone and only a miracle could save the situation. Columbus must have prayed that night as he had never prayed before.
The next morning, his journal records that during the previous twenty-four hours they had made an incredible fifty-nine leagues, more than they had covered on all but one other day of the whole voyage. In fact, they were now sailing so fast that the men on the Santa Maria grew more alarmed than ever at how rapidly they were widening the distance from their homeland. For the first time the crew openly challenged their commander. According to the historian Las Casas, who personally knew Columbus: “The Admiral reassured them as best he could, holding out to them bright hopes of the gains which they would make, and adding that it was useless to complain, since he was going to the Indies and must pursue his course until, with the help of the Lord, he found them.”1
This could hardly have been reassuring. Their mood must have been grimmer than ever. A miracle was indeed needed.
On the morning of the eleventh, as they continued to speed along, aboard the Pinta a great shout went up: a reed was sighted and a small piece of wood that had unmistakably been shaped by a person. Over on the Niña this news was answered with the sighting of a small twig with roses on it. These sure signs of land instantly transformed the mood of the sailors, who were happier than they had been in weeks.
The prize for the first person to sight land was an annuity of ten thousand maravedis, and now the men were clamoring to take turns aloft as lookouts. The ships seemed to be racing one another, with first one and then another forging into the lead. As night fell, instead of taking in sail, they elected to plunge on into the darkness at an almost reckless pace, as luminescent foam curled up from the ships’ bows. At 10:00 p.m. Columbus and one of the sailors simultaneously sighted a tiny light far ahead of them.
As Las Casas retells it from Columbus’s journal, “It was like a small wax candle being raised and lowered. Few thought that this was an indication of land, but the Admiral was certain that they were near land.”
Whatever the light was, Columbus took it as a strong encouragement from the Lord to press on as fast as possible. At 2:00 a.m., with less than four hours remaining before the dawn of the third and final day, the electrifying cry at last rang out from the Pinta, “Tierra! Tierra!” The lookout had spied what appeared to be a low white cliff shining in the moonlight, and Martin Pinzón confirmed the sighting by firing a cannon as a signal. Land!
Immediately they took in sail and turned south, staying well offshore to avoid piling up on the barrier reefs. In the remaining hours until daybreak they felt their way along cautiously. One can imagine Columbus’s prayers now, as full of passion as before, but overflowing with gratitude.
They reached the southern tip of the island just as the sun rose above the blue horizon on their larboard beam.
A new day was dawning, and with it, a new era for humankind.
The fears and aches of weeks at sea seemed like nothing now. In every heart was emerging an awareness of the enormity of what they had accomplished. At the first sighting there had been laughing and dancing, but now the sailors were silent. Every eye followed the coastline slowly unfolding before them, glowing in the morning sun.
Rounding the end of the island and making their way up the lee side, they were speechless at the lushness of the foliage and the blueness and clarity of the waters they were gliding over. It was noon before they came to a break in the reefs wide enough to permit entrance. Columbus donned the scarlet doublet he had been saving for the occasion, and the officers put on their best attire. Boats were lowered, and the landing party rowed toward shore—not all the way ashore because the tide was out, and they had to wade the last part of the way. Joyful now as they splashed through the sun-dazzled water in full armor, they called their commander for the first time by his awarded title: Admiral of the Ocean Sea.
Columbus was the first to set foot on dry land, carrying the royal standard, with the brothers Pinzón directly behind him, bearing a huge white banner with a green cross and the crowned initials of Ferdinand and Isabella on either side of it. The men kissed the white coral beach, which was almost too bright to look at in the noonday sun.
Several of the sailors scooped out a deep hole in the hot sand and firmly planted the eight-foot oak cross Columbus had brought especially for this occasion. Then the entire company gathered around it and knelt, many with tears in their eyes. The Admiral christened the island San Salvador—“Holy Savior”—and then they bowed their heads as he prayed: “O Lord, Almighty and everlasting God, by Thy holy Word Thou hast created the heaven, and the earth, and the sea; blessed and glorified be Thy Name, and praised be Thy Majesty, which hath deigned to use us, Thy humble servants, that Thy holy Name may be proclaimed in this second part of the earth.”
Eyes peered at them through the screen of heavy foliage, well hidden from the view of the shining figures on the beach. (The inhabitants of the island could not bring themselves to refer to the newly arrived creatures as men, for they had skins of gleaming metal and appeared to have descended from heaven in huge canoes pulled by white clouds.)
But they seemed to be friendly gods, not angry ones, and they were obviously happy—one could hear them laughing. One at a time the timid inhabitants stepped forward and let themselves be seen. At first the white gods seemed frightened, but then they beckoned to them to come closer. And so they did.
Columbus was impressed at what a handsome race they were, tall and well proportioned, “with no large bellies on them,” but no clothes either, and as innocent as babes when it came to the tools of war: “for I showed them swords, and they took them by the blade and cut themselves through ignorance.”
The Admiral further records: “So that they might be well-disposed towards us, for I knew that they were a people to be delivered and converted to our holy faith rather by love than by force, I gave to some red caps and to others glass beads, which they hung around their necks, and many other things. . . . At this they were greatly pleased and became so entirely our friends that it was a wonder to see. . . . I believe that they would easily be made Christians, for it seemed to me that they had no religion of their own. Our Lord willing, when I depart, I shall bring back six of them to your Highnesses, that they may learn to talk our language.”
Columbus had already foreseen the necessity of having interpreters, but was his plan the Lord’s will? By planning to take these people forcibly from their native soil, he was establishing a precedent that would have tragic repercussions.
The second unfortunate precedent followed soon thereafter. Columbus noted that some of the natives, whom he called Indians (having no reason to believe that he had not reached the Indies), wore tiny gold ornaments in their noses. Through sign language, he began to inquire where the gold had come from. “From signs, I was able to understand that in the south there was a king who had large vessels of gold and possessed much of it. I endeavored to make them take me there, but later I saw that they had no desire to make the journey. . . . So I resolved to go southwest, to search for gold and jewels.”
One can see the hand of the devil here. Unable to overcome the faith of the Christ-bearer by sowing fear and dissension in the hearts of his crew or by paralyzing him with despair, Satan had failed to keep the Light of Christ from establishing a foothold in the New World. So he now moved to destroy Columbus’s mission from within his own ranks. And he chose the one instrument that almost never failed: the love of money.
And so the seed was planted. It would take time for it to germinate and to put down its taproot. In the meantime Columbus and his crew members were enjoying the fruit of this bountiful Eden, to which a merciful Creator had led them. They ate food that no white person had ever tasted before—sweet, juice-giving fruit, and corn, and a pulpy bread made from cassavas. Most of all, instead of the putrid and filthy water from the ships’ barrels, they could now drink pure spring water.
But Columbus was anxious to go discovering—to locate Cipangu, which he thought must be nearby, or possibly to strike out for the mainland of Cathay, which he was convinced lay only a few days further west. He was eager to locate the source of the gold. And the natives, seeing how animated he became whenever he questioned them about it, told him of vast quantities of it—for they had become fond of him and wanted to please him.
Eventually Columbus came to understand that there was an island to the south that was so large that it took twenty days to get around it in a canoe. The natives called it Cuba, but it had to be Cipangu. Without further delay, the three ships departed for it, and on October 26, the sailors hoisted flags and pennants in celebration of its sighting.
But where were the fabulous cities that Marco Polo had described? Where were the temples and palaces covered with gold? As far as the travelers could see in either direction, there was nothing but a couple of rude, deserted huts on the beach. The natives had run away at the sight of them. They were met by a lone dog, which was wandering along the beach and did not even bother to look up at them as they came ashore.
Never mind—the scents of the rain forest were intoxicating, and large birds with plumage of bright reds and yellows and greens filled the air with strange songs. Columbus recorded that it was all so wonderful that he never wanted to leave. As he proceeded northwest along the coast, his opinion of what he had found changed. He now became convinced that they were tracing the eastern coast of Cathay. But before long, fierce headwinds caused him to turn back. (Apparently, it was not God’s time to reveal the true mainland; Florida lay a scant ninety miles away in the direction they had been steering.)
On every island at which they stopped, Columbus had his crew erect a large wooden cross “as a token of Jesus Christ our Lord, and in honor of the Christian faith.” Almost always they found the inhabitants peaceful, innocent, and trusting; the Admiral gave strict orders that they were not to be molested or maltreated in any way. He had determined that the explorers’ reputation, which was obviously preceding them through the islands, must be as favorable as possible. But nowhere did they find the quantities of gold, either in its natural state or in artifacts, that the Indians had so obligingly promised.
Aboard the Santa Maria the native captives (or “interpreters,” as Columbus referred to them) were beginning to enjoy their roles as resident experts and the prestige their position gave them over the other Indians with whom they came in contact. They now told Columbus and the others of an island called Babeque, where the inhabitants collected nuggets of gold on the beaches by firelight and hammered them into bars. At this news, gold fever ran through the little fleet. Some of the captive natives were aboard the Pinta, and on November 18 that ship simply sailed away from the other two. Columbus was convinced that greed had overcome Martin Pinzón, and that he had gone in search of Babeque, and in his journal the Admiral recorded that there were many other unspoken issues between him and Pinzón. The gold was beginning to do its work.
On December 5 Columbus made his own try for Babeque, but bad weather forced the ship back, and they were blown to another large island. The natives called it Bohio, but the Admiral named it Española, because of its almost dreamlike similarity to the sere plains and distant purple mountains of Andalusia. As they felt their way east along its northern coast, Columbus ran out of superlatives to describe it; not even Castile could compare with it.
And then, shortly after midnight on Christmas morning, the dream received a crushing blow. With the Santa Maria becalmed in a cove, all those aboard had gone to sleep except for a grommet who had been left to mind the tiller. But an unnoticed swell developed, which gently wafted the ship ever closer to shore. Suddenly the ship grounded, the boy cried out, and Columbus rushed on deck to take command of the situation. They were stuck on a coral reef! Instantly he ordered the longboat lowered to carry the anchor astern so they might quickly winch themselves off the reef before the tide went out any further. But the sailors in the longboat panicked and rowed frantically for the Niña, despite the shouted commands and threats of the Admiral.
Vicente Pinzón, seeing what was happening, sent his own boat to be of assistance, but it was too late: the Santa Maria was now solidly grounded. Worse, as the tide left and she keeled over, the sharp, unyielding coral tore open her seams, water poured in, and in a few moments she was finished.
But what initially appeared to Columbus to be an utter disaster turned out to have some compensation, for the people of this island were kind beyond belief. And here at last was the gold Columbus had been so ardently seeking—masks of gold and bracelets and necklaces and rings. The natives helped the seamen off-load the Santa Maria, offered to store their goods for them in their own houses, and posted guards to make sure that no one touched anything.
The treatment the sailors received from the natives was so far beyond anything they had yet experienced that Columbus became almost thankful that the shipwreck had happened where it did. It was obvious to him that God intended for them to establish a settlement there. He named the place La Navidad, for the Nativity, and they set about laying the groundwork for a fort, complete with a moat and a tower.
Thirty-nine men gladly volunteered to remain behind, and Columbus was confident that upon his return in a year’s time, through diligent trading with the Indians, they would have gained a whole barrelful of gold. Moreover, he counted on them discovering the mine that was supplying the gold, so that within three years the Sovereigns of Spain would have the finances to equip the greatest expedition of all: a crusade that would finally free the Holy Land from the grip of the Moors. When Columbus had first sought Ferdinand and Isabella’s support, he had shared his conviction “that all profits from this enterprise should be devoted to the conquest of Jerusalem, and your Highnesses smiled and said that such was your will, and that even without these gains, you had the same earnest desire.”2
But that conquest was for the still-distant future. Columbus and the thirty-eight men who chose to accompany him home boarded the Niña and headed northeast to catch the prevailing westerlies and a fast ride home. Three days out, as they were working their way through the islands, they came across the Pinta. When the two captains met, there was an angry clash. Martin Pinzón had his excuses, which Columbus finally decided to accept, though he did not believe them. Las Casas wrote: “The Admiral does not know the reasons for his [Pinzón’s] shameless and disloyal conduct, but the Admiral was ready to forget it, so that he should not help Satan in his evil design to do all he could to hinder the voyage, as indeed he had done up to that time.”
For three-quarters of the voyage home, they could not have asked for better conditions. The log is filled with observations of peaceful seas, sunny skies, and a steady, following wind—for all of which they repeatedly thanked God. They also kept praying, because the pumps were barely able to keep ahead of the leaks.
Then, on the night of February 12, began the worst storm that any of them had ever experienced. The waves were huge, sharp, and crossing one another. This meant that at intervals cold sea water came crashing down on them from both sides at the same time, threatening to swamp the small ship. They had no choice but to abandon their course and run before the storm, letting it take them where it would.
Extra lights were hung on both caravels to help them keep track of each other, but as the wind built up even higher, the Pinta fell farther and farther behind. Finally, her lights disappeared entirely, and when morning came, there was no sign of her anywhere.
Aboard the Niña, the storm wore the sailors down till they were running on nerves and instinct. The shrieking of the wind must have seemed to Columbus like the baying of the hounds of hell. Unable to thwart the Christ-bearer’s mission or keep him from finding the New World, Satan seemed to be making an all-out effort to sink the third ship and stop the word from getting back to the Old World. If he could succeed, the settlers at La Navidad, with no one left who knew of their whereabouts, would perish soon enough.
Always in the past, turning to God in great need and concerted prayer had been enough to break the power of the Evil One. But this time prayer seemed to bring no results, and an angry, bitter Columbus may have been tempted, like Job, to raise his fist at God. Was God now indifferent to the very mission He had called into being? Ironically, the story of Job, with which Columbus was thoroughly familiar, contained the answer:
If you return to the Almighty and humble yourself,
if you remove unrighteousness far from your tents,
if you lay gold in the dust . . .
and if the Almighty is your gold,
and your precious silver;
then you will delight yourself in the Almighty,
and lift up your face to God.
You will make your prayer to him, and he will hear you;
and you will pay your vows.
You will decide on a matter, and it will be established for you,
and light will shine on your ways.
For God abases the proud,
but he saves the lowly.
Job 22:23–29
God might have had two reasons for permitting the storm to rage on, unabated. First, because He loved His son Christopher and was deeply concerned for the present state of his soul, He could have been doing all in His power to get him to see how proud and vain he had become as a result of the success of his mission. For already the ravenous ego, which was determined to have all that was coming to it, all that had been denied it for so many years, was enjoying fantasies of fame. If this was now the attitude of the Admiral of the Ocean Sea, the actual rewards themselves would be pure poison to him—and might well destroy Columbus’s future effectiveness in God’s service.
If God did have a plan for America, He surely would have wanted His grand design for the New World to get off on the right foot. God had withheld knowledge of this place from Europeans for centuries. He had stocked it with an abundance of game and fertile soil, natural resources and beauty—all that a people would ever need—as a fitting abode for the followers of His Son. And He had chosen Christopher to point the way. It was important that this same Christopher proceed in the spirit of Christ and not in self. Therefore, God may have permitted the winds to roar and the seas to heave, hoping that Christopher would look into his heart, see himself through God’s eyes, and humble himself.
But if this was God’s message to Columbus in the storm—that he needed to come home in an attitude of humility—then Columbus failed to grasp it. His journal records that he knew God had a reason for allowing the violence of the storm, but in his mounting frustration, rather than repenting, Columbus tried to maneuver his way out of disaster.
Calling the crew together, he suggested that they should appease God with a sacrificial offering in the form of a solemn vow jointly undertaken. If God would deliver them, one of their number would make a pilgrimage to Santa Maria de Guadalupe in Estremadura. The men quickly agreed.
So Columbus took thirty-nine dried beans, cut a cross on one of them, and put them into a hat, shaking them together. The Admiral himself drew the marked bean. Everyone marveled at this and took it as a sign that God’s hand was upon him. So did Columbus—with, unfortunately, a good deal of pride. It never occurred to him that, like Jonah, he was the problem, and that through the drawing of lots the Holy Spirit might be trying to show him that he, of all the men, was at that time the most spiritually needy.
When it became obvious that the storm was not dying down, Columbus proposed another pilgrimage and a second drawing. This time the lot fell to another, and there was still no change in the weather. They agreed upon yet a third pilgrimage, and miraculously Columbus drew the marked bean for the second time—and probably took quiet pride in the fact that God was requiring more of him than of any of the others.
On struggled the little Niña, looking as if she would never rise to meet the next wave, until finally the whole crew got down on their knees and cried out for mercy, loud enough to be heard above the storm. They promised the Blessed Virgin that if she would only pray for them now, they would, as soon as they reached land, go barefoot and in shirtsleeves to the nearest chapel dedicated to her and there say a solemn Mass.
But the storm continued.
All that day and the next, the weather exploded about them, till they reached such a state of numbness that it seemed as if they were dreaming it all. And then toward evening, for no apparent reason, the storm gradually subsided. Not only that, but a sliver of land appeared on the northeast horizon. Some thought it was the island of Madeira off the coast of northern Africa; others were sure it was the coast of Portugal. But the Admiral correctly identified it as one of Portugal’s Azores.
The pounding and slamming, the groaning of the masts and timbers, the shrieking and wailing of the wind, the constant drenching—it was all over now, as if it had never happened. Blessed silence—it was over. But they were too exhausted to care.
Pennants streaming to leeward, the gold and crimson standard of Spain unfurled atop her mainmast, the Niña turned gracefully into the wind and dropped anchor in the Azorian harbor of Santa Maria Island. She made an impressive sight for such a small ship, but the dash of her colors and the bright heraldic shields adorning her bows in no way reflected the mood of her crew. It was Tuesday, February 19, 1493, and they had hardly slept since the storm had hit them the previous Wednesday.
And Columbus least of all. He had remained on deck in the full fury of the storm, conning the ship from the sterncastle, even though his eyes were red-rimmed and his legs could barely support him. Like his sailors, he was grateful, but he was too bone-weary to do more than send a landing party ashore to make contact with the Portuguese and seek a suitable chapel for the fulfilling of their vow. Rest and peace were all they wanted, but rest and peace were not to be their portion on this island.
In the morning Columbus and his crew prepared to disembark and to celebrate the barefoot, shirt-sleeved Mass that they had promised. However, at the last minute something made Columbus decide to send his men in two groups. It was a providential decision, for the commander of the island promptly took as prisoners all those who first went ashore.
In a delicate gambit of threat, bluff, and counterthreat, Columbus finally outmaneuvered his adversary and regained his full crew intact. It was then that he learned that the commander of the island was acting under direct orders from King John in Lisbon. The King had sent word to Madeira, the Cape Verde Islands, and all other Portuguese possessions, including the Azores, that if Columbus put in at any of them on his way back to Spain from a successful voyage, he and all his men were to be detained incommunicado, while Portugal readied its own expedition. As he weighed anchor, Columbus took delight in imagining the consternation of John II when he would learn that the Admiral of the Ocean Sea had slipped his net!
But scarcely had they cleared the Azores and set their course for home than another monstrous winter storm struck them. This one sprang up so suddenly that it tore off all their sails and left them totally at the mercy of the howling gale—and God. For five straight days they were driven northeast under bare masts, their pumps slowly failing.
Once again they prayed, vowed another pilgrimage, and drew lots. For the third time Columbus picked the bean with the cross carved on it. (Coincidence? The odds against it were 60,880 to 1.)
Surely now he would get the message. But he did not. Every man on board knew that God was behind the storm, but none of them—saddest of all, not even Columbus—knew why.
Their vow apparently had no effect; if anything, the storm increased in its fury. On the sixth day they sighted land. This time it was the coast of Portugal, and Columbus alone correctly judged them to be just above the River of Lisbon. This river, less than a day’s journey from the court of John II, was the last place in the world Columbus would have chosen to seek refuge from the storm.
All morning long a growing crowd on the shore watched the progress of the little vessel with no canvas as it was blown ever closer to its doom. The storm was peaking in intensity. In minutes they would be dashed to pieces on the rocky coast. With huge waves breaking on the shore, there was no way any of them would survive. One slim chance remained—if they could make it to the river’s mouth. But that would mean they would have to take the wind almost broadside—a dangerous maneuver even under the best of conditions. To attempt it in this monstrous sea? Without sails? Suicide.
The crew prayed with the certain knowledge that only God could save them now.
It is easy to imagine the scene on the sterncastle of the Niña. With a practiced eye, the Admiral gauged their drift and ordered the helm over accordingly—as much as he dared, before she would broach to. Carefully noting their speed through the water and the action of the waves at the river’s mouth, he called out constant corrections to the helmsman at the tiller as he compensated for the ship’s yaw. Though he had to shout to make himself heard above the din of the storm, he was at once calm and exhilarated—for he was being challenged by a worthy opponent at the very limit of his God-given abilities.
Wiping the salt spray from his burning eyes, he peered ahead. Everything was happening much faster now; already he could hear the crashing of the breakers on the rocky coast. It seemed, in fact, as if the jagged boulders were rushing out to meet them.
It would all be decided in the next minute. One mistake now, one error of judgment, and things would compound so quickly that there could be no time for correcting. “Lean her to starboard! More! That’s it—hold her there—now steady, steady as she goes. Now! Hard a-larboard! Hold her, hold her!”
The whole ship groaned and heeled over so far that the sea began to comb over her gunwales. The men screamed; it looked as if she were about to go all the way over. But she held and then slowly straightened as a giant wave lifted her and fairly hurled her into the river’s mouth.
The roar of thundering waves and flying foam was stupendous, but above it Columbus heard something else—it sounded like cheering. Clearing his eyes again, he could see the men waving and dancing and yelling themselves hoarse. They had made it! He had brought them through.