Chapter 11 PRELUDE TO THIRD ATTEMPT

THROUGH Italy, the Saracens had given to Europeans “the awakening of science and learning” which lifted them out of the Dark Ages; through Spain, the last of their energy led to the development of a new world. The discovery, exploration, and early colonization of America are closely connected with the Spanish Inquisition. As an instrument of Church discipline, the Inquisition had its beginning early in the 13th century, but south of the Pyrenees it met with considerable opposition.

The people of Spain were different from the Europeans. For hundreds of years, they had been living in an atmosphere of freedom and religious tolerance. But European ideas of bigotry, class hatred, and authoritarian control were leaking in from the north. The new monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, were interested in strengthening their power; so in 1480, the Inquisition was taken over as an instrument of government, under their personal supervision, supported by police and military force.

Just three years later, Christopher Columbus, having been turned down by the King of Portugal, made his proposal to Spain. But Ferdinand and Isabella were so busy waging war against the Moslems and the Jews that they had no time to bother with outside ventures.

Things dragged along for almost a decade, until January, 1492, when the last of the Saracenic strongholds fell. It was the beautiful city of Granada – the great center of learning, science, art, architecture, and commerce which the Saracens had been creating for 800 years. Worn down by starvation after a nine months’ siege, Granada finally surrendered; and behind the trenches, in an army camp just outside Granada, Columbus finally closed the deal which was to change the course of world events.

The Saracens had now been divested of their political status, and their properties were being confiscated. But their influence, by reason of centuries of trade and intermarriage, was deeply ingrained; and the conflict between authority and freedom did not end with the fall of Granada.

Relentless Inquisitors

In the years following the discovery of America, the activities of the Spanish Inquisitors became so widespread and so relentless that even the most devout and highly respected Christian citizen could not be sure of escaping persecution. Thus, many citizens who would normally have stayed at home chose to join the Conquistadors rather than to run the risk of falling into the hands of the Inquisitors.^*

But that’s getting ahead of the story.

Northern Gateway

As Mrs. Lane reminds us, Columbus did not discover America – at least, not in the usual sense. Irishmen, Danes, Norwegians, Basques, and at least one Spaniard had seen this continent ahead of Columbus. She suggests that Breton fishermen refilled their water casks every season from the streams of New England; and she tells of an ancient map – drawn several centuries before Columbus was born, and still preserved in Venice, Italy – which clearly and correctly shows the coast line of Newfoundland.

America had been reached any number of times by the northern route. From Britain or Norway, the distance to Iceland is about 600 miles; and from there on, it’s a matter of island hopping. On exceptionally clear days, the mountains of Greenland are visible from Iceland. The distance is only 150 miles; and once having reached Greenland, it’s not much of a jump to Baffin Island, then down the coast to Labrador and the shores of New England.

So it was only natural for Iceland to be the original gateway to the New World, and among the most daring feats of exploration are the early voyages across 600 miles of the North Atlantic before the time of the magnetic compass.

No one knows who first discovered Iceland; but it seems that in the year 330 B. C., a navigator named Pytheas made a voyage from Marseilles, France, through the Straits of Gibraltar, and northward past the British Isles to what was called “Ultima Thule” – which means the supposed end of the world.

Pytheas probably reached Iceland, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that he was the original discoverer. According to folklore, land was known to exist in that part of the world even before his time.

Pre-Columbus Voyages

In his book, Great Adventures and Explorations,⁹ Vilhjalmur Stefansson gives many interesting sidelights on the pre-Columbus voyages: Ancient records in China indicate that a seafaring monk, Hoei Sin, crossed the Pacific along the shore lines of Kamchatka and the Aleutian Islands, reaching the coast of Canadian British Columbia in the year 499 A.D. In about 550 A.D., an Irish priest named Brendan made a voyage to Greenland. Iceland was colonized in 870 A.D., and Greenland in 986 A.D. Leif Ericson, Thorfinn Karlsefni, and others reached the shores of North America during the period 1000-1010 A.D.

And Stefansson relates just one more startling fact: An ancient stone slab, discovered in recent years near Kensington, Minnesota, bears an inscription to the effect that a party of Scandinavian explorers penetrated to the very center of the North American continent in the year 1362 – more than a century before Columbus reached the east coast islands in the Caribbean.^*

Yes, America had been discovered any number of times prior to 1492; but that’s no discredit to Columbus. So far as is known, he was first to make the voyage by the southern route across the full expanse of the Atlantic – about 3,500 miles of open sea, as against the 600-mile jump to Iceland.

A New Route to India

Columbus was doubtlessly familiar with some of the earlier explorations. In 1477, he had made a voyage to Iceland, and perhaps beyond. But Columbus was not interested in discovering a new continent; he was trying to find a new route to India.

The Crusades had shown that the riches of the world were in the East, and Marco Polo had brought back fabulous reports on India and China. However, the eastern route was long, and the militant Turks blocked the way. Portuguese seamen were trying to find a passage around southern Africa. Others had suggested that it should be possible to reach the Orient by sailing westward across the Atlantic.

Among the Saracens, it was common knowledge that the earth is round. They had taken the theories of Aristotle and other Greek philosophers, reduced them to scientific observations, and applied their findings to the practical problems of navigation. The Saracens’ knowledge of astronomy had been passed along to the European scholars and was generally accepted by them, although they had to be cautious in expressing their views.

The authority of the European rulers was based on the idea of a static universe. To accept the newfangled notion that the earth spins in space would be to admit the possibility of energy, change, and progress. Such heretical doctrines had to be suppressed.

That is why Roger Bacon, the 13th century “father of modern science,” spent much of his life in jail. That is why the discreet friends of Copernicus published his discoveries as mere “mathematical abstractions.” That is why the less discreet, the more outspoken, the downright rambunctious Galileo fell into the hands of the Inquisitors and escaped torture only by retracting his statements.

Admiral of the Ocean Sea^*

Columbus didn’t discover that the earth is round any more than he discovered America, but that again is not to his discredit. He was quite a person. A combination of circumstances gave him his big opportunity; his experience, knowledge, energy, and perseverance enabled him to make the most of it – at least up to a point.

Columbus was a Genoese sailor, born and raised among the seafaring Saracens. He was a man of vision and courage who possessed the qualities of an able navigator, a great explorer, a capable executive, and a top-notch promoter.

To the money-mad Ferdinand, Columbus held out promises of gold and riches. To the devout Isabella, he emphasized the opportunities for uniting the ends of the earth beneath the sign of the Cross. Himself a devout Christian and student of the Scriptures, Columbus “loved to apply the Sacred Scriptures to his own life and adventures.”¹⁰

Columbus had such great confidence in his project that he refused to budge on his terms: a super-admiral’s commission with all expenses paid in advance, vice-regal authority over all new lands he reached to be forever hereditary in his family, and 10 per cent of all valuable metals ever found in those lands to belong to him and his heirs forever.

His proposition was finally accepted by the Spanish monarchs, but not until after Columbus had threatened to open negotiations with France. Of course, the terms of the agreement were never fulfilled. Columbus was so busy with his job that he was unable to hold his own against the political intrigue of the Spanish court.

While on his third voyage, he was the victim of a whispering campaign which charged him with mismanagement of the Hispaniola colony.

A successor, sent over to relieve him of his colonial duties, put Columbus in chains and loaded him on a ship bound for Spain. As soon as the ship pulled out, its captain ordered the shackles removed; but Columbus, with quiet dignity, would not consent. “He had been chained in the Sovereigns’ name and he would wear them until the Sovereigns ordered them removed.”^10-a According to his son Ferdinand, Columbus kept the shackles on display in his home up to the time of his death and expressed the wish that they be buried with him, as a memorial of the reward he received for his services.

But that again is getting ahead of the story.

Mishap in Longitude

On August 3, 1492, just seven months after the fall of Granada, Columbus sailed confidently westward in search of the East. This voyage, across thousands of miles of unknown sea, would hardly have been possible except for the magnetic compass developed by the Saracens. The maps and navigation charts used by Columbus were also based on information supplied by the Saracens. In longitude, the data was inaccurate by some 8,000 miles; and when the “spice islands” didn’t appear where they were charted, he had to quell a mutiny.^*

When land was finally sighted, it was approximately where the charts showed India to be, so he had no doubt that he had found a western route to India.

The Follow-through

Thus it was that Columbus discovered America. But as Mrs. Lane points out:

“Columbus might have come and gone and made no more difference than Eric the Red . . . if human energy had not leaped from Saracenic Spain, if thousands of men had not taken their lives in their own hands and risked them, on their own responsibility, in the unknown.^3-c

The “follow-through” had always been lacking. But after the voyage of Columbus, Spanish energy leaped the Atlantic. Thousands of men and women sailed with Cortes, Pizarro, Ponce de Leon, Coronado, Balboa, Magellan – all those explorers and Conquistadors who put this hemisphere on the map and led the way around the earth. Thousands marched with their leaders from the Gulf of Mexico to the Ohio River and from the Rio Grande to the Missouri, nearly meeting in Kansas in the year 1545 – just half a century after the Genoese sailor crossed the ocean and sighted an island which he mistook for India.

Discovered by Youngsters

Youngsters like Hernando de Soto, who, in his teens, rode away from home on a lean horse with only a sword and a spear and his fearless self-reliance – America was really discovered by hundreds and thousands of such young men. And they came only from the former land of the Saracens.

Europeans to the north could no longer doubt that the earth is round, and they knew that the fabulously rich and strange half of it still waited to be explored. But for almost a century – for three generations – they did not stir.

Amerigo Vespucci, who put one over on Columbus and gave America his name, was born and raised in Florence, Italy. He worked first for Spain and later for Portugal.

Another man came sailing under the English flag, followed a little later by his son sailing under the same flag. But they were not Englishmen; they were Venetians. They are known to history as John and Sebastian Cabot, but their real name was “Caboto.” Like Christopher Columbus, they hailed from the heart of the Saracens’ Mediterranean.

But nothing came of their efforts until the early 17th century; and while England sank back into lethargy, the energetic Spaniards were making regular voyages to and from the new continent.

For almost 800 years, the people of Spain had been living in close association with the Saracens, in a civilization that did not prevent freedom of action and individual initiative. The Saracens were now being liquidated; but Spain still had some free cities, and its citizens were not European – at least, not yet.

The change being wrought by the Inquisition was only a change in meaning, and it was slow in showing its effects. The spirit of individual freedom was too deeply rooted to die out overnight, and the momentum of the energy that had been generated by the Saracens was applied to the outfitting of ships and armies. The germs of that energy were being destroyed; but wealth was beginning to flow in from the New World, and the current prosperity obscured the deeper significance of what was happening beneath the surface.

No Time for Theory

A prosperous glove manufacturer in Seville, say, would have seen no difference – except that business was on the boom. If anyone had tried to point out the danger, he doubtlessly would have replied: “Oh, that’s just theory. I’m a busy man, and this is no time to bother with theories. The glove market was never better. I’m on my way right now to land a big government contract.”

But the Inquisitors were expanding their operations. Some 2,000,000 Moslems remained in Spain, and the King’s troops were called upon to make them Christians – at the point of the sword. Tortured, slaughtered, burned alive in their blazing houses, or rounded up when they fled, the surviving Moslems were converted. But they continued to follow their heathen customs, reading their Arabic books, playing their athletic games, wearing their silk robes, and bathing – always bathing.

Church and state strictly prohibited these practices. Police burned libraries and searched converts’ homes for Arabic books to burn. They stopped the athletic games. They converted the baths (our Turkish baths) to other uses or razed them to the ground. Bathing in homes was strictly prohibited.

Despite all the efforts of the police, it seemed that the converts, now called “Moriscos,” did not wholly accept authority. They were suspected of bathing secretly. There was doubt as to their inner convictions. To discover what they really thought, the Inquisition was necessary.

Prompted by the best intentions, the Spanish monarchs and their Grand Inquisitor considered themselves responsible for the salvation of each individual. Those whose minds were corrupted had to be destroyed, just as a good farmer must destroy a tubercular cow to protect the health of the herd.

This responsibility had to be accompanied by the authority to control the beliefs of the Moriscos – but first it was necessary to know just what they believed. Psychological tests and lie-detectors had not been invented; torture was the only means of finding out. And torture often revealed a taint, even in the minds of some Spaniards who didn’t realize that they had Moslem leanings. Freedom of thought was found to be more prevalent than anyone had suspected.

Reforming the Moriscos seemed a hopeless task; and even after a hundred years of the Inquisition, more than a million of them were still in Spain. Some of the more liberal churchmen advised the King to deport them, but others contended that such a course would only spread the infection. These people argued that the King should not consider just the local problem; that it was his duty to act for the common good; that he had a responsibility for the welfare of the world at large. Therefore, the Moriscos should all be killed.

In answer to the objection that there might be one true Christian among the lot, it was pointed out that any such victim would go immediately to heaven; so instead of inflicting an injustice, they would really be doing him a favor.

But the final decision was for mass deportation. The remaining Moriscos were driven from their homes and herded toward the ports. Beaten, robbed, murdered, or dying of hunger and thirst along the way, few of them lived to reach Africa, and so far as is known, none was left alive in Spain.

The Spanish intellectuals burst into a great song of hope and joy triumphant. Spain had been cleansed. It had accepted the European ideology. Its people were now united in one common belief – the belief that an authority controlled their lives and would henceforth be responsible for their welfare.

World Empire

The loss of a million persons was not decisive. Millions had died in Spain during its centuries of vigorous achievement, but millions were still alive in Spain.

On the surface, things were better in every way. Spain was no longer dependent on domestic industry. During the century following the fall of Granada, Spain had become the center of a great empire. The Conquistadors had crossed unknown oceans and seized 60 degrees of latitude and one-sixth of the earth’s circumference. They had explored and conquered Cuba, the Caribbean Islands, Peru, Chile, New Granada, Venezuela, Central America, Mexico – sweeping northward to the Missouri River and westward to the Golden Gate.

In the Pacific, Spaniards had taken possession of the Philippines. In Europe, they held Portugal and the Low Countries and almost all of France. The King of France was a prisoner in Madrid. Spain now held the Balearic Islands and most of northern Africa. By inheritance and conquest, they controlled Sicily, Sardinia, Naples, Milan, and the Germanies. In the center of Europe, the Spanish monarch was Emperor of all these lands and people. In the West, he dominated England, which was under the rule of his daughter-in-law. In the East, his troops had met the Turks at Vienna and flung them back into the Balkans, defeated.

In a final burst of glory, Spain had built the first great world empire – an empire that all but encircled the globe.

History Repeats

But there was a weakness at the core. Not only had the energetic Moriscos been exterminated, but also for three generations the most self-reliant of Spain’s young men had been leaving their native land to seek fame and fortune in the New World. Others had gone to the European wars.

The people at home had been won over to the alluring theory of authoritarian control. They were losing their self-reliance with their independence. As in the case of Greece and Rome, it was the beginning of the end. In three generations – from grandfather to grandson – the concept of individual freedom was all but forgotten.^*

In the meantime, while Spain was busy strengthening its central government and extending its planned economy, England was drifting in the opposite direction.

Under the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the British government became so badly disorganized and so weak that the people were thrown on their own resources. It was “root hog or die,” and private citizens rose to the occasion – with telling effects.

Unwittingly, without conscious intent and with no centralized planning, the foundation was being laid for a new empire based on trade and commerce. In the eyes of the European powers, England had degenerated into near-anarchy. But when the “invincible” Spanish Armada sailed forth to capture the island, Francis Drake and his hastily assembled fleet of motley privateers defeated them soundly.

It was a turning point in world history, and Spain never quite recovered.

Aftermath

The days of the Conquistadors were over. The Spanish colonies were beginning to stagnate under bureaucratic controls administered from faraway Madrid. The stream of riches which had been pouring in from the New World was slowing down. Domestic industry had almost ceased to exist. Government overhead was completely out-of-bounds.

Things went from bad to worse, and after two more generations the people of Spain were not getting enough food to keep alive. Unpaid soldiers left the frontiers unguarded and ravaged the countryside. Vast areas of fertile land were abandoned; the rural population flocked to the cities in search of food, just as a fisherman might seek dry land in a frantic effort to change his luck. When people get into the habit of depending on some centralized authority to provide the things which they alone can produce, mob psychology always takes hold, and they flock to the cities.

The government could no longer get even a dribble of taxes from provinces which had formerly filled the royal treasury to overflowing. Tax collectors tore down private homes and sold the materials to raise money. In some towns, they demolished more than half the dwellings.

The King, in sheer desperation, slashed official salaries – even those of the highest nobles and members of the royal household. Then he slashed them again, but even at the greatly reduced rates, he couldn’t meet his payroll.

The day of reckoning was at hand. For too long, the people had been lulled into false complacency. For too long, they had been taught to expect some centralized authority to run their lives and provide for their needs. Human energy had ceased to function. Spain, as a great power, had ceased to exist.

But across the sea, a new civilization was in the making–a civilization more closely resembling that of the Saracens than anything which had gone before.

^* In Spain, you were in trouble if someone dropped a hint that you were a Moslem sympathizer or casually remarked that your neck looked unusually clean. The informer didn’t have to appear against you in person, but he received a share of your property if you were convicted. For intimate side lights, read the historical novel, Captain from Castille by Samuel Shellabarger (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1945).

^* This stone slab, called the Kensington Rune Stone, was found entwined in the roots of an aged tree stump in the year 1898, but for a long time it was used as the threshold for a farmer’s barn. Then it came to the attention of Hjalmar Holand of Ephraim, Wisconsin, who has deciphered the inscription as follows:

“[We are] 8 Goths (Swedes) and 22 Norwegians on [an] exploration-journey from Vinland through (or across) the West (i.e., round about the West) We had camp by [a lake with] 2 skerries one day’s journey north from this stone We were [out] and fished one day After [when] we came home [we] found 10 [of our] men red with blood and dead AV[e] M [aria] Save [us] from evil”

That is the inscription on the face of the stone. On one edge are the lines:

“[We] have 10 of (our party) by the sea to look after our ships (or ship) 14 days –journey from this island [in the] year [of our Lord] 1362”

Mr. Holand has written a most interesting book about the Kensington Rune Stone and various other evidences of ancient Scandinavian exploration in the Hudson Bay area: Westward from Vinland (New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1940), p. 101.

^* This is the official title granted to Columbus by Ferdinand and Isabella.

^* The Saracens had never needed any such measurements. They were not interested in sailing around the world to reach India; they were already there. But following the voyage of Columbus, the need for accurate measurements of longitude became increasingly apparent. The problem was not solved until the middle of the 18th century when John Harrison, a Yorkshire carpenter, was awarded a £20,000 prize by the British government for the development of an accurate chronometer. This device made practical the ingenious idea of measuring longitude on the basis of a zero position arbitrarily established at Greenwich, England.

^* In social and economic phenomena affecting either the growth or the disintegration of a state, there is usually a long-drawn-out time interval between cause and effect. This has its parallel in the “shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves” adage. But when the facts are available, the starting point can be traced back to the time when things were done that tended to improve or impair the effective use of human energy.