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Las Casas, Historian of Christopher Columbus
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
Extract
THE esteemed and controversial figure of that famous citizen of Seville, Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, has been, and continues to be, studied by many authors. Some are those who are attracted by the eminence of Christopher Columbus, the discoverer of “the new heaven and earth,” and devote years of work to formulating opinions on the Columbian historical sources. They include J. B. Muñoz, Fernández de Navarrette, Washington Irving, Thacher, Lollis, Harrisse, González de la Rosa, Vignaud, and many others. The three last-named scholars, however, in their studies have casf suspicion on one of the principal sources of Las Casas, and one of the notable historical works on Columbus: the Historia de la Vida y Hechos del Almirante Don Cristóbal Colón, written by his son Fernando. They say it was not written by Fernando Colón but is a forgery. Some even insinuate that several of the less credible sections of that Historia were introduced by Fr. Las Casas. It seems to me that such a hypothesis is not justified by creditable reason.
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- Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1956
References
1 See his La Nuova Storia della Scoperta dell’ America, published by the University of Turin, where Professor Magnaghi taught.
2 We have explained his charges against Columbus in an article in the Revista de Indias, XLII, 732–741.
3 In the near future, I hope to publish some interesting documents on one Juan Pérez, servant of the Catholic Kings before this time and possibly the one who became Fray Juan Pérez of La Rábida.
4 Chapter 32.
5 Morison, Samuel Eliot, Admiral of the Ocean Sea, I (Boston, 1952), 205 Google Scholar.
6 In a recent re-reading of Morison, I came across the following comment which caused me great surprise: “In the Historia [of Las Casas] is found a pathetic parting speech of the Admiral to the garrison on the theme ‘be kind to the Indians and a good example to them.’ De Lollis believes, as do we, that this is an invention of Las Casas; it is what he thinks the Admiral should have said if he didn’t” [Morison, op. cit., I, 402]. I cannot agree with this assertion (1) because these counsels of Columbus are really “in character” for Columbus; any words added by Las Casas are innocuous, and more grammatical than anything else; (2) I believe that Morison misquotes De Lollis and his Raccolta di Documenti e Studi publicati dalla R. Commissione Colombiana [Rome, 1892–1894]. De Lollis nowhere says that the counsels of Columbus were an “invention” of Las Casas, but that it is probable that Las Casas “sensibly amplified” them; (3) it is quite conceivable that Las Casas, who spent many years writing his Historia, and in it notably corrected errors in former writings, should amplify former accounts of this part of Columbus’ life, using new sources that had come to light since; for instance, he had published the famous extracts from Columbus’ Diary [which did not include these counsels of Columbus].
7 That is to say: that it came from there, or was taken from the island of Española to Europe. The Spanish text reads: “y ésta sepan por verdad que fué desta Isla.…”
8 Fielding H. Garrison has been the American author who has contributed most to spreading the wrong idea in Spain, since his Introduction to the History of Medicine has served as a text-book for many years in the medical course of the Faculty of Medicine in Madrid.
9 See the journal Investigación y Progreso, Vol. XI (Madrid, 1933).
10 “… el Cardenal traía a la Corte consigo, y que estando él en la Corte, había Corte, y salido, no la había.”
11 S. E. Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea, I, 70.