The return of Columbus to Portugal and then to Spain in March was a huge story that spread rapidly throughout the continent. In Barcelona, Columbus rode beside King Ferdinand, like a lost son that had returned. But there was much else going on. The new pope in many ways, was setting Rome on it's ear. The Spanish Borgia, Alexander VI would scandalize the papacy in his ten year reign, invite the French king to cross the alps into Italy (to take Naples for him, next year), and much else besides. But a mere nine months after becoming pope, and just a couple after Columbus himself returned to the continent, the man formerly known as Rodrigo Borgia sent an official bull to the Spanish monarchs.
Known as the Inter caetera it sought to determine which states had jurisdiction over which newly discovered lands, over there. Portugal was largely excluded west of a specific meridian. Spain was granted everything west. It would also serve as a general rule for sovereignty and command over continents over the following centuries. With this bull, and a couple others, the authorities which were in favor of the next expedition by Columbus, pushed the royals of Spain forward. This time Bishop Fonseca in Seville would grant many permissions for the ships, the supplies, the rigging, weapons, food and everything else that went into a fleet set to sail to the edge of the world. For the first time. This time they would be on a state sanctioned trip. The first trip there and back had not been so abundantly supplied.
In ths royal contract, allays were set aside which, when the fleet left in September, amounted to seventeen ships and twelve to fifteen thousand men. The contract from May 28, according to his son in his account, provided that
"... Columbus was appointed captain-general of the second fleet and given power to appoint any persons he might choose to the government of the Indies." [chp xliii]
A problem that would develop was Christopher Columbus' inability to manage such forces. In John M Cohen's Introduction to his collection of documents of the Four Voyages of Columbus, the man himself,
"... was extremely inept in his hadling of men. His pretensions were great, and he could share no power with a subordinate; he quarrelled with his captains, and his crew were several times on the point of mutiny. He could not control his settlers in the island of Hispaniola, and was frequently at odds with Bishop Fonseca and the office of Seville which was responsible for his supplies and ships. He trusted no one except members of his own family."
These issues would beset Columbus until his death. The first group of settlers left on Hispaniola after the first voyage at the camp called La Navidad, were entirely wiped out before Columbus could return with the second fleet. It is said that quarrels stemming from the remaining westerners at La Navidad - some 39 men - siezing neighboring women was the spark which resulted in those neighbors returning and burning the first western settlement on record, to the ground. The actual location of La Navidad is still not known but is generally thought to be at Mole Saint Nicolas, Haiti.
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from The Four Voyages, Christopher Columbus, edited, translated and with an introduction by JM Cohen, for The Penguin Group, London, 1969
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