Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean Read Online Free Page A

didn’t live long enough to fulfill his pledge to Santangel and the court Jews to provide a homeland for converted Jews. But it would be kept by his family in the “new land” the Crown did bequeath to Columbus’s descendants, the island of Jamaica. How this came about goes back to a promise he made to the teenage conversos who stood by him when he was marooned there.
    Returning from his fourth voyage to the New World, Columbus had been forced to beach his ships in Jamaica after sailing from Panama with a cache of gold objects bartered from the Indians. His two ships were leaking badly. Columbus hoped to reach Santo Domingo to obtain others to return to Spain. But his worm-eaten caravels, described by his son as “more full of holes than a bees’ honeycomb,” barely made Jamaica. With water rising in their holds, he ran them aground and lashed them together in a shallow, becalmed bay on the island’s north coast, “a cross bow’s shot from land.” 8 Atop his foredeck he fashioned a palm thatch hut to serve as his cabin.
    In his first letter to the queen, written soon after he arrived, he bragged that he had discovered the source of Solomon’s gold in the mines of Panama, and claimed to have seen more gold in a few days there than in all his previous trips. His fourteen-year-old son Fernando, brought along as cabin boy, later recorded that his father had traded small bells and mirrors for sixty-three gold pendants and other gold objects with the Veragua Indians of Panama. 9
    This was his second trip to Jamaica. When he had discovered the island in 1494, he had named the half-moon bay where he was now stranded Santa Gloria for “the beauty of its glorious landscape.” 10 After a year, he thought he might never leave. Was this where his life was to end? Uncertain of his future, he wrote his queen:

    We have been confined 10 months, lodged on the decks of our ships. My men have mutinied. My brother, my son, and those that are faithful are sick, starving and dying. Governor Ovando of Santo Domingo has sent to see if I am dead rather than to carry me back alive. I conclude Your officers intend my life should terminate here. 11

    The object of his cynicism was the arrival the previous week of a ship from Ovando. It had anchored outside the reef in the late afternoon, and left before dawn. Before sailing away, its captain ferried over a side of ham, a barrel of wine, and a message from the governor that a rescue ship would soon be sent.
    The governor’s message did confirm the safe arrival of Columbus’s first mate, Diego Méndez, who ten months before had set forth in a dugout canoe to carry news of their plight to Santo Domingo. But, as he wrote the queen, he really believed the ship had been sent “to spy on how I might be totally destroyed.” 12
    Made furious by his suspicions, Columbus concluded his letter with an angry vow. Should he die in Jamaica, and his proprietary rights be withdrawn, “ingratitude will bring down the wrath of Heaven, so that the wealth that I have discovered shall be the means of stirring up all mankind to revenge, and the Spanish nation shall suffer hereafter.” 13
    Fortunately for Columbus, Isabella never received his threat. Having no way to send this letter, Columbus could only call on “the good angels that succor the oppressed and innocent to bring this paper to my great mistress.” 14 Apparently no Heavenly couriers were listening as this little known letter never left the island. His earlier letter, carried by Méndez, had been forwarded to her from Santo Domingo.
    The mutiny referred to in his despairing missive had broken out five months earlier, when Francisco Poras, captain of one of the ships, burst in on the admiral in his straw cabin and demanded they leave at once. He and his brother Diego, the fleet’s notary, accused Columbus of having deliberately marooned them in Jamaica knowing he was unwelcome in Santo Domingo. The Poras brothers’ insurrection was joined by