Chapter XIX: Appendix: I

It would naturally be expected that in a work of this kind there should be some reference made to the long-pending discussion respecting the letter addressed by Amerigo Vespucci to Lorenzo de Medici, by which it would appear that Vespucci had visited the coast of _Pária_ in the year 1497--that is to say, in the year previous to that of the first visit of Columbus to the South-American continent; and that therefore, supposing this visit to be established, Amerigo Vespucci, and not Columbus, was the first European discoverer of the South-American continent. This question is one of the very first importance as regards history or geography; since on its solution depends not only the question after whom the great South-American continent should be called, but likewise the fair fame of Vespucci’s name.

Since no new points have, to my knowledge, arisen of sufficient importance to disturb what seems to me to be the necessarily final judgment arrived at by Washington Irving, and which had previously been concurred in by Robertson, and which is to be seen in the Appendix No. X. to Irving’s work, entitled “The Voyages of the Companions of Columbus,” I must confine myself to referring my readers to what seem to me the irrefutable arguments therein brought forward. I may at the same time refer them to the arguments, in a contrary direction, in the “_Viaggi di Amerigo Vespuggi di Stanislao Canovai; Firenze_,” 1832.

II.

The Italian traveller Benzoni, who has been referred to in the preceding pages, has been quoted by Robertson, Irving, and Helps; but, considering the unique position which he holds as being the first foreign critic of the proceedings of the Spaniards in South America, I scarcely think that his volume has received the full attention which it deserves at the hands of modern writers on Spanish South America. I would therefore draw attention to some extracts from his work, begging the reader to bear in mind that they proceed by no means from a man of the mould of Las Casas, but from one who, by his own confession, took part in a slave-hunting expedition. The author in question was nevertheless, as he states, a devout Christian, and he dedicates his history of the New World to Pope Pius IV.

Benzoni started for America in the year 1541, and there spent fourteen years of toil and travail. Landing at the Gulf of _Pária_, he proceeded to _Cuba_ and other islands, returning thence to _Acla_, whence he crossed to _Panamá_, from which place he visited the kingdom of _Peru_. In this wandering course he passed fourteen years. Benzoni is the author who is originally responsible for the well-known story of Columbus and the egg. He states that whilst at _Amaracapana_ (Book I. p. 8) Captain Calice arrived with upwards of four thousand slaves and had captured many more. “When some of them could not walk, the Spaniards, to prevent their remaining behind to make war, killed them by burying their swords in their sides or their breasts. It was really a most distressing thing to see the way in which these wretched creatures, naked, tired, and lame, were treated; exhausted with hunger, sick, and despairing; the unfortunate mothers, with two and three children on their shoulders or clinging round their necks, overwhelmed with tears and grief, all tied with cords or with iron chains round their necks, or their arms, or their hands. Nor was there a girl but had been violated by the depredators.”

At page 159, Benzoni observes that Spaniards have eulogised themselves too much when they tell us that they are worthy of great praise for having converted to Christianity the tribes and nations that they subjugated; for there is a great difference between the name and the being one in reality.

“The slaves are all marked in the face and on the arms by a hot iron with the mark of C;[Y] then the governors and captains do as they like with them; some are given to the soldiers, so that the Spaniards afterwards sell them or gamble them away among each other. When ships arrive from Spain, they barter these Indians for wine, flour, biscuit, and other requisite things. And even when some of the Indian women are pregnant by these same Spaniards, they sell them without any conscience. Then the merchants carry them elsewhere and sell them again. Others are sent to the island of _Spagnuola_ (_Hispaniola_), filling with them some large vessels built like _caravels_. They carry them under the deck; and being nearly all people captured inland, they suffer severely the sea horrors; and not being allowed to move out of those sinks, what with their sickness and their other wants, they have to stand in the filth like animals; and the sea often being calm, water and other provisions fail them, so that the poor wretches, oppressed by the heat, the stench, the thirst, and the crowding, miserably expire there below. Now all that country around the Gulf of _Pária_ and other places are no longer inhabited by the Spaniards.”

* * * * *

“Finally, out of the two millions of original inhabitants (of Hispaniola), through the number of suicides and other deaths, occasioned by the oppressive labour and cruelties imposed by the Spaniards, there are not a hundred and fifty now to be found: and this has been their way of making Christians of them. What befell these poor islanders has happened also to all the others around: _Cuba_, _Jamaica_, _Porto Rico_, and other places. And although an almost infinite number of the inhabitants of the mainland have been brought to these islands as slaves, they have nearly all since died.”

* * * * *

“And there being among the Spaniards some who are not only cruel, but very cruel. When a man occasionally wished to punish a slave, either for some crime that he had committed, or for not having extracted the usual quantity of silver or gold from the mine, when he came home at night, instead of giving him supper, he made him undress, if he happened to have a shirt on, and being thrown down on the ground, he had his hands and feet tied to a piece of wood laid across, so permitted under the rule called by the Spaniards the Law of Bajona, a law suggested, I think, by some great demon; then with a thong or rope he was beaten until his body streamed with blood; which done, they took a pound of pitch or a pipkin of boiling oil, and threw it gradually all over the unfortunate victim; then he was washed with some of the country pepper mixed with salt and water. He was thus left on a plank covered over with a cloth until his master thought he was again able to work. Others dug a hole in the ground and put the man in upright, leaving only his head out, and left him in it all night, the Spaniards saying that they have recourse to this cure because the earth absorbs the blood and preserves the flesh from forming any wound, so they get well sooner. And if any die (which sometimes happens) through great pain, there is no heavier punishment by law than that the master shall pay another (slave) to the king. Thus, on account of these very great cruelties in the beginning, some of them escaped from their masters, and wandered about the island in a state of desperation.”

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FOOTNOTES:

[A] The scene, well-deserving to be painted, might be described in the following lines:--

“As rolls the river into ocean,
In sable torrent wildly streaming;
As the sea-tide’s opposing motion,
In azure column proudly gleaming,
Beats back the current many a rood
In curling foam and mingling flood;
Through sparkling spray, in thundering clash,
The lightnings of the waters flash
In awful whiteness o’er the shore,
That shines and shakes beneath the roar.”
_The Giaour._

[B]

“Valiant sea-captains! Great sea-kings!
And thou, Columbus! my hero! greatest sea-king of all!”
_Carlyle._

[C] _Viaggi de_ Amerigo Vespucci.

[D] “Voyages of the Companions of Columbus;” by Washington Irving.

[E] Duke of Veragua.

[F] Helps.

[G] Navarrete.

[H] Psalm ii. 8.

[I] _Vide_ Robertson.

[J] NOTE.--“_Y esta fue la empresa de Fernando Magallanes, caballero portugues, cuya osodiía y constancia grande en inquirir este secreto, y no menos feliz suceso en hallarle, con eterna memoria puso nombre al estrecho que con razon por su inventor se llama de Magallanes._”

“_Historia natural y moral de las Indias_,” by José de Acosta, Lib. III., cap. 10. The dangers attending the passage of the Strait of _Magellan_ caused the Isthmus of _Panamá_ to be long preferred as a route to _Chili_ and _Peru_. Its very existence came to be doubted. “_Las frequentes desgracias que padecieron las expediciones al estrecho de Magallanes y los crecidos gastos que causaban, hicieron preferible á canimo tan largo y peligroso el tránsita y conduccion de las mercaderiás por el ismo desde Nombre de Dios ó Portobelo hasta Panamá, fortificondo el primer punto para asegurarlo de los ataquos de los corsarios; y aunque despues de la expedicion de Juan Ladrillero, que salió del puerto de Valdivia en Noviembre de 1557, continuaron los vireyes del Perú y gobernadores de Chile empresas semejantes para reconocer el estrecho y facilitar su navigacion, ni aun memoria de ellas se ha conservado por haberse perdido algunos de los descubridores, y retrocedido otros sin conseguir el objeto que se propusieron. De aqui resultó el total abandono de aquella navigacion por mas de veinte años, llegando á olvidarse los anteriores viages al estrecho, hasta dudar de su existencia, cuniendo la opinion de haberse cerrado por algun terremoto ú otro accidente del mar y de las tempestades._”--NAVARRETE, _Tomo_ IV., _Prólogo_, p. xiii.

Acosto writes previously to 1589: “_El estrecho, pues, que en la mar del sur halló Magallanes, creyeron algunos, ó que no lo habia, ó se habia ya cerrado, como D. Alonso de Arcila escribe en su Araucana; y hoy dia hay quien diga que no hay tal estrecho, sino que son islas entre la mar, porque lo que es tierra firma se acaba alli, y el resto es todo islas, y al cabo de ellas se junta el un mar con el otro amplísimamente, ó por mejor decirse es todo un mismo mar. Pero de cierto consta haber el estrecho y tierre larguísima á la una banda y á la otra, aunque la que está la otra parte del estrecho al sur no se sabe hasta dónde llegne._”

The authority of Ercilla, cited by Acosta, is the most respectable, says Navarette, and the most trustworthy, that could be given, since he accompanied _Don_ Garcia de Mendoza in 1558 in his expedition along the coast of _Chili_ as far as _Chiloë_, and then passed with ten soldiers, after surmounting great difficulties, in a small boat, to the opposite coast, there writing his name on a tree.

The following is the inscription commemorating this incident:--

“_Acqui llegó donde otro no ha llegado
Don Alonso de Ercilla, que el primero
En un pequeño barco deslastrado,
Con solos diez, pasó el desaguadero
El año de cincuenta y ocho entrado
Sobre mil y quinientos, par hebrero,
A las dos de la tarde el postrer dia,
Volviendo á la dejada compañía._”
“_Araucania_,” canto xxxvi., oct. 29.

* * * * *

“_Magallánes, Señor, fue el primer hombre
Que abriendo este canimo le dió nombre._

“_Por falta de pilotos, ó encubierta
Causa quizá importante, y no sabida
Esta secreta senda descubierta,
Quedó para nosotros escondida
Ora sea yerro de la altura cierta,
Ora que alguna isleta removida
Del tempestuosa mar y viento airado
Encallando en la boca la ha cerrado._”
“_Araucania_,” canto i., octs. 8 y 9.

The expedition of Magellan was on his death brought to a glorious termination by Juan Sebastian de Elcano, with reference to whom Oviedo writes as follows:--

“_El cual, y los que con él vinieron me paresce á mí que son de mas eterna memoria dignos que aquellos argonáutas que con Jason navegaron á la isla de Colcos en demanda del vellocino de oro._”

“_Hist. general de las Indias_,” part 2, lib. 20, cap. 1.

[K] History of the Conquest of Peru; by William H. Prescott. Bentley. 1850.

[L] See Ovalle.

[M] On July 8th, 1730, and May 24th, 1751. On this account _New Conception_ was founded November 24th, 1764.

[N] Fernandez, lib. II. c. 18.

[O] The Abbé Ignatius Molina.

[P] _Vide_ p. 94.

[Q] Ovalle states that Caupolican, previously to his barbarous execution, desired with great concern to be baptised, and that he received the absolution.--_Relation of the Kingdom of Chile_, Book v., chap. xxiii.

[R] The present Valdivia is merely a garrison.

[S] Hawkins, in Hakluyt.

[T] Hakluyt.

[U] Hakluyt. Dr. Johnson, in his Life of Drake, judiciously omits all mention of his hero’s share in this slave-hunt.

[V] Hakluyt.

[W] It had previously been passed by Brouwer in 1642. See page 39, vol. ii.

[X] “Purchas,” from Curder’s narrative.

[Y] The initial letter of the Emperor Charles V.

Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:

Uraguay=> Uruguay {pg ix}

at seven thousans=> at seven thousands {pg 26}

future of that cavelier=> future of that cavalier {pg 47}

the orders of the Catholics kings=> the orders of the Catholic kings {pg 66}

should he set apart=> should be set apart {pg 80}

from a maize of bushes=> from a maze of bushes {pg 108}

place themselves under Gonzalo Pizzaro=> place themselves under Gonzalo Pizarro {pg 181}

the support of Banalcazar=> the support of Benalcazar {pg 184}

Voyage dans l’Amerigne Méridionale=> Voyage dans l’Amérigue Méridionale {pg 264}

A coloquy now occurred=> A colloquy now occurred {pg 285}

>Nombre de Dois=> >Nombre de Dios {pg 288}

were called _Simerons_=> were called _Symerons_ {pg 288}

Nombre de Dois=> Nombre de Dios {pg 288}

the two survivers=> the two survivors {pg 294}

thireen chests of silver=> thirteen chests of silver {pg 295}

the master thiefe of the unknowne word=> the master thiefe of the unknowne world {pg 297}