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Handout #187 |
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Gold, Pepper and Souls |
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These texts from Christopher Columbus are a
good indication of the mixed 1498 A.D., third voyage motives of the
discoverer of America: crusade, millenarian dreams, the struggle against
the Jews, the quest for gold, spices and slaves, and the conversion of
peoples to the Christian faith.
Extracts from the logs and letters of Christopher Columbus In this present year 1492 A.D. your Highnesses [Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain] put an end to the war against the Moors who dominated Europe and brought it to a conclusion in the most noble city of Granada. Your Highnesses, as Catholic princes, loyal to the holy Christian faith and propagators of it, enemies of the sect of Mohammed and of all idolatries and heresies, resolved to send me, Christopher Columbus, towards the so-called regions of the Indies, to survey princes and peoples, to see the disposition of lands and all the rest, and to advise on the way in which one could convert these peoples to our holy faith. And you ordained that I should not go towards the east not by the accustomed route, but by the western way - a way of which we know only that no one so far has ever taken it. So, having driven from your realms all the Jews who might be found there, your Highnesses resolved to send me to these countries with a sufficient armada. December 1492 A.D. at Hispaniola (Haiti) In his goodness, may our Lord Jesus Christ see to it that I find this gold mine ... I hope that when I return my men will have procured a barrelful of gold and that the gold mine will have been discovered. There must also be spices in quantity there. Within three years, your Highnesses could be undertaking the re-conquest of Jerusalem. 1498 A.D., third voyage From here one could send, in the name of the Holy Trinity, as many slaves as one could sell, as well as brazil wood (wood for painting)... There is a need for many slaves, in Castille, in Portugal and in Aragon. I do not think that one can get them from Guinea any longer; and even if they came, a slave from here is worth three from there .... So here there are slaves and brazil wood. There is even gold if he who showed it to us allows, and if he who showed it to us allows, and if he deigns to give it us in due time. 1502-1504, third voyage What an excellent product is gold! It is from gold that riches come. The one who has gold can do whatever he wills in this world. With gold one can even bring souls into paradise. |
