for the Voyage Isn't this a handsome creation ? She is an Andalusian caravel, and her sea-cleaving bows led the way in opening the ocean world to navigation. Under her nickname Nina, she became Columbus's favorite ship, and after bringing him home from his voyage of 1492, she accompanied him on two more voyages to the Americas. Nifia means "young girl"-but the nickname apparently stems from her owner' sfamily name, Nifio. Painting by Richard Schlecht; Š National Geographic Society, used with permission.
hearings and the report of the Talavera Commission, Las Casas and Columbus's son Ferdinand (by Beatriz), give miscellaneous, bookish reasons for the rejection of Columbus 's claim. Las Casas sums up the Commission report by saying that it found Columbus's project "not a proper object for their royal authority," and that the project appeared "uncertain and impossible to any educated person, however little learning he might have." The report took four and a half precious years. The Queen had made intermittent payments to Columbus while the case was being determined, in order that he might be kept on hand for testimony or action in case of a favorable decision. Now , with the Commission report against him , Columbus was not dismissed but merely told that his case might be brought before the monarchs after the war with Granada, the last Moorish kingdom in Spain, had been concluded. The war, pursued with crusading zeal by the united kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, did indeed take up the main energies of the religious and political leadership of the emerging nation of Spain. Columbus stayed on through the first half of 1491. As summer came on, it was six years since he had come ashore in Spain-a stay broken by a visit back to Lisbon, where he had, by his own account, been on hand to meet Bartolemeu Dias when the great Portuguese navigator came back from his rounding of the Cape of Good Hope at the tip of Africa in February 1488. Dias 's exploit, capping the voyages set in motion by Henry the Navigator 70 years earlier, opened the sea route around Africa into the Indian Ocean, providing sea access to the Far East. So King Joao II, who seems to have found Columbus an interesting fellow, had no need to give serious consideration to Columbus's project of sailing west to the Far East; and in view of the failure of earlier Portuguese voyages westward from the Azores, one may wonder how seriously he had ever considered Columbus's scheme. Columbus determined to take his case to France, where his brother Bartholemew had been advocating it to Charles VIII. He visited the monastery of La Rabida to remove his son Diego, now about ten, and place him with his deceased wife's sister in nearby Huelva. The prior, Father Juan Perez, begged him to reconsider, however. Perez got a message through to the Queen, in residence across country at Santa Fe, who then commanded Columbus to come to her, sending along some money to provide him with decent clothing and a mule. Of course he went. Of course, another learned committee was convened and, of course, Columbus was again turned down. SEA HISTORY 54, SUMMER 1990
This time, as Columbus's biographers (his son Ferdinand and Las Casas) both report, Columbus 's demands for honor and payment were too high. He adopted a take-it-or-leave-it attitude. His more recent biographer Morison justly observes, "He was under a sense of outrage and wrong over six wasted years in Spain." Granada had fallen while Columbus waited. It was now January 1492. Columbus packed hi s bags and left, unnoticed amid the general rejoicing. But , one person did notice-a most unlikely candidate, the keeper of King Ferdinand's privy purse. This man, Luis de Santangel, went to Queen Isabella on the very day Columbus left town, and persuaded her that the proposed voyage, which had evidently refused to leave her mind, should be undertaken after all. She agreed. When she offered to pledge her jewels to fund the voyage, Santangel said that he would find funds for it! Four miles out of town, Columbus was overtaken and brought back to court. A few more months passed in study and negotiation of details, and finally in April 1492, Columbus's contracts were signed, confirming him as Admiral of the Ocean Sea, a new title, fitting his deepwater outlook and ambitions. He was to get 10 percent of all treasure or merchandi se obtained in the new lands he discovers, tax free, and the right to invest up to one eighth the value of any future expeditions to these lands. He was also to be viceroy and governor of these lands, and these titles and rights were to pass on to his heirs forever. These agreements are generally called "the Capitulations." The principal meaning of the word in English, "surrender," certainly seems apt! Sovereigns have sovereign wills, however. Before Columbus died, he was deposed as governor of the islands he di scovered (justifiably, one feels; he proved a terrible administrator), and the income provisions were revised by the crown, leading to the famous lawsuits brought by his heirs. The important thing for history, and for us today, is that from this arrangement he got the ships for his voyage.
Ships for the Long Course In sailing ship days, distinction was made between ships for the long course, or deepwatermen , and coasters. Before Columbus's day virtually all shipping was coastal. Bartolomeu Dias's daring offshore leg into the mid-South Atlantic to get a clear shot at rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1487 was an exception, as was the famed "Guinea tack" by which Portuguese caravels stood offshore from Africa, coming home from Guinea, close hauled against the prevailing northerlies , until 19