Journal Entries

***Philip II, the Most Catholic King of Spain***

After the abdication of Charles V in 1556, his son Philip II became king of Spain at the age of twenty-nine. Modern historical opinions of Philip II have varied widely. Some Protestant historians have viewed him as a moral monster, but Catholic apologists have commended him for his sincerity and sense of responsibility. These selections include an assessment of Philip II by a contemporary, the Venetian ambassador to Spain, and a section from a letter by Philip II to his daughters, revealing the more loving side of the king.

Suriano, An Estimate of Philip II

The Catholic king was born in Spain, in the month of May, 1527, and spent a great part of his youth in that kingdom. Here, in accordance with the customs of the country and the wishes of his father and mother, ...he was treated with all the deference and respect which seemed due to the son of the greatest emperor whom Christendom had ever had, and to the heir to such a number of realms and to such grandeur. As a result of this education, when the king left Spain for the first time and visited Flanders, passing on his way through Italy and Germany, he everywhere made an impression of haughtiness and severity, so that the Italians liked him but little, the Flemings were quite disgusted with him, and the Germans hated him heartily. But when he had been warned by the cardinal of Trent and his aunt, and above all by his father, that his haughtiness was not in place in a prince destined to rule over a number of nations so different in manners and sentiment, he altered his manner so completely that on his second journey, when we went to England, he everywhere exhibited such distinguished mildness and affability that no prince has ever surpassed him in these traits....

In the king's eyes no nation is superior to the Spaniards. It is among them that he lives, it is they that he consults, and it is they that direct his policy; in all this he is acting quite contrary to the habit of his father. He thinks little of the Italians and Flemish and still less of the Germans. Although he may employ the chief men of all the countries over which he rules, he admits none of them to his secret counsels, but utilizes their services only in military affairs, and then perhaps not so much because he really esteems them, as in the hope that he will in this way prevent his enemies from making use of them.

A Letter of Philip II to His Daughters

It is good news for me to learn that you are so well. It seems to me that your little sister is getting her eye teeth pretty early. Perhaps they are in place of the two which I am on the point of losing and which I shall probably no longer have when I get back. But if I had nothing worse to trouble me, that might pass....

I am sending you also some roses and an orange flower, just to let you see that we have them here [Lisbon]. Calabres brings me bunches of both of these flowers every day, and we have had violets for a long time....After this rainy time I imagine that you will be having flowers, too, by the time my sister arrives, or soon after. God keep you as I would have him!

Questions:

1. Why did so many European subjects dislike Philip II so much?
2. How did this reaction change his behavior?
3. How did Philip II use his non-Spanish European leaders to his own benefit?
4. How does Philip II's letter paint a different picture of his personality?

***A Busy Day at the Sun King's Court***

The elaborate court of Louis XIV seemed very foreign to Liselotte (Elisabeth Charlotte) von der Pfalz, a 19-year-old German princess who married the king's brother in 1671. Homesick for her own country, Liselotte wrote frequent letters home. This one is to her brother's wife.

Versailles, 6 December 1682--

My dearest sister...Today I gave an audience to an envoy of Parma, thereafter I had to write a long letter to the Queen of Spain, and at eight I must go see a new play with Madame la Dauphine. So I have only this hour to write, for tomorrow, right after the King's mass, I must go hunting with His Majesty and after the hunt it will be a bit late to write, for it is again jour d'appartement.

And so that Your Grace can understand what this is,...Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are jours d'appartement. Then all the men of the court assemble in the King's antechamber and all the women meet at six in the Queen's room. Thereupon everyone goes to...a large room where there is music for those who want to dance. From there one goes to a room where the King's throne stands. There one finds various kinds of music, concerts, and singing. From there one goes into the bedchamber, where three tables for playing cards are set up, one for the King, one for the Queen, and one for Monsieur [her husband]. From there one goes to a room that could be called a hall, where more than twenty tables, covered with green velvet cloth with a gold fringe, have been put up for all kinds of games. From there one goes to a large antechamber containing the King's billiard table, and then to another room with four large tables for the collation, all kinds of things like fruit cakes and preserves. This looks just like the children's table on Christmas eve....

After one is done with the collation, which is taken standing up, one goes back to the room with many tables; now everyone sits down to a different game, and it is unbelievable how many varieties of games are being played: lansquenet, trictrac, picquet, l'hombre, chess....When the King and Queen come into the room, no one gets up from the game. Those who do not play, like myself and a great many others, just stroll from room to room...this lasts from six until ten, when one goes to supper. But if I should now tell Your Grace how magnificently these rooms are furnished and what great quantity of silver dishes are in them, I should never finish.

Source: A Woman's Life in the Court of the Sun King, trans. Elborg Forster (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984).

Questions:

1. What were some of Liselotte's activities during a normal day at court?
2. How did the courtiers entertain themselves at the special jours d'appartement?
3. This letter was written when Liselotte had been at court for ten years. What do you think her attitudes toward the court are?

***When Is It Justifiable to Go to War?***

Hugo Grotius, Dutch statesman and author, began university studies at twelve. He became a doctor of law and tried to mediate the quarrels of hostile Dutch religius groups, which got him condemned to prison for life. His wife helped him escape in a laundry chest, and he fled abroad in disguise. He wrote his 1625 book, On the Law of War and Peace, in exile. The following selection is from this very successful work, which influenced the settlement of the Thirty Years' War and then continued to be widely read.

I saw...throughout the Christian world a license in making war of which even barbarous nations would have been ashamed; recourse being had to arms for slight reasons or no reason; and when arms were once taken up, all reverence for divine and human law was thrown away, just as if men were thenceforth authorized to commit all crimes without restraint.

And the sight of these atrocities has led many men, and these, estimable persons, to declare arms forbidden to the Christian...We are to provide a remedy for both disorders; both for thinking that nothing is allowable, and that everything is.

II. The justifiable causes generally assigned for war are three, defenxe, indemnity, and punishment...Recovering by war what we have lost, includes indemnity for the past...A just cause then of war is an injury, which though not actually committed, threatens our persons or property with danger.

III. It has already been proved that when our lives are threatened with immediate danger, it is lawful to kill the aggressor, if the danger cannot otherwise be avoided.

V. The danger must be immediate, which is one necessary point. Though it must be confessed, that when an assailant seizes any weapon with an apparent intention to kill me, I have a right to anticipate and prevent the danger...But...if any one intend no immediate violence, but is found to have formed a conspiracy to destroy me by assassination, or poison, or by false accusation, perjury, or suborned [bribed] witnesses, I have no right to kill him. For my knowledge of the danger may prevent it.

XVI. Private war extends only to self-defense, whereas sovereign powers have the right not only to avert, but to punish wrongs. From whence they are authorized to prevent a remote as well as an immediate aggression. Though the suspicion of hostile intentions, on the part of another power, may not justify [actually beginning a] war, yet it calls for measures of armed prevention, and will authorize indirect hostility.

XVII. Some writers have advanced a doctrine which can never be admitted, maintaining that the law of nations authorizes one power to [begin] hostilities against another, whose increasing greatness awakens her alarms. As a matter of expediency such a measure may be adopted, but the principles of justice can never be advance in its favour. The causes which entitle a war to [be called] "just" are somewhat different from those of expediency alone. But to maintain that the bare probability of some remote, or future annoyance from a neighbouring state affords a just ground of hostile aggression, is a doctrine of repugnant [contrary] to every principle of equity.

It was shown above that [fears of] a neighboring power are not a sufficient ground for war.

VI. Nor can the advantage to be gained by a war be ever pleaded as a motive of equal weight and justice with necessity.

VII. and VIII. Neither can the desire of emigrating to a more favourable soil and climate justify an attack upon a neighbouring power. This, as we are informed by Tacitus, was a frequent cause of war among the ancient Germans.

Neither can the wickedness, and impiety, nor any other incapacity of the original owner justify such a claim. For the title and right by discovery can apply only to [those] countries and places that have no owner.

XII.

And there is equal injustice in the desire of reducing, by force of arms, any people to a state of servitude, under the pretext of its being the condition for which they are best qualified by nature. It does not follow that, because any one is fitted for a particular condition, another has a right to impose it upon him.

Questions:

1. What does Grotius say is the purpose of his book?
2. Grotius lists three justifiable causes for war: defense, indemnity, and punishment. Discuss and give examples of what he means by all three.
3. What, for Grotius, is the difference between justice and expediency? Give evidence from the selection to support your argument.

***Don Quixote Tilts At Windmills***

Of the Good Success Don Quixote Had, in the Dreadful and Never-Imagined Adventure of the Windmills, with Other Accidents Worthy to Be Recorded

As they discoursed, they discovered some thirty or forty windmills, that are in that field; and as soon as Don Quixote espied them, he said to his squire, ‘Fortune doth address our affairs better than we ourselves could desire; for behold there, friend Sancho Panza, how there appears thirty or forty monstrous giants, with whom I mean to fight, and deprive them all of their lives, with whose spoils we will begin to be rich; for this is a good war, and a great service unto God, to take away so bad a seed from the face of the earth.’ ‘What giants?’ quoth Sancho Panza. ‘Those that thou seest there,’ quoth his lord, ‘with the long arms; and some there are of that race whose arms are almost two leagues long.’ ‘I pray you understand,’ quoth Sancho Panza, ‘that those which appear there are no giants, but windmills; and that which seems in them to be arms, are their sails, that, swung about by the wind, do also make the mill go.’ ‘It seems well,’ quoth Don Quixote, ‘that thou art not yet acquainted with matter of adventures. They are giants; and, if thou beest afraid, go aside and pray, whilst I enter into cruel and unequal battle with them.’ And, saying so, he spurred his horse Rozinante, without taking heed to his squire Sancho’s cries, [advising] him how they were doubtless windmills that he did assault, and no giants; but he went so fully persuaded that they were giants as he neither heard his squire’s outcries, nor did discern what they were, although he drew very near to them, but rather said, as loud as he could, ‘Fly not, ye cowards and vile creatures! for it is only one knight that assaults you.’

With this the wind increased, and the mill sails began to turn about; which Don Quixote espying, said, ‘Although thou movest more arms than the giant Briareus thou shalt stoop to me.’And, after saying this, and commending himself most devoutly to his Lady Dulcinea, desiring her to succor him in that trance, covering himself well with his buckler, and setting his lance on his rest, he spurred on Rozinante, and encountered with the first mill that was before him, and, striking his lance into the sail, the wind swung it about with such fury, that it broke his lance into shivers, carrying him and his horse after it, and finally tumbled him a good way off from it on the field in evil plight. Sancho Panza repaired presently to succor him as fast as his ass could drive; and when he arrived, he found him not able to stir, he had gotten such a crush with Rozinante. ‘Good God!’ quoth Sancho, ‘did I not foretell unto you that you should look well what you did, for they were none other than windmills? nor could any think otherwise, unless he had also windmills in his brains.’ ‘Peace, Sancho,’ quoth Don Quixote; ‘for matters of war are more subject than any other thing to continual change; how much more, seeing I do verily persuade myself, that the wise Frestron, who robbed my study and books, hath transformed these giants into mills, to deprive me of the glory of the victory, such is the enmity he bears towards me. But yet, in fine, all his bad arts shall but little prevail against the goodness of my sword.’

Miguel de Cervantes, The First part of the Delightful History of the Most Ingenious Knight, Don Quixote of the Mancha, Thomas Shelton, trans. (New York: P.F. Collier & Son Corporation, 1909, 1937), pp. 60-61.

QUESTIONS:

1. Why does Don Quixote attack the windmills?
2. What happens when he tilts (charges with his lance) at the windmills?
3. What is Don Quixote’s explanation of his failure to win this battle?

***Trade as a Lure to War and Slave-Dealing***

Olaudah Equiano was kidnapped from his village in Ibo land when he was ten. Sold into slavery, he was able eventually to buy his freedom. He adopted a new name, Gustavus Vassa, and, after working as supervisor of slaves on a Central American plantation, he settled in England. There, in 1789, he published his autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African (from which the selection below was taken). He married an Englishwoman and became a respected leader in the anti-slavery movement.

Text reference: Chapter 16, World History, The Human Odyssey; Chapter 2, Modern World History

Our tillage is exercised in a large plain or common, some hours walk from our dwellings, and all the neighbours resort thither in a body. They use no beasts of husbandry; and their only instruments are hoes, axes, shovels, and beaks, or pointed iron to dig with. Sometimes we are visited by locusts, which come in large clouds, so as to darken the air, and destroy our harvest. ...This common is oftimes the theatre of war; ...From what I can recollect of these battles, they appear to have been irruptions of one little state or district on the other, to obtain prisoners or booty. Perhaps they were incited to this by those traders who brought the European goods I mentioned amongst us. Such mode of obtaining slaves in Africa is common; and I believe more are procured this way, and by kidnapping, than any other. When a trader wants slaves, he applies to a chief for them, and tempts him with his wares. It is not extraordinary, if on this occasion he yields to the temptation with as little firmness, and accepts the price of his fellow creature’s liberty with as little reluctance, as the enlightened merchant. Accordingly, he falls on his neighbours, and a desperate battle ensues. ...We have firearms, bows and arrows, broad two-edged swords and javelins; we have shields also, which cover a man from head to foot. All are taught the use of the weapons. Even our women are warriors, and march boldly out to fight along with the men. ...I was once a witness to a battle in our common. We had been all at work in it one day as usual when our people were suddenly attacked. I climbed a tree at some distance, from which I beheld the fight. There were many women as well as men on both sides; among others my mother was there and armed with a broad sword. After fighting for a considerable time with great fury, and many had been killed, our people obtained the victory, and took their enemy’s Chief prisoner. He was carried off in great triumph, and, though he offered a large ransom for his life, he was put to death. ...The spoils were divided according to the merit of the warriors. Those prisoners which were not sold or redeemed we kept as slaves: but how different was their condition from that of the slaves in the West-Indies! With us they do no more work than other members of the community, even their master. Their food, clothing, and lodging were nearly the same as theirs, except that they were not permitted to eat with those who were free born and there was scarce any other difference between them, than a superior degree of importance which the head of a family possesses in our state, and that authority which, as such, he exercises over every part of his household. Some of these slaves have even slaves under them, as their own property, and for their own use.

Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative and Other Writings (New York: Penguin Books, 1995), pp. 38-40.

Questions:

1. Who, according to Equiano, is responsible for the slave trade?
2. Compare how slaves were treated by Equiano’s people with the way slaveholders "in the West-Indies" treated them.

***The Other Christopher Columbus by Glenn Anderson***

Text References: World History, The Human Odyssey: Ch. 16; World History to 1800: Ch. 16; Modern World History: Ch. 2

With the five-hundredth anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s famous voyage to the Americas, many people began to take a fresh look at a historical icon they thought they had known since grade school. As the focus of both celebration and condemnation, two Hollywood productions, and a great deal of debate about his accomplishments and place in history, the man who "in 1492 sailed the ocean blue" has begun to shed some of the myths that have grown up around him like barnacles on the Santa María. For the first time, many students are beginning to look not only at the dramatic effects that Columbus’s journeys had on Europe, but also at their impact on the cultures and civilizations of the Americas. In the fifteenth century, the indigenous people of North and South America discovered not only Columbus and the Europeans, but also that the world, as they knew it, had come to an end. A balanced picture of Columbus, stripped of mythology, must show not only his heroic accomplishments, but also a legacy that included the enslavement and killing of many of the Indian people he encountered.

Americans, like most people, have a tendency to mythologize their ancestors. The story of George Washington cutting down the cherry tree, Betsy Ross making the American flag, or the pilgrims introducing the tradition of Thanksgiving are all common knowledge to most Americans. They are also, however, all false. Likewise, over the centuries, the reality of Christopher Columbus has been distorted to such a great extent that he himself would probably not recognize the person credited by older history books as discovering a new world. Certainly he would have a difficult time identifying which of the many images found in those texts was his true likeness, since none were painted in his lifetime.

Some stories about Columbus have been dropped from newer histories. However, many elementary school children are probably still learning that Columbus sailed west across the Atlantic to prove that the world was round. Usually included in the story is the tidbit about Queen Isabella of Spain forced to sell her jewelry to pay for the trip. During a long and stormy journey, the tale continues, Columbus had to keep a separate log in order to fool his shipmates into thinking that they were not as far from Spain as they really were. Skipping over the fate of the people he encountered in the Americas, the story generally ends with Columbus dying penniless, unappreciated in Spain, and ignorant of the fact that he had reached a new continent. How much of this is historically accurate? None of it.

The story about Columbus sailing across the Atlantic to prove that the earth was round has its origin in the imagination of the American writer Washington Irving. Irving, who is probably best known for his stories "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle," wrote a biography of Columbus in 1828. He included the flat-earth story, most likely for dramatic effect. The truth is that most Europeans knew that the earth was round based upon simple observation. One can see its curve simply by looking at the horizon or at the earth’s shadow on the moon. Also, both the Egyptians and the Greeks had proved and written that the earth was round over a thousand years before Columbus. While navigation was an uncertain and dangerous occupation in the fifteenth century, falling off the earth was not a concern of most sailors.

While a trans-Atlantic crossing five hundred years ago was not what it is today, many stories about Columbus’s journey have tended to exaggerate the dangers he faced. It took the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María, fair-sized oceangoing vessels of the time, one month to go from the Canary Islands off of the coast of Africa to landfall in the outer Bahamas. The weather for the entire journey was so calm that many sailors reported conversing with one another from ship to ship. Logs and diaries of the voyage also show that the crew did no more than the usual amount of grousing and complaining that accompanied any sea journey. Columbus did keep two logs, but only because he was converting between two different types of measurements. One unit of distance, the Italian league, was slightly over 2.5 miles, while the other common form, the Portuguese Maritime league, was just over 3 miles. Besides, Columbus had no way of fooling the crew even if he wanted to. He had no special information that the other ships’ captains or crew lacked. In fact, Columbus was probably one of the least experienced seamen on the voyage. There was no threatened mutiny, nor did a last-minute sighting of land save Columbus from being thrown overboard.

The story of Columbus’s unhappy end gets much of its credence from the fact that he was arrested and sent back to Spain in chains during his third trip to the Americas. However, upon arriving in Spain he was pardoned and given the backing and support to conduct a fourth and final voyage across the Atlantic. The discovery of gold in Haiti in 1499 insured that Columbus would be moderately well provided for all his life. Although not as wealthy as later explorers, Columbus was by no means penniless. Spain’s appreciation of his discovery was demonstrated by the fact that he immediately received backing for later journeys. Spain also granted him the title "Admiral of the Ocean" a title that has been passed down to the eighteenth- generation descendent who holds it today. As to Columbus’s awareness of his discovery, his own journal reveals that when he landed in South America he thought he had reached a new continent, although he mistakenly believed that Asia was just beyond. Columbus did profit from his journeys, did receive recognition from Ferdinand and Isabella, and was aware that he had reached a land other than Asia.

The final bit of myth-making about Columbus deals not with what history books have written about him, but rather with what they have not included. While Columbus’s encounters with the people in the Americas is well documented by contemporaries and by Columbus himself, his treatment of the natives and the pattern he established for later explorers is rarely discussed.

Upon landing on the tiny island of Guanahani in the Outer Bahamas, Columbus claimed the island for Spain and renamed it San Salvador. There he encountered a people who were extraordinarily peaceful and kind. He wrote, "They refuse nothing that they possess, if it be asked of them; on the contrary, they invite anyone to share it and display as much love as if they would give their hearts." These people he encountered were Arawaks, of Taino descent, who had settled the Bahamas approximately 800 years before the arrival of Columbus. When his ship, the Santa María hit a reef off the coast of Haiti, a local Taino chief, Guacanagari, organized his village to go out in canoes to unload the cargo and save the sailors. "There cannot be," Columbus wrote, "a better or more gentle people."

However, it did not take Columbus long to shift from admiring the idyllic life of the islanders to calculating their value. "When your Highnesses so commands," he wrote to the sovereigns of Spain, "they could all be carried off to Castille or be held captive on the island itself, because with 50 men they could all be subjugated and compelled to do anything one wishes." On his first voyage he sent back five men, seven women (who were captured to keep the men docile), and three children as slaves.

On his second voyage, Columbus sent back twelve shiploads of Indians to be sold at the slave markets in Seville. He established a Spanish colony on the island of Hispaniola, which is today shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic. When he left to explore the Caribbean for four months, Columbus put his brother, Diego, in charge of the colony. Upon his return he found the colony in chaos, with soldiers rampaging around the countryside robbing, raping, and killing the inhabitants. Columbus’s son Ferdinand wrote that the soldiers had committed "a thousand excesses for which they were mortally hated by the Indians." Columbus himself attempted to force the cooperation of the islanders by cutting off the ears or nose of any who disobeyed.

Finally, the Indians rebelled and killed several of the Spaniards. Columbus responded by raising an army of 200 foot soldiers with crossbows, cannon, lances, and swords; 20 cavalry; and hunting dogs. Columbus’s son wrote, "The soldiers mowed down dozens with point blank volleys, loosed the dogs to rip open limbs and bellies, chased fleeing Indians into the bush to skewer them on sword and pike."

Columbus rounded up 1500 Indians as slaves. Five hundred were sent to Spain. Of those, 200 died during the journey and had to be dumped overboard, while the rest died shortly after being sold. The remaining thousand were given to the colonists in Haiti. Desperate for gold, Columbus decreed that the remaining Indians over the age of fourteen had to bring him a tribute every three months of enough gold dust to fill a hawk’s bell. Those who brought the tribute wore a metal disk around their neck to signify payment. Those who did not would have a hand cut off.

Columbus established both the slave trade in the New World and the pattern of taking land and wealth from the Indians. Writing that "the Indians are more profitable than the Negroes," he personally was responsible for sending more Indians, some five thousand, into slavery than any other individual. The Arawak population of the Bahamas was between 40,000 and 80,000 when Columbus arrived. The Taino people of Hispaniola numbered between 40,000 and 2 million. By 1525 they were all gone. Many died from overwork, fighting, and brutality, but the majority succumbed to the unfamiliar illnesses that Europeans and their African slaves brought to the New World. The only thing remaining from the Taino culture today are our words hammock, canoe, barbecue, and hurricane.

It would not be fair to blame Columbus for slavery or for the diseases that were brought to the Americas. Many cultures, including some in the Americas, practiced slavery, and Europeans were just as mystified about the transmission of disease as were Native Americans. But Columbus’s story is incomplete without an understanding of his actions in the New World and the effect he had on the people he encountered. It is not necessary to view Columbus now as a villain of history, any more than it was proper for past generations to magnify him to mythic proportions. It should be remembered, however, that Columbus encountered a long-established culture when he "discovered" the Americas. Because of his arrival, that culture no longer exists. Perhaps it is time to add a revised ending to the well-worn Columbus ditty:

1. Explain why most Europeans did not believe the "flat earth" myth.
2. How did Columbus force the cooperation of the Indians?
3. Explain the system of tribute in the form of gold. How did this work?
4. What patterns did Columbus establish for European explorers and settlers?