chapter 162

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Here it is important to note and make clear the error made by the world in general respecting America. What I say is this: As no one had arrived at nor seen Paria before the Admiral, and as the next explorer who arrived was Hojeda, it follows that either Americo was with Hojeda, or came after him. If he was with Hojeda, Hojeda was after the Admiral. The Admiral left San Lucar on the 30th of May, and came in sight of Trinidad and the mainland on the last day of July, and the 1st and 3rd of August, as has been proved. How, therefore, can Americo say, without a perversion of the truth, that he left Cadiz in his first _Navigation_ on the 20th of May of the year of our salvation 1497? The falsehood is clear, and if the statement was made by him in earnest, he committed a great infamy. Even if it is not an intentional falsehood, it seems to be so; for he gives himself an advantage of ten days as regards the Admiral, with reference to the departure from Cadiz, for the Admiral left San Lucar on the 30th of May, and Americo alleges that he departed from Cadiz on the 20th of that month, and also usurps a year, for the Admiral sailed in 1498, while Americo pretends that he set out on his first _Navigation_ in the year 1497. It is true that there would seem to be a mistake, and not an intentional fraud in this, for Americo says that his first _Navigation_ occupied eighteen months, and at the end he asserts that the date of his return to Cadiz was the 15th of October 1499. If he left Cadiz on the 20th of May 1497, the voyage occupied twenty-nine months: seven in the year 1497, all the year 1498, and ten months in the year 1499. It is possible that 1499 may be a misprint for 1498[146] in treating of the return to Castille, and if this was so, there can be no doubt that the fraud was intentional. This fraud or mistake, whichever it may have been, and the power of writing and narrating well and in a good style, as well as Americo's silence respecting the name of his captain, which was Hojeda, and his care to mention no one but himself, and his dedication to King Rene, these things have led foreign writers to name our mainland AMERICA, as if Americo alone, and not another with him, had made the discovery before all others. It is manifest what injustice he did if he intentionally usurped what belonged to another, namely, to the Admiral Don Cristobal Colon, and with what good reason this discovery, and all its consequences, should belong to the Admiral, after the goodness and providence of God, which chose him for this work. As it belongs more to him, the said continent ought to be called Columba, after Colon, or Columbo, who discovered it, or else "Sancta" or "De Gracia", the names he himself gave it, and not America after Americo.

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