Columbus: The Four Voyages, 1492-1504 by Laurence Bergreen Page A
Authors: Laurence Bergreen
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there. The Portuguese considered themselves entitled to own slaves by papal decree. In 1452, Pope Nicholas V authorized the Portuguese king, Alfonso V, to enslave “Saracens”—that is, Muslims—“pagans and any other unbelievers,” an entitlement he confirmed in a papal bull three years later, in case there was any lingering question about his intentions.
The early Portuguese slave trade assumed several forms, from inherited slavery to indentured servitude: forced labor for a fixed period of time, occasionally with modest wages. This was the form of slavery with which Columbus was familiar. He briefly wrote about his experimenting with importing entire families from Guinea to Portugal, not just men, and his disappointment that the experiment did not ensure greater loyalty or cooperation among the slaves. The problem, as Columbus saw it, was the Babel of tongues spoken in Guinea. His experience with the Portuguese slave trade prepared him to look on the Indians he encountered as potential slaves. Were they energetic? Cooperative? Strong enough to endure crossing the Atlantic and colder climates? Were they more valuable as slaves or as Christian converts?
During his years in Lisbon, Columbus was joined by his brother Bartholomew, ten years his junior. An acquaintance, Andrés Bernáldez, formerly of Seville, characterized Bartholomew at this time as a “hawker of printed books, who carried on his trade in this land of Andalusia,” as well as a “man of great intelligence though with little book learning, very skilled in the art of cosmography and the mapping of the world.”
A knowledgeable dealer in maps, Bartholomew set up business in Lisbon and made Christopher a partner. It is likely that conversations between the two helped him to refine his theories about sailing to China, without clearing up the fundamental misconceptions bequeathed to Renaissance Europe by Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli, whose map, lacking both the Pacific Ocean and the Americas, gained credibility partly because it portrayed the world as Europeans of the time—not just Columbus—wanted to see it, smaller and more manageable than it actually was, with India, its spices, and the Grand Khan all within reach. Had Columbus, along with the rest of western Europe, known of the true dimensions of the globe, it is doubtful that he would have proposed sailing halfway around it to India, or that any monarch would have backed the enterprise.
In partnership with Bartholomew, Christopher moved among Lisbon’s small but influential Genoese colony, regarded as tough and capable in business. Genoese expatriates and opportunists had long exploited routes into other societies. They intermarried, they changed their names, they learned the local languages, they served local authorities—whatever it took to gain status and respect.
O ne Sunday, Columbus attended Mass at Lisbon’s Convento dos Santos, the Convent of All Saints, where he noticed a young woman of about nineteen—or, as it is recorded in more sentimental accounts of their meeting, she noticed his devotion. Her name was Felipa Moñiz, the daughter of a wellborn Italian, Bartolomeo Perestrello, who had been active in the colonization of Madeira Island, and his wife Caterina Visconti. Circumstances suggest that Columbus was in search of a wellborn wife at the time. The Convento dos Santos was maintained by nuns charged with providing for the wives and daughters of those fighting in distant lands. Here he might have a chance to meet a woman who answered to his ambition in one of the few approved places for bachelors to encounter eligible young women. Scant details of the courtship survive, and his son Ferdinand offers only conventional reassurances about his father’s conduct: “Inasmuch as he behaved very honorably, and was a man of such fine presence, and withal so honest, that she held such conversation with him and enjoyed such friendship with him that she became his wife.”
She beheld,
The early Portuguese slave trade assumed several forms, from inherited slavery to indentured servitude: forced labor for a fixed period of time, occasionally with modest wages. This was the form of slavery with which Columbus was familiar. He briefly wrote about his experimenting with importing entire families from Guinea to Portugal, not just men, and his disappointment that the experiment did not ensure greater loyalty or cooperation among the slaves. The problem, as Columbus saw it, was the Babel of tongues spoken in Guinea. His experience with the Portuguese slave trade prepared him to look on the Indians he encountered as potential slaves. Were they energetic? Cooperative? Strong enough to endure crossing the Atlantic and colder climates? Were they more valuable as slaves or as Christian converts?
During his years in Lisbon, Columbus was joined by his brother Bartholomew, ten years his junior. An acquaintance, Andrés Bernáldez, formerly of Seville, characterized Bartholomew at this time as a “hawker of printed books, who carried on his trade in this land of Andalusia,” as well as a “man of great intelligence though with little book learning, very skilled in the art of cosmography and the mapping of the world.”
A knowledgeable dealer in maps, Bartholomew set up business in Lisbon and made Christopher a partner. It is likely that conversations between the two helped him to refine his theories about sailing to China, without clearing up the fundamental misconceptions bequeathed to Renaissance Europe by Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli, whose map, lacking both the Pacific Ocean and the Americas, gained credibility partly because it portrayed the world as Europeans of the time—not just Columbus—wanted to see it, smaller and more manageable than it actually was, with India, its spices, and the Grand Khan all within reach. Had Columbus, along with the rest of western Europe, known of the true dimensions of the globe, it is doubtful that he would have proposed sailing halfway around it to India, or that any monarch would have backed the enterprise.
In partnership with Bartholomew, Christopher moved among Lisbon’s small but influential Genoese colony, regarded as tough and capable in business. Genoese expatriates and opportunists had long exploited routes into other societies. They intermarried, they changed their names, they learned the local languages, they served local authorities—whatever it took to gain status and respect.
O ne Sunday, Columbus attended Mass at Lisbon’s Convento dos Santos, the Convent of All Saints, where he noticed a young woman of about nineteen—or, as it is recorded in more sentimental accounts of their meeting, she noticed his devotion. Her name was Felipa Moñiz, the daughter of a wellborn Italian, Bartolomeo Perestrello, who had been active in the colonization of Madeira Island, and his wife Caterina Visconti. Circumstances suggest that Columbus was in search of a wellborn wife at the time. The Convento dos Santos was maintained by nuns charged with providing for the wives and daughters of those fighting in distant lands. Here he might have a chance to meet a woman who answered to his ambition in one of the few approved places for bachelors to encounter eligible young women. Scant details of the courtship survive, and his son Ferdinand offers only conventional reassurances about his father’s conduct: “Inasmuch as he behaved very honorably, and was a man of such fine presence, and withal so honest, that she held such conversation with him and enjoyed such friendship with him that she became his wife.”
She beheld,
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