Note III-9 — Chapter III · DISCOVERY OF DARIEN.

Las Casas, who was at Santo Domingo when the shipwrecked mariners arrived, saw Bastidas, and part of his gold, and the natives of Darien whom he had brought, and who in place of the Adamic fig-leaf wore a funnel-shaped covering of gold. There were great riches, it was said; three chests full of gold and pearls, which on reaching Spain were ordered to be publicly displayed in all the towns through which the notary passed on his way to court. This, as an advertisement of the Indies, was done to kindle the fires of avarice and discontent in sluggish breasts, that therefrom others might be induced to go and gather gold and pay the king his fifth. Afterward Bastidas returned with his wife and children to Santo Domingo, and became rich in horned cattle, having at one time 8000 head; and that when a cow in Española was worth 50 pesos de oro. In 1504 he again visited Urabá, in two ships, and brought thence 600 natives, whom he enslaved in Española. In 1520 the emperor gave him the pacification of Trinidad with the title of adelantado; which grant being opposed by Diego Colon, on the ground that the island was of his father's discovering, Bastidas waived his claim, and accepted the governorship of Santa Marta, where he went with 450 men, and was assassinated by his lieutenant, Villafuerte, who thought to succeed him, and to silence the governor's interposed objections to the maltreatment of the natives. Thus if the humane Bastidas, in accordance with the custom of the day, did inhumanly enslave his fellow-creatures, he gave his life at last to save them from other cruelties; which act, standing as it does luminous and alone in a century of continuous outrage, entitles him to the honorable distinction of Spain's best and noblest conquistador. As the eloquent Quintana says: 'Bastidas no se hizo célebre ni como descubridor ni como conquistador; pero su memoria debe ser grata á todos los amantes de la justicia y de la humanidad, por haber sido uno de los pocos que trataron á los indios con equidad y mansedumbre, considerando aquel pais mas bien como un objeto de especulaciones mercantiles con iguales, que como campo de gloria y de conquistas.'

Among the standard authorities mention is made of Bastidas and his voyage by Las Casas, Hist. Ind., iii. 10-12, who refutes certain of Oviedo's unimportant statements in Historia General y Natural de las Indias, i. 76-7; ii. 334-5; by Herrera, i. 148-9; Gomara, Hist. Ind., fol. 67; and in Galvano's Discov., 99-100, and 102-3. But before these I should place original documents found in Navarrete, Col. de Viages, iii. 25-28, 545-6, and 591-3, and in the Coleccion of Pacheco and Cárdenas, of both of which works I shall presently speak more fully. In tom. ii. pp. 362-6 of this latter collection is given the Asiento que hizo con sus Majestades Católicas Rodrigo de Bastidas, before mentioned; and on pp. 366-467, same volume, is Informacion de los servicios del adelantado Rodrigo de Bastidas, conquistador y pacificador de Santa Marta. Next in importance to the chroniclers are, Historia de la Marina Real Española, i. 284; Morelli, Fasti Novi Orbis, 11; Robertson's Hist. Am., i. 159; Help's Spanish Conquest, i. 294; Acosta, Compend. Hist. Nueva Granada, 21; Irving's Columbus, iii. 53-6, and Quintana, Vidas de Españoles Célebres, 'Vasco Nuñez de Balboa,' 1. Robinson's Acct. Discov. in West, 105; Lardner's Maritime Discovery, ii. 32; Holmes' Annals of America, i. 20; Lerdo de Tejada, Apuntes Hist., 89; Harris' Voy., i. 270; Major's Prince Henry, 369, and like allusions are worthless. In Kerr's Col. Voy., ii. 58-63, is given a translation of Galvano. In Aa's collection the narrative is substantially the same as in Gottfried's.