Exiles and arrivals in Christopher Columbus and William Bradford

Revista de Estudios Norteamericanos, n. • 8 (200 J ), pp. 11 · 26 EXILES AND ARRIVALS IN CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS AND WILLIAM BRADFORD * JOSÉ MARÍA RODRÍGUEZ GARCÍA Universidade da Con1ña I will be concerned in this essay with a few key passages in Christoph er Columbus's Journal of the First Voyage (1492-1493) and William Bradford 's Of Plymouth Planta/ion (1630-1650; pub. 1856) in which the two authors invest their respective plans for a voyage across the ocean with a transcendental significance, linking them to important movements of population caused by religious persecution. In both cases persecution altemately takes on positive and negative connotations: depending on the perspective being adopted, it can be a sign of divine favor or a sign of divine punishment. While Columbus sees the expulsion of the Jews of Sepharad and the fall of Granada's last Moorish king, Boabdil, as an ornen of the discovery of a Christian paradise on earth -the original Garden of Eden- Bradford sees the exodus of the Pilgrim Fathers through England, Holland, and America as the ultimate test of faith in divine Providence that the English Israel must undergo. In the course of the fifteenth century, as «Israel» and «t he Jewish people» acquired the cultural status of the rejected other of Christendom, they also became the symbol of an e1Tant people co ntinually striving for an interpretation of their own deferred destiny. Sixteenth -an d seventeenthcentury theories of national election inspired by the Reconquest of Spain and by massive religious migrations often emphasized two interdependent historical time frames, each deploying a different understanding of history and progress, and each promoting also a characteristic sense of purpose. This dual time scheme appears in Andrés de Bernáldez, Christopher Columbus, Tommaso Campanella, Robert Cushman, John Eliot, John Winthrop, and Edward Johnson, among others. On the one hand, only the elect people were destined to achieve terrestrial success in this world, their lives being the culmination of a completed cycle * This essay is part of a collective research project funded by the Xunta de Galicia (Spain) for lhe ycars 1998-2000 (grant code: XUGA 10404A98). 12 José María Rodríguez García of fall and redemption.' Thus, both Columbus and the New England Puritans thought they were living in the penultimate moment of human history-the time immediately preceding the revelation of God's grand design and the Second Coming of the Messiah. On the other hand. however, the same Renaissance theorists also insisted that all contemporary events amounted to simply one more episode in the progressive history of redemption of ali humankind, a history that was to have further moments of redemption and declension in future generations. As these ca taclysmic changes took place, the prerogative of imperium or dominion was transferred, according to the open-ended logic of translatio imperii, from one people to another: in each historical period God chose one people over another as his main agent to reunite the world under the rule of Christ. Although Bradford makes as many references to God's acts of Providence as a Robinson Crusoe, he does not indulge in frightful anticipations of the Apocalypse (representations of the end of the world and Judgment Day), as the third-generation Puritans will do toward the end of the seventeenth century. Bradford professed the ideology of Separatist Congregationalism, in which the individual Christian sought a direct contact with God, uncontaminated by política! institutions. This persuasion notwithstanding. he knew from the beginning that severa] churches were to rival with Separatist Plymouth. The rival forms of organized worship included the Church of England (indicted in the opening two chapters and mentio n ed in the Mayflower Cornpact) and Thomas Morton's bacchanalian revels (described in detail in the Merrymount chapter) .2 The Pilgrim s' penchant for states of extreme spiritual alert was reinforced by their living in close proximity to the Native Indians and by the establishment of the first Nonseparalist Puritan colony in Massachusetts in 1630, the same year in which Bradford set out to write his chronicle. Like most seventeenth-cenlury Chrislians, regardless of their churches , Bradford seems aware of the insignificant role allotted to him in the unfolding of God's preordained plan for the entire history of the world from the moment of creation to the Apocalypse. At the same time, however, he knows he exists in the microhistory of the Puritan nation, which is specifically informed by a smaller pattem of periodic changes of fortune, of lo ss and recovery or great peri! and triumph. As noted by Walter P. Wenska, the Pilgrims, «simply by being part of history, were part of the first pattern, and their experience until their arrival in New England was part of the second» ( 158). They we re living in the autumn of world, at thc end of history, and believed that the advent of the messianic rule over the world (the acknowledged clímax of the Millennium), although not immediately close at hand, was bound to occur sometime in the near future. The Puritans' slow but steady march toward the Millennium in tum authorized their clairn to moral superiority over Israel, and to the New World's superiority over the bíblica] Canaan: «they declared the New World another promised land, counterpart of Canaan of old but greater, because closer to the l. Scc Pagdcn 51-54; Liss 263-90; Zagorin 163-71; Bercovitch, «Puritan New England Rhctoric» 64-69; Rifes of Asse11t 14041. 2. On Bradford's and Morlon 's verbal indictmenls of each other, see Cartelli. Morton's views on the Spartan discipline dccreed at Plymouth appear in his New E11glish Ca11aan ( 1637). Exiles und Arrivuls in Christopher Columbus and William Bmdford 13 millennium, and they documented their claim with scriptural prophecies as befit a chosen people» (Bercovitch, Rites of Assent 77). The use of a dual time scheme in the interpretation of history helps explain the alternate feelings of optimism and despair that inform much of early Puritan literature. The emphasis on wordly success as a sign of divine favor also explains why neither the average Spanish explorer nor the average Puritan felt that by pursuing his own interest he was betraying the teachings of his religion. While it is true that the capitulación or charter privileges issued to Columbus did not entrnst him with any evangelical mission, and that it was the Admira! who first invoked one such purpose in his widely circulated «Letter of 1492» (also known as «Prologue to the Sovereigns» ), the invocation had the effect of endowing ali future enterprises with the appearance of a mercantile crusade. Columbus, for one, wanted to claim the Indies back from the hands of the pagans, assuming that the trading expeditions to the Orient were only a first step toward evangelizing Asia. As Margarita Zamora has put it, with Columbus it became customary to replace the earlier, medieval purposes of «comprar, trocar, hallw; haber (buy, barter, locate, possess)» with the modern ones of «ganar, descubrir, regir (acquire, discover, govern)» (Reading Columbus 27-28).3 This plan was inspired by the process of Christian Reconquest of Spain just completed with the fall of Granada in 1492. If the conquest of America soon became a displacement anda continuation of the medieval Reconquest, the Native Indians became willy-nilly the successors, in the Castilian imaginary, of the bellicose Moors of Muslim Spain.4 Together with the overtly commercial interests supported by the Castilian and English monarchs, one must also look at the political and spiritual reasons for the colonization of American territories that Columbus and Bradford adduce in their writings. It is interesting to note that, despite the century-and-a-half that separates Columbus 's first voyage from Bradford's Mayflower expedition, the two authors invoke the same two fo1ms of religious zeal as the immediate causes prompting the ir crossing of the ocean. The first cause is the desire lo conve11 -to appeal to the minds and hearts of the unbelievers (the peoples of the Far East in the case of Columbus, and the Native Indians and Virginia and New Eng land An glicans in the case of the Puritans). The process of conversion was to be carried out by preaching and the force of example, eventually to bring unbelievers into the community of belief. The second cause was the more simple-minded desire to ensure by military and political means the safety and independence of one's own religious community (Christendom at large in the case of Columbus), and, better still, its predominance over others. Bradford, however, did not profess the same view of the nation put fo11h by the leaders of the Church of England. Because Bradford and the Separatists publicly refused allegiance to a ny institutional authorily, including the Middle-Way Congregationalists (e.g., John 3. On Columbus's use of the «descubrir y ganar» topos. s ec Kadir 69 -72. For its ironic occurrcnc e. as «conquistados y perdidos,» in Berna! Díaz del Castillo, who finished writing his eycwitncss account of thc Sp anish cm,qucst of Ncw Sp'Jin s1)me seventy-fivc years af t cr Columbus's firsl voyage. see Rodríguez García 490-9 l. 4. Th.is is now a lucw dassicus in Hispanic historiography. For a gooil <;ummary of thc main thesis, <;ee P crez 58-62. 14 J osé María Rodríguez García Winthrop) and the Presbyterians (the representative ecclesiastical government put in praclice by the Church of Scotland), they did not envision the immediate appearance of a nation that mediated between their small sc attered, se lf -g oveming congrega tion s and the New England Canaan. Instead, th ey «hoped to join the progress of tbe ' un iversal invisible church' in small congregation s, modelled after the first Christian communities» (Bercovitch, Rites of Assent 73). The Separatists for the most part accepted the as-yet unredeemed nature of h um ankind, and so did not explicitly address the imminence of the Apocalypse, as later Puritans would do. Columbus had a slightly different view of human history. He thought that America, given i ts exuberan! landscapes and riches, was the original Garden of Eden, which he even dared to locate somewhere up the Orinoco River (Zamora, Reading Cofumbus 13 7-51 ). This important difference goes a long way toward explaining why Columbus and Bradford have very rarely been brough t together, in the s ame discussion on the millennial rhetoric of colonialism, by either historians or literary scholar s. To be su re, Bradford (unlike the Nonsepara ti s ts Jo hn Winthrop and John Eliot) was more interested in having his community repeat the errand of the Old Testament prophets than he was in paving the way for the doctrinal arrival at the Terrestrial Paradise, the New England Canaan. In fa ct, for the older, more introverted Bradford, if he could lay his eyes on a new Canaan at ali, this w as to be found in a text. In a s ho rt piece ofte n referred to as the «Jewish Pr eface» to his « Hebr ew Exercises,» which itself can be read as a belated poslcript to Of Pl ymouth Plantat ion , the Governor explains that while Moses discovered Canaan, he, Bradford, is content with discovering the original meanings contained in the Hebrew Scripture: Though 1 arn grown aged, yet I have had a longing desire, to see with my owne eyes, som[e]thing of that most ancient language, and holy tangue, in which the Law, and oracles of God were wri te ; and in which God, and angels, spake to the holy patriarks of old time; and what names were given to things from the creation. And though 1 cannot attaine to much herein, yet I am refreshed , to have seen sorne glimpse her eo f; (as Moyses s aw the land of Canaan a farr off) My aime and desire is, to see how the words and phrases lye in the holy texte; a nd to disceme somewhat of the same, formy owne co nt ent e.s S. The text was first published, in a facsímile reproduc ti on preceded by a critica! introduction, by lsidore S. Meyer in 1949. ft is transcribed in a s li gh tl y modemizcd rendering by Frank li n on p. 1 78 of hi s st ud y, from where I have taken it. Exi/es and Arrivals in Christnpher Columhus and William Bradford 15 Bradford and Columbus seem equally fond of interpreting events in light of scriptural doctrine, setting those events either in contrast or in parallel to similar episodes narrated in the Bible. Contrary to Bradford, Columbus also identifies his own travels of exploration with the physical discovery of the ancient Canaan, the Terrestrial Paradise promised by God to David. Here I wish to argue that the frequency with which both authors resort to the tropes of exodus and errancy, their emphasis on what it means to be always on the move (both spiritually and socially), is what brings them together at the same time as it sets them apart from other figures like John Winthrop and Hernán Cortés. The only modern historian who has briefly touched on Columbus apropos of Bradford, Wayne Franklin, has noted other points of contact, although by no means does he attempt a thorough comparison. First, the two governors ended their careers reverting to a state approaching self-defensive solipsism, unable to cope with the competitors that launched altemative projecls of exploration and settlement (Winthrop eclipsed Bradford; Vespucci rivaled with Columbus), and, in Colurnbus's case, with legends of «unknown pilots» who landed on America's mainland before the Admiral.6 And second, as cosmographers and theologians, both looked for a «paradise of t he mind,» Columbus imagining it in the recondite source of the Orinoco while Bradford displaced it into his study of the Hebrew Ianguage, to which he devoted his last scholarly efforts (Franklin 177-78, 182-83 ). Sin ce Columbus was n ot granted the opportunity to search for the Venezuelan Canaan, which he identified with the lost Garden of Eden, he turned to the composition of the Book of Prophecies (Libro de las profecías (1501-1502]). This work, like Bradford's Hebrew studies, providcd its author with sorne consolation for the failure of his plan for the establishment of an uninterrupted lineage of saints in the New World.7 As records of a religious patriarch struggling to overcome his feelings of loss and nostalgia, Bradford's comments on the Hebrew Bible and Columbus 's annotation of select prophecies take their authors out of historical contingency and into the realm of the imagination. They both enact a nominalist retnrn to the language of revelation, in which ideals cannot be tainted or thwarted, and in which words are spiritual events in their own right. By contrast with Columbus, whose expedition was sponsored directly by the all-powerful crown of Castile-Aragon, Bradford did not have the full support of the same state power that granted him a charter in the first place. Yet the Plymouth Governor, a largely self-taught man and a religious ideologue like Columbus, had also a medieval imagination that made him look for analogies between bíblica! and 6. On the early efforts to dispossess Columbus, even in his own lifetíme, of the honorific title of «discoverer,» see Fcmández-Armesto 185-87. 7. The Libro de las profecías, which was compíled under Columbus's dir ec tion, is best described as a note book of Bible studies, a repository of sour ce mat er ials t hat the Admira! occasionally u sed to argue for the immincnt fulfillmcnt of other prophecíes foretold in th e Bible and in th c works of such ancient authorities as Sencca and Augustine. The complete t cx. t of the Libro was first published in the rare 1892-94 ltalian anniversary edition of Columbus 's papers (Raccolta di documenti), was translated into Spanish in 1984, and translated into English for thc first time only in 1991, in anticípation of thc Columbian quincentennial. 16 Jo"é María Rodríguez García contemporary ep i so des, read prophecy as history, and prese nt personal convictions as revealed truths. An important bíblica! episode that caught Bradford's imagination wa s the narration, in the Old Testament, of the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and their crossing of a wilderness of waters (the Red Sea) in search of the Terres trial Paradise.R A crucial point to make here is that Br adford was from the ouc s et more concerned wilh lhe possibilily that the Separatists escape the bondage of body and conscience represented by European Catholicism and Lutheranism than he was with arriving al the Promised Land , for which hi s Pu ritans were n ot yet prepared . Accordingly, he uglifies America to avoid the temptation to see in it signs of Paradise. He also famously compares himself to a new Moses who, af!er leading bis pilgrim saints through a «S ea of troubles» and a «desolate wilderness» cannot «go up to th e top of Pisgah to view a mor e goodly country to feed [his peopl e's] hopes» (69). From its first occu1Tence in the book of the s am e title and in Deuteronomy, «Exodus» me ans the emancipation of God's chosen people from their bondage to an illegitimate ruler (the Pharaoh) by means of a depm· tu re from th e land of the oppressor. Beginning in the early seventeen th century it also came to signify, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. any removal and re location of a group of people because of religious, political, and even economic reasons. Co lumbus, who carne from a family of con ve rso weavers and merchants and fancied himself, like Bradford, an interpreter of prophecies, also mentions Moses by name in the jo um al entry for 23 September 1492: Como la mar estuviese mansa y llana, murmurava la gente diziendo que, pues por allí no avía m ar grande, que nunca ventaría para volver a España. Pero después ali:;óse mucho la mar y sin viento. que los asombrava, por lo cual dize a qu í el Almirante: «Así que muy ne i:; essario me fue la mar alta, que no pare i:;ió salvo el tiem po de los judíos cuando sa li eron de Egipto contra Moisén, qu e los sacava del captiverio.» (Varela ed., 23-24) The sea was a flat calm, and the crew were complaining, saying that as the sea was never rough here there would never be a wind to take us ho me to Spain, but then they were as tonished when a h eavy sea ro se with no wind, and th e Admira! wrote according ly : «So this heavy s ea came very opportunely for me; it was just like the Jews, on t he ir way out of Egypt, arguing with Moses as he led them out of captivity.» (Cummins ed .. 89; tran s. amcnded) 8. Gay ohscrvcs in a footnotc that the popularity of thc «des ol a te wi ld e me ss» mctaphor did no t decline aftcr Bradford. On the con tr ary, for later authors likc Collon Mather (who uses the word « Wild c rn c~s» 94 times in th c MaRnalia Christi Ameri«tma [ 1702)), it hecamc «an alt-purpose, a nd her.ce almost meaninglc <; s. mctaphor. embrnci ng the Americ an ~nv . ro n rn<>r~'" th; tcmptation of Jes us. L uth c r ·~ ~ ufferin g in his cxilc, King Davi d's v,.i nJc r in g. nnd, <lhO\ ~ all, the chlldren of Is rael fleeing Egy pt» (2 9 n5). Exiles and Arrivals in Christopher Columbus and William Bradford 17 Consuelo Vareta adds the following note to this passage: «¿Se identifica aquí Colón con Moisés? No hay que olvidar que emprende el viaje el mismo día de la expulsión de los ju dío s, y que parece ser que en el rol de esta primera navegación aparece gran cantidad de hebreos» (24 n22). Another episode from Sc ri pture that also fascinated Columbus was the Lord's promise to King David of bringing the en-ancy of the Jewish nation to a conclusion by letting the Israelite king conquer the last of the four corners of the earth and build there a temple. 1 would like to propose that Columbus literalizes the relationship between the Lord and David in his own relationship with the Catholic Monarchs, whom he addresses performatively, in the «Letter of 1492», demanding that they grant him, as promised in the «Capitulaciones de Santa Fe (17 April 1492)» and the «Carta de Merced (30 April 1492)», a title of nobility in keeping with his lofty mission. While the royal docurnents insisted on Columbus's status as a subject anda vassal, he insists on the separate unfolding of bis succession as bis family becornes more powerful with each new discovery:9 Vuestras Altezas ... me hizieron grandes mercedes y me anoblei;ieron, que dende en adelante yo me llamase Don y fuesse Almirante Mayor de la mar Occéana y Visorey e Governador perpetuo de todas las islas y tien-a firme que yo descubriese y ganasse, y de aquí en adelante se descubriesen y ganasen en la mar Occéano, y así sucediese mi hijo mayor, y él así de grado en grado para siempre jamás. (Varela ed., 16)10. Your Majesties ... granted me great concessions and ennobled me, allowing me to cal! myself Don from then onwards, with the title of Grand Admira! of the Ocean Sea, and Viceroy and Governor in perpetuity of all the islands and mainland that I might discovcr and win, or which rnay be henceforth discovered and won in the Ocean Sea, and you ordained moreover that my eldest should succeed me in this, and so on through future generations forever. (Cummins ed .. 82) This passage summarizes the terms of the commission that he was granted through the «Capitulaciones» and the «Carta de Merced», which were generous in bestowing on CoJumbus unheard-of privilegcs (including the new title of viceroy) simply because no one at the time could suspect the magnitude of the lands he was to 9. Although the history of thc composition and carly circulation of the «Letter of 149 2» is far from clear, Zamora believes it was written aftcr Columbus's rcturn from his lirst voyage to America, whcn he became fully conscious of the way in which he coulcl rhetorically transform what was initially only a trading expedition into a large-scale enterprise of conques! govemed by a providential clesign. This cover letter probably was enclosed with Culumbus's revised version of the ship-log that he scnt to the Catholic Monarchs, presenting it as a day-by-day record of the navigation («El prólogo al Diario» 16; Reading Columbus 23-24, 27). 1 O. In chapter 8 of his Crónica de Jos Reyes Católicos, Alonso de Santa Cruz summarizes the privilcgcs granted Columhus in words that restate what Columbus wrote in thc «Letter of 1492» almost verbatim (chapter reproduced in Perez 102-05). 18 José María Rodríguez García conquer. No sooner did he return than the monarchs realized they had made Columbus legally the most powerful feudal seigneur of Castile, with ful! legitimate powers to dispense thc highest form of just ic e in his vast dominions (Kadir 66-71 ). He now held simultaneously the offices of admira], viceroy, and governor. According to Felipe Fernández-Armesto, this unforeseen development rnade tbe Catbolic Monarch s «apprehensive and alert to tbe need to curtail [Columbus's] powers», since suc h powers wcre now large enough to threaten «the triumph of a centralizing monarchy.» Commenting on Columbus's thirst for titlcs of nobility, Fernández-Armesto has also argued that while Columbus was at times able to temper bis higb pecuniary de mands , he could never attenuatc bis genealogical obsession, wbich goes from considering himself thc new prophet of the Messiah's Second Coming to claiming for bis lineage thc hereditary title of viceroy (69-72). 11 Columbus anticipatcs the belief of the Puritans that God will show his grace to bis people in this world by allowing them to pursue and achieve terrestrial goals in America, goals tbat in turnare rcalized ad majorem Gloriam De;. 12 After lhe success of the first and second joumeys, Columbus recast his earlier role of conqueror in to the new role of messenger. Thus. in the «Letter to Prince Juan's Nurse. Doña Juana de la Torre» («Carta a Doña Juana de Ja Torre, ama del Príncipe Don Juan» [1499)), he explains how he came lo serve the Catholic Monarchs for exclusively religious reasons. In this and other autobiographical texts. Columbus silences his earlier pilgrimage, in the late 1480s. through other European courts (notably those of P011ugal's Joao JI and England's Henry VII) in search of a sponsor.IJ He also negl ec ts to mention the legal bond of vassalage that from lhe beginning subjected him to the will of Isabel and Fernando. with rights and obligations on both parts. lnstead. Columbus chooses to fashion himself asan appointee of God : «Yo vine con amor t an entrañable a servir a estos Príncipes, y e servido de servicio de que jamás se oyó ni vido. Del nuevo cielo y tierra que dezía nuestro Señor por Sant Juan en el Apocalipsi, después de dicho por boca de Isaías, me hizo mensajero y amostró aquella pa rte» [ «l carne to serve their Majeslies like no one was seen or he ar d to serve them before, driven by my tender love for them. God made me the messenger of tbe n ew heav en and the new earth of which he spoke in the Apocalypse of St. John after having spoken 1 1. Columh us saw his dynastic ambitions fullilled when king Fernando restored Diego Co lón in thc office of Governor of Hispaniola and had him married to thc granddaughtcr of the hereditary Admira! of Castile. On the matter of pccuniary rcwards, howevcr. the king made no concessions to h im th at could supplement the already ~ubstantial remittances in gold thal reached him intermittently from Hispaniola (Fcrnández-Armesto 178 - 79 ). 1 2. 1 n one such cosmology. both the monarch and thc individual Christi an appear as passive subjccls of a transcendental plan. It is God who chooscs who will light and defeat His enemies and so entcr the Pro miscd Land. This line of interpretation corresp on ds to what Nader has called the proviclcntialist «letrado theory of history» (besl reprcs cnted by Andrés de Bernáldez) by opposition to the secular. more Machiavellian, «caballero theory of history» (bcst represcnted by Diego de Valcra). Nader situatcs thc apcx of thc conf rontation betwccn rcpresentatives of thc two theo ri es in Caslile in the 1480s (27-30). 13 . On Columbus's qucsI for patronage. before and after he removed to Castilc in 1488, sce Fcrnández-Armcslo 45-65. Exi/es and Arrivals in Christopher Co/umbu.s and Wil/iam Bradford 19 of it through the mouth of Isaiah, and he showed me where to find it»] (Varela ed., 263-64; my translation).14 By means of the word «mensajero» Columbus alludes he re to the games with Greek and Roman etymology to which different spellings of his name lent themselves. To give an example, one of his preferred signatures, the Greco- Roman «Christo Ferens», can be rnade to mean the «transporter or bearer [ferens] of Christ» or even, in a metaphorical extension, «one who bears testimony to Christ's (the Messiah's) Second Coming». 1s The references to John and Isaiah evince Columbus's interest in the prophetic aperture of Christian history. Yet he also had an interest in institutional closure. in moments that announce an end to the joint processes of errancy and revolution, ushering in instead a period of stability in which the original prophet and his successors achieve institutional consecration. In the Libro de las profecías, in which Columbus meant to gather all scriptural prophecies of the Terrestrial Paradise that he thought might prefigure bis own arrival in the New World, he included the passage from Chronicles 1.1 7 in which Nathan reveals to David God's designs for him: fui tecum quocumque perrexisti; et interfeci omnes inimicos tuos coram te, fecique tibi nomen quasi unius magnorum, qui celebrantur in terra. Et dedi locum populo meo Israel; plantatibur, et habitabit in eo, et ultra non co[m]movebitur .... A[n]nuntio ergo tibi, quod edificaturus sit tibi Dominus dornum. Cumque impleveris dies tuos, ut vadas ad patres tuos, suscitabo semen tuum pot fe, quod erit de filiis tuis; et stabiliam regnum eius. (West and Kling eds., 218. 220) I have been with thee withersoever thou hast gone: and have slain all thy enemies before thee, and have made thee a name like that of one of the great ones that are renowned in the earth. And I have given a place to my people Israel. They shall be planted, and shall dwell therein, and shall be moved no more .... And I declare to thee, that the Lord will build thee a house. And when thou shalt have ended thy days to go to thy fathers, I will raise up thy seed after thee. which shall be of thy sons: and I will establish his kingdom. (West and Kling eds., 219, 221) 14. Isa bel of Castilc was hcrsclf, likc lhc Admira!, an avid reader of St. John 's apocalyptic cosmography and of Sir John Mandcvillc's Book of rhe Man·els of rlze World und \i1yage tlirou gh Jerusalem. Asill. and Africa, an intcrcst awakcncd in her by thc travels of her adventurous great-uncle Don Pedro and by two of Columbus's backers, th e Observatine Franc i scans Fray Antonio de Marchena (her astrologer) and Fray Juan Pérez (one of h er confessors) . There were also severa! humanist scholars at her Court, like Andrés de Bcmáldcz (later to become an importan! chronicler ), who in te rpre ted rnany momenlous cpisodes during her rule as part of her divine mission to assume th e role of the new Virgin Mary, the moth er of th e redeemcr or Messiah who was going to restore th e kin gdom of God on earth after the conques! of Granada and of the Ho ly Scpulchre. See West and Kling cds., 56-58; Liss 284-88, 152-61, 254-58. 15. Sce Kadir 1-2, 32-33, 153-54. 26 José María Rodríguez García West, Dclno C. & August Kling, eds. The Libro de las profecías of Christopher Co/111nb11s: A11 en face Edition. Trans. and commcntary by West and Kling. Gainesville: U of Florida P, 1991 . Zagorin, Pérez. Societies. States, and Early Modem Revolutions: Agrarüm and Urban Reh e lliom . Vol. l of Re beis and Rulers. 1500-1660. New York: Cambridge UP, 1982. Zamora, Margarita. «El prólogo al Diario de Cristóbal Colón ». Ínsula 522 ( Ju ne 1990): 16-17. - . Readi11g Columhus. Berkeley: U of California P. 1993.