A Synoptic Edition of the Log of Columbus's First Voyage & Las Casas on Columbus: Background and the Second and Fourth Voyages.

Francesca Lardicci, ed., A Synoptic Edition of the Log of Columbus's First Voyage (Repertorium Columbianum, 6.) Turnhour: Brepols, 1999. xiv + 684 pp. Eu 88; Bfr 3550. ISBN: 2-503-50873-1.

Nigel Griffin, ed., Las Casas on Columbus: Background and the Second and Fourth Voyages

(Repertorium Columbianum, 7.) Turnhout: Brepols, 1999. xii + 494 pp. Eu 74; Bfr 2985. ISBN: 2-503-50883-9.

Two figures continue to dominate, and perhaps distort, scholarly treatments of very early Spanish exploration and settlement of the Americas: Christopher Columbus and Bartolome de Las Casas. Further, our perspective on the former is very much affected by the latter, for Las Casas's writings remain a primary source for information on Columbus. But the famed Dominican friar did not have a dispassionate view of the Admiral of the Ocean Sea. Despite his deep regard for Columbus's accomplishments, Las Casas viewed him as the embodiment of Spanish policy towards overseas expansion and particularly treatment of Native Americans. Although the Dominican appreciated that Columbus himself had done little harm to the indigenous peoples, his idea - unexceptional by itself- to turn the Indians into a dependent labor force that could transform the New World's natural resources into wealth for the colonists seemed to Las Casas to establish the fundamental attitude toward the native peoples and to shape subsequent policy.

Las Casas did not settle for merely writing about Columbus. Instead, he gained access to some of the fundamental documents from Columbus's four voyages to the New World. In fact, he became something of a mediating authority for the Admiral's reputation, publicly criticizing other writers, even if they were members of the explorer's family, who were deficient in their presentation. With the loss of some key documents from Columbus's voyages with the passage of time, glosses or excerpts prepared by the Dominican are the best approximations available to us.

Repertorium Columbianum is a publishing venture based in the UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies that seeks to collect contemporary sources from Columbus's four voyages and the greater process of conquest and colonization of the early Americas through to Cortes's conquest of Mexico in 1519-1521. The two books under review are the latest contributions to the series, which now totals seven volumes. The series aspires to provide authoritative English translations, with extensive footnotes and commentary, prepared by experts in the literature. Its guiding principle is that each volume should reflect the highest standards of modern philology and historical investigation. As a consequence, some of the volumes possess multiple editors, sometimes one for the historical perspective and another for each of the languages represented in the text.

Both of these volumes center around Las Casa's motives and scholarly abilities in the preservation or the transcription of crucial records from Columbus's voyages. It is regrettable, therefore, that both volumes contain only very sparse treatments of the historical circumstances in which these documents were composed. Equally lacking is a developed consideration of Las Casas's problematic perspective on Columbus, the primary subject of both volumes. The editors do devote segments of their short introductions to Las Casas's compilation of documents composed by Columbus and his summarized versions of some of them. But without an account of the Dominican's complex view of the great explorer, Columbus's motives and mentality remain hidden from any reader who is not already aware of Las Casas's perspectives before confronting these two volumes.

Nonetheless, the philological investigation and the translations of these documents into English merit nothing but praise. Both volumes benefit from careful textual analysis of the highest order, with a detailed discussion of all of the attendant issues included in the lengthy commentary. This is especially true for volume 6, a careful textual comparison of the three manuscripts that partially replicate the record (Diario) kept by Columbus on his first voyage. Columbus maintained a running journal during his first voyage to the Americas, which he presented to Queen Isabella upon his return to Spain. A copy was made for Columbus in that same year. But both copies disappeared by the mid-fifteenth century.

However, Las Casas abstracted the journal in the 1530s before they were lost. This is a partial version with considerable stylistic intervention by the Dominican. It is a working draft, for it contains numerous passages of canceled text and insertions of varying length. What he intended to do with this greatly modified transcription is not known. In fact, the final nine pages of the 76-sheet document turn away from the first voyage to offer selections from Columbus's journal from his third voyage, again with considerable intervention by the transcriber.

The second derivation of the journal is found in the biography of Columbus composed by Fernando Colon, his second son. This survives only in an Italian version published in Venice in 1571, some 65 years after the demise of the Admiral.

The third version is also by Las Casas. It consists of those sections of the Historia de las Indias that were drawn from Columbus's journal. These do not correspond in a precise way with the abstract discussed as the first reconstruction. Las Casas wrote the Historia episodically between 1527 and 1566. We know from other documents that he kept a considerable library of writings from and about the Americas and consulted these as he added to the work. But only some of the many titles in his considerable library are known.

Unfortunately, Francesca Lardicci, the editor of this volume, saw fit to contribute only a thirteen-page introduction, most of it devoted to very brief histories of the composition of the three works and to their idiosyncrasies. But the following 670 pages are devoted to careful comparisons of the three documents, first in new English translations by experts in each language, and then in their original languages, the two documents by Las Casas in Spanish and the one by Fernando Colon in Italian. These versions and the translations provide exactly what the editorial board aspired to attain through this series: reliable English translations of key documents and editions of the original writings that benefit from the latest advances in philology.

Volume 7 is something of a hybrid concoction that consists primarily of Las Casas's writings on Columbus from the Historia de las Indias, but unfortunately not as a single unified segment. Rather, it contains some 70 pages on the Admiral's early life before shifting to coverage of the second voyage to the Americas, which is treated in about 75 pages. The first voyage, of course, has been treated in volume 6 on the three partial versions extant of the journal. As the editors of the series decided that the report of the third voyage merited its own volume, it is not included here, but is replaced by a ten-page transition that gets the reader from the end of the second voyage to the beginning of the fourth. This final voyage is treated in roughly fifty pages. A concluding ten pages rapidly covers the two years of life remaining to Columbus, his death, and burial. This superb English translation by Nigel Griffin is followed by the original text in Spanish.

These sections display some of Las Casas's recurrent themes. He highlights the significance of Columbus's first name -- "Christ Carrier" -- which to Las Casas meant that he was destined to introduce Christianity to the pagan Americas. Another preoccupation of the author is that Spain's title to the New World derived solely from the grant it received from the pope. Las Casas was not willing to accept the legitimacy of any other possible claim to rulership. But even this title, while devolving sovereignty on the Spanish monarchy, did not transfer with it property rights over either the lands or the persons of the natives.

Finally, Las Casas seeks to establish his own preeminence as an authority on the early history of the Americas. He does this mainly by inserting some autobiographical sections into the Historia. The friar maintains that his personal witnessing of some aspects of this historical process enhances his authority, certainly raising it above those European chroniclers who remain in the homeland and write their versions from accounts and other documents that are brought to them from across the ocean.

In conclusion, however, it is difficult to imagine what audience exists for these two volumes. Most experts on Columbus and early colonial history well know Las Casas's contributions to the scholarship, including his preoccupations and limitations. As noted, the English translations are of the highest quality, but the volumes badly need lengthier, better elaborated introductions. The philological advances are manifest, but it is questionable if they are sufficient to attract much of a market.