The Diario of Christopher Columbus's First Voyage to America

"The original journal was lost but las Casas, who went down in history as the defender of the Indians against the barbarous Spanish conquistadors, was very interested in the history of the New World and he was given access to Columbus’s original diary, his on-board journal of that first journey. For his own purposes he made a partial transcription, partial paraphrase and that is now all we have left. The diary is a day-by-day account of the journey, written twice a day, from the moment Columbus left Spain in 1492 to the moment he got back. It’s amazing not only because it is an account of that discovery of America but it’s amazing just how tiny a bit of America he actually discovered. He saw a few of the Bahamas, a bit of Cuba and a bit of Haiti and then went home. Obviously, there is a sort of interest in what he discovers from a geographical and ethnological point of view … the journal contains the first ever description of someone smoking tobacco! He constantly discusses the colour of the Indians’ skin as he tries to decide whether to sophisticate them, in which case he lightens the colour of their skin in his writing, or whether to see them as merchandise in which case he darkens it. He knew the Indians would need to be black to be seen as merchandise – he was plugging into the established racial iconography of the day. But more amazing is the personal side of the diaries. His men were threatening to mutiny at one point. In fact, one ship did mutiny and went back to Spain but the captain died on the way. He was possibly the first European ever to die of syphilis. Well, it’s probably a myth but syphilis blew up in Europe in the wake of the discovery of America. Anyway, you get this window on to a very anguished man. He talks a lot about the lizards, which were probably crocodiles. It’s an emotionally vivid picture, apart from the sailing direction, of how he’s been deserted by one of his ships. He’s in a big bay on the northern shore of Cuba where he’s taken refuge and he’s trying to make sense of where he is. He thought Cuba must be China and he actually sent an embassy of men inland to find the Great Khan. They found some primitive people smoking leaves. I mean, the atlases he was using were Marco Polo and Pliny. He had read about Marco Polo’s great sea of 7,000 islands and he’s sitting in what was basically a swimming pool in Cuba and he writes that he thinks he must be in the South China Sea. It’s science fiction – he really was on the edge of space, completely lost. He describes the utter stress he is under on the edge of the world, isolated from his crews, his desperation building up. It is a picture of an utterly lost human being."