The Last Voyage of Columbus by Martin Dugard

Author:Martin Dugard [DUGARD, MARTIN]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HIS000000
ISBN: 9780759513785
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2005-06-01T04:00:00+00:00

After less than a week of drifting, Jamaica’s inland mountains loomed on the horizon. Thirty miles off the coast, Columbus landed on a sandy cay and sent the men ashore to refill the water casks. They found no running water but, rather ingeniously, dug deep into the sand and found pools of murky brown water fit for drinking. It wasn’t ideal, but with a voyage of unknown duration ahead and much of the fleet’s food spoiled, a full water supply was vital. Columbus named the land Isla de Pozas, after the water pools.

Then he immediately put to sea again, content to let the wind and current mark his course for the time being. But his haste was for naught. Another long week of drifting passed before the wind turned. By then his fleet, its white sails hanging slack and growing yellowed by the sun, had watched the southern coast of Jamaica glide by off the port bow, then the southern coast of Cuba (also discovered by Columbus on his second voyage) glide by off the starboard. Like Columbus, those members of the crew who had also sailed on the second voyage remembered well the differences between the two islands. Back then the Indians of Cuba had been friendly, while the Indians of Jamaica had attacked the explorer and his men with wooden spears and stones the instant they went ashore. On Jamaica the fleet had anchored in a gorgeous broad cove Columbus named Santa Gloria. For all its beauty, though, Santa Gloria did not compare to a Cuban archipelago that enchanted the explorer so much he lingered for twenty days. The Cuban air had been filled with the aroma of wildflowers and the skies full of primary-colored flocks of tropical birds. Riven by shallow channels dividing a scattering of keys, it was a place he named El Jardin de la Reina—“The queen’s garden.” To Columbus it was an unforgettable reminder of the New World’s natural opulence.

As his father busied himself with navigation and logistics, young Fernando Columbus was continuing a personal evolution that had begun with Columbus’s return to Spain in chains. The thirteen-year-old had been born out of wedlock on August 15, 1488, in the city of Córdoba. His mother was the remarkable Beatriz de Arana. Orphaned at six, she was raised by a grandmother and maternal aunt who took pains to ensure that Beatriz was well educated. In an era when most women of noble birth couldn’t even sign their name, this commoner could read and write and was schooled well into her teenage years. She was twenty-two and never married when she met Columbus through mutual friends in 1487. He was fourteen years older and had followed the Spanish court to Córdoba in March of that year. By October their affair was sexual. Soon she was pregnant.

Fortunately for Columbus and Beatriz, the Spanish Inquisition wasn’t imprisoning adulterers. Still, having a child out of wedlock carried a significant social stigma in Roman Catholic Spain. Beatriz, bravely, chose not to marry Columbus.

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