In the Margins of Columbus

I

The decisive mediation of Bartolomé de Las Casas in the transmission of the Columbian texts to future generations of readers has been largely ignored, as I have argued earlier in this volume. Yet today we would not have any version of the diarios of the first or third voyages were it not for his edition of the former and his transcription and paraphrase of the latter in the biography of Columbus that comprises the first book of the Historia de las Indias . Las Casas was not only a transcriber, editor, and biographer of Columbus, however. He was also his first Reader, with a capital R to distinguish his activities from the type of reading that leaves few if any traces of itself. Few of the texts Las Casas worked with are free of marginal or interpolated notes registering his reactions to Columbus's words. Much of this annotation was then incorporated into the Historia , a work that can be described as a collection of citations and paraphrases of the Columbian texts tied together by Las Casas's running commentary. The notes even made their way into the marginalia of the Historia , recording to the point of practical if not rhetorical redundancy Las Casas's reflections and responses to Columbus.^[1]

Unlike a typical reader's occasional underscorings, Las Casas's notations reflect a consistent and coherent philosophy of reading that, in turn, as the commentary is assimilated into the Historia , becomes a way of writing the history of the Discovery. Compared to the works of Ferdinand Columbus and Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, the other early biographers of Columbus and historians of the Discovery, Las Casas's Historia has a pronounced ex-egetical character, which not only incorporates but also proclaims the primacy of the texts it contains.^[2] Las Casas was alone among the early Columbianists in interpreting the historical event through an explicit commentary on and exegesis of his sources; in rendering the

figure of Columbus not only as the protagonist of the events but as the narrator of the story he himself had written; and in holding Columbus accountable not just for his actions but for the way he told the story of what occurred. Words, Las Casas believed, contain the germs of deeds within them, and so his critical history of Spain in the Indies begins with a criticism of what Columbus wrote about his experiences there. The results of this historiographical strategy have been to both enrich and irrevocably alter the Columbian texts. Las Casas's marginal commentary on the Columbian texts—his creative reading practice—constitutes a way of interpreting, revising, and ultimately yet another way of rewriting the history and story of the Discovery.

Common usage dictates that the adjective "marginal" be reserved for the inessential, peripheral, or supplemental, that which lies outside the boundaries defining the central. Paradoxically, however, it is precisely in its relation to the margins that the center takes shape. As something added, even if only as an afterthought, the supplemental element implies the incomplete or insufficient character of the entity to which it is appended. Deconstructive analysis uses this "logic of the supplement" to subvert the distinction between essential and inessential, inside and outside, in order to question the hierarchies that designate certain things as central and others as unessential.^[3] But what is a "center" if it relies on the margins to define its centeredness? The reversal implicit in this question, the attribution of importance to that which has been characterized as supplementary or marginal, is the way deconstructionists typically relativize the activity of interpretation or evaluation of cultural products. In undermining the very decidability of what is important or meaningful and what is less so or not at all, deconstruction ultimately seeks to prevent any particular evaluation from establishing itself as authoritative or, at least, from doing so for very long.

By invoking the notion of marginality, I want to call attention to how Las Casas's marginal comments, which have long been considered an unessential part of the Columbian texts, in fact exert a significant effect on our reading of Columbus. But beyond this initial "decentering" of Columbian writing, I also employ the notion of marginality in a way quite different from that typically used by deconstructionists. "The margins" therefore will also serve as a po-

sition from which to identify and trace the moves of a strategy for writing the Discovery that is explicitly supplemental and self-consciously revisionist. Las Casas's discourse is characterized precisely by its accessory nature, indeed derives its strength and authority from its secondary condition. From this perspective, I will also examine the countermoves of a reading tradition that has consistently suppressed the marginal text and the consequences of this tacit censorship for our understanding of Columbian writing.

Implicit in this approach is an awareness that even if hierarchies bear their own deconstruction within them, if the center can be uncentered by attributing importance to an element previously thought to be marginal, the very act of decentering carries with it tangible consequences because it is always, even if only momentarily, itself also a centering. In calling attention to the marginalia, in situating my own reading in the margins, I am advocating a reorientation in the discussion of Columbian writing that takes into full account Las Casas's mediation in its transmission. For his mediation was in no way neutral. On the contrary, in the interplay between margin and center in his work on Columbus, Las Casas made literary choices with profound political, ethical (he would have said "moral"), and ultimately historical consequences. In the process he profoundly altered some of these texts, inscribing in them his voice and his vision. In refocusing the discussion of Columbian writing on the marginalia, I seek to demonstrate that rather than constituting an incidental or extraneous appendage to the main texts as we have them, Las Casas's commentary has become their necessary supplement. Implicit in my argument acknowledging the integrality of the central and the marginal writings is a protest of established editing practices that suppress or subordinate one in favor of the other.

Las Casas's interest in Columbus was not purely, or even primarily, historiographical. Ethnographical, literary, juridical, moral and, perhaps above all, political concerns attracted him to "the Admiral's" writings. His reading of Columbus was done with an eye to provoking the Spanish authorities to a moral awakening: that the many unchristian, unjust, and unlawful aspects of the conquest required the reform of colonial laws and practices damaging to the Indians. Only occasionally does this case assume the form of historical argumentation in the Historia ; more often than not, it is ar-

ticulated through a blending of sermonlike moralization, ethnological description, and theological commentary packaged in the litigator's rhetoric or the literary forms of biography or the interpolated story.^[4] Anthony Pagden has observed that the Historia "reads less like a 'history' than a series of overlapping depositions" in which Columbus is presented as, among other things, Las Casas's opening and preferred witness.^[5]

The mode of discourse in the Historia alternates between quotation or paraphrase of Columbus's writings and an exegesis or commentary on that text based on Las Casas's experiences in the Indies, eyewitness testimony whose authority is vouched for by his erudition and his commitment to Christian precepts. His narrative of events often reads more like a chorus of textual "voices" to which the historian's writing responds inconfirmation, correction, or outright condemnation. In book 1 of the Historia , for example, the biography of Columbus and the history of the enterprise of the Indies are related through paraphrase, direct quotation, and verbatim transcription of long passages or even (apparently) entire documents. The various texts are formed into a cohesive narrative structure and coherent historical argument through Las Casas's exegesis and commentary, through his interpretation of the texts' significance. The historian's task, as he explains in the prologue to the Historia , is the "discovery" of a past not so much forgotten as "hidden":

muchos otros sabemos haver sido a quien la grandeza y dignidad y numerosidad de las obras y hechos en sus tiempos acaecidos, viéndolos ocultados y cubiertos con ñiebla del olvido, habiendo respecto a la utilidad común, que descubiertas , dellas esperan seguirse, porque se manifiesten , convida y solicita o induce a querer escribirlas.
([Madrid: Biblioteca de
Autores Españoles , 1957], 3;
emphasis added)

Many others, because we know ourselves to be among those to whom the greatness, dignity, and multitude of works and deeds that have occurred in their time, seeing these things concealed and covered by the fog of oblivion, out of respect for the common good that one hopes will derive from them once they are discovered —which invites and solicits or induces [us] to want to write them—[are moved to compose histories] in order to make them manifest .

The phrasing recalls Columbus's own—"cometí viaje de nuevo al cielo y tierra que fasta entonces estaba oculto ... salió a pareçer de mi industria" (Varela, 264; I undertook a new voyage to the sky and land that up to that point had been hidden ... [which] appeared because of my labor)—suggesting an intriguing parallel between the original discovery of the Indies as divinely inspired revelation and their historiographical "rediscovery" by Las Casas in the Historia .^[6] But Las Casas's wording is also reminiscent of biblical hermeneutics, the most common purpose of which was to discover, through the exegesis of biblical texts, the spiritual meanings latent in sacred history and the truths and moral values it could teach. Of the four types of interpretation recognized by the Church—literal, moral, allegorical, and anagogical—Las Casas favors the second in his interpretation of the texts that tell the story of the Discovery. His exegesis typically culminates in a critique of conduct in light of Christian precepts. In his prologue he clearly states the reforming intent of his history even as he reiterates its moralizing didactic purpose:

Quise tomar este cuidado y acometer entre otras muchas ocupaciones este trabajo, no poco grande, ... por la utilidad común, espiritual y temporal, que podrá resultar para todas estas infinitas gentes, ... [y] por librar mi nación espaçola del error y engaço pernicioso en que vive.
(Historia , 15)

I wanted to take on this charge and undertake this no small labor on top of all the others ... because of the spiritual and temporal benefits that may result for all these infinite peoples, ... [and] in order to deliver my Spanish nation from the pernicious error and self-deception in which it lives.

The exegesis of the Columbian texts is the opening blast in the Historia 's battle to change the course of events in the Indies by awakening Spain's moral conscience to the horrors of the conquest and its consequences. Following the Columbian model of discovery expressed in the text Las Casas selected as the prologue to the Diario (a text also transcribed into the Historia ), he advocates in place of conquest an exclusively evangelical mission under the direction of religious and supported by peaceful persuasion rather than force.

For this mission he prefers the term descubrimiento (in the sense of the term as employed in the Columbian text) to conquista , which is a "vocablo tiránico, mahometano, impropio e infernal" (a tyrannical, Muhammadan word, improper and infernal).^[7]

To speak about the Columbian texts' role in Las Casas's historical discourse it is helpful, however, to consider first the formative stages of a reading method and writing practice that culminated in the Historia 's critique of Spanish colonization. Many of the same Columbian passages invoked in the Historia are also the subject of Las Casas's marginalia in his edition of the Diario and "Relación" of the third voyage. (Although that edition is undated, most scholars have concluded, as we will see, that Las Casas's commentary in the Historia is derived from it, and not vice versa.) The most strongly worded of these passages concern the Indians, specifically Columbus's perceptions and treatment of them, which is also a primary focus of the Historia , and so I have chosen to concentrate on this aspect of the marginal commentary.

II

The original manuscript of Las Casas's edition of the Diario and "Relación," preserved at the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid, presents the two documents in sequence on seventy-six continuously numbered folios. The main text attributed to Columbus, the marginal comments, and the numerous corrections are all in Las Casas's handwriting. The text's appearance is striking in that the margins are very generous, in contrast to Las Casas's other holographs, where each page is typically covered with text, notes, and corrections.^[8] The marginal commentary assumes various forms. There is a sketch (unique in the Diario ) of a quill pen in the left margin opposite the entry for 11 October, where the narrative of the discovery proper begins (see Figure 1, fol. 8r). The abbreviation nõ ("note") is used frequently to highlight certain passages. Las Casas also highlights portions of text by copying words or short phrases in the margin to summarize important passages or simply scores the relevant text. A more evaluative or interpretive form of commentary ranges from a single word to several phrases (see Figure 1, fol. 55v). Sometimes the main text is simply scored in the left margin or underlined. Las Casas was careful to distinguish the commentary from

his corrections to the main text by consistently placing the former in the left margin, while the revisions typically appear on the right-hand side.^[9] The commentary usually appears boxed-off from the main text, further accentuating its presence and autonomy. The manuscript as a whole gives the impression of having been written with a careful hand, in reasonably clear and legible script.

The Diario and "Relación" were published for the first time in 1825 by Martín Fernández de Navarrete as part of his Colección de los viages y descubrimientos que hicieron los espaóoles desde fines del siglo XVI , a multivolume collection of writings about Spanish exploration. This edition appeared without most of Las Casas's annotations, however; nor was any mention made of the more than one thousand revisions to the primary text also contained in the margins and between the lines of the manuscript. In effect, Las Casas's pen was erased from the text, leaving the impression that the Diario and "Relación" had been achieved by the simple and straightforward transcription of Columbus's writings. All subsequent editions and translations of these texts between 1825 and 1892 were based on Fernández de Navarrete's; not until the Italian edition known as the Raccolta appeared in 1892 was the presence of Las Casas acknowledged, though only partially. This editor, Cesare de Lollis, returned to the original manuscript and included most, but not all, of the marginal commentary, without any explanation of the criteria employed in his selection.^[10]

Most of the twentieth-century Spanish editions of the Diario and "Relación," and all the English translations I am aware of, also suppress in one way or another the presence of Las Casas's pen in the text.^[11] Surprisingly, even the editor of the first facsimile edition, Carlos Sanz, silently omitted many of the marginal notes in his transcription. Recent editions and translations, beginning with Manuel Alvar's transcription in 1976, include most of Las Casas's commentary. But it is usually relegated to endnotes or footnotes, a practice that, at the very least, implies a statement on its subordinate status with respect to the main text.^[12] The apparatus also makes it impossible for the reader to move from the main text to the marginal comments without interruption. Even the latest diplomatic edition and English translation, published in bilingual format by Oliver Dunn and James E. Kelley, omits the marginalia from the English half of the book. Thus demoted, isolated, and dismembered, the

Figure 1.
Pages from the "Libro de la primera
navegación y descubrimiento de las Indias" (fols. 8r and 55v). From
Carlos Sanz's facsimile edition,  Diario de Colón  (Madrid: Bibliotheca
Americana Vetustissima, 1962).

commentary is no longer the integral part of the Diario and "Relación" Las Casas conceived it to be.

The physical integrity of the manuscript is fully respected only by Consuelo Varela, who recently edited it as part of an edition of Las Casas's collected works. Varela appears to hedge her bet in the introduction, however, when she anticipates the surprise that the inclusion of the Diario and the "Relación" in the works of Las Casas is likely to cause. Rather than affirm Las Casas's decisive mediation in the transmission of these texts, implicit in their inclusion in the collected works, Varela gingerly sidesteps her own bold implication—that Las Casas's pen and not Columbus's defines these texts—by affirming that the merits of the annotations alone justify their inclusion.^[13]

As this brief survey suggests, our reading of the Columbian texts has been wholly defined by the institutionalization of an editorial fiction that creates the illusion of the pristineness and absolute authority of Columbus's voice by enforcing the wholesale suppression or manipulation of Las Casas's commentary. Each of the editors recognized the presence of Las Casas's pen in the margins of the manuscript and, openly or silently, each made value judgments about which marginal notes to include or eliminate, where to place them, and how to use them in the interpretation of difficult or obscure passages. Fernández de Navarrete, for instance, chose to include notes of a geographical character but not those critical of Columbus's words and conduct. The degree of premeditation that governed his selection is evidenced in the fact that his fair copy did not include certain annotations that nevertheless appear in the published edition.^[14] One can only conclude that he must have gone back to the original specifically to consider the marginal text.

The real issue is not, then, whether the annotations are indeed a part of the Diario and "Relación," but how they are treated in established editorial practice.^[15] The positivist belief that the past can be essentially reconstituted in the present through the study of documentary evidence has undoubtedly contributed in no small way to scholars' persistent reluctance to acknowledge that the most complete source we have on the first and third voyages is not a fair copy, or even a copy of a copy, but a highly manipulated version of a copy of whatever Columbus may have written.^[16] Even those who

acknowledge Las Casas's interventions typically feel obliged either to shield Columbus's integrity from the onus of the Lascasian violation by accusing Las Casas of fabrication or, conversely, to insist on Las Casas's absolute fidelity to the Admiral's ipsissima verba in the transcription of the first-person passages and to the substance, tone, and tenor of Columbus's lost original text in the paraphrases, which constitute some 80 percent of the Diario .^[17] Although these two positions appear to represent opposite views with respect to Las Casas's handling of his source, they share a fundamental belief in the need to maintain the authority and integrity of the Columbian word. Both those who view Las Casas as a faithful and passive conduit for Columbus's voice and those who see him as a ventriloquist speaking his own mind through a Columbus-dummy ultimately maintain the privilege of the Admiral's testimony and the fiction that it is available to us in a fundamentally pristine text. Yet in the final analysis, neither those who chastise Las Casas nor those who hold him up as a model of editorial fidelity can afford to ignore the presence of his pen in his edition of the Diario and "Relación."

The unique physical appearance of the manuscript, with its ample margins and highlighted commentary, suggests that it not only served the likely purposes of aide-mémoire and citation source for Las Casas's treatises and histories, but that it was also intended for circulation among other readers. One thing is clear, Las Casas displayed the margins.^[18] But the nature of the commentary itself is perhaps the strongest evidence that he was not writing for himself alone. While many of the annotations simply summarize or call attention to material contained in a particular portion of the main text, others correct Columbian errors (usually geographical or linguistic) or interpret passages of the main text on the basis of Las Casas's own experiences in the Indies. For example, a linguistic note on the Arawak word bohío , which Columbus apparently mistook as the proper name of an island, reads: "bohío llamavan los indios de aquellas islas a las casas y por eso creo que no entendía bien el Almirante, ante devía de dezir por la isla Española que llamavan Haití" (Colección 76–77; The Indians of those islands called houses bohío and for this reason I believe that the Admiral did not understand correctly; he must have been referring to the island of Hispaniola, which they called Haiti). It seems unlikely that this type of

simple linguistic correction, of which there are many in the manuscript (e.g., Diario entries for 23 November, 26 November, 5 December), would have been intended for Las Casas's own edification.

More importantly, implicit in Las Casas's corrective stance with respect to Columbus's linguistic incompetence is an ostentation of the commentator's superior familiarity with the subject matter and a questioning of the Admiral's perceptions and judgments. This oneupmanship, as it were, induces readers of Las Casas's edition to adopt a critical posture with respect to Columbus's testimony. Even the Admiral's knowledge of geography is put in question, as in the Diario entry for 1 November, which seems to have caught Las Casas's eye if the sheer quantity of notes is any indication. At the end of the entry, after describing the Indians' willingness to repeat Christian prayers taught to them by the Spaniards, Columbus makes two of his most famous geographical blunders. He asserts that Cuba is the Asiatic mainland and that he is now in the vicinity of Zaitó and Quinsay, two of the great Tatar cities described by Marco Polo in his Travels . Las Casas's comment is openly derisive, "esta algaravía no entiendo yo" (Colecdón , 75; I do not understand this gibberish). This is immediately followed by another correction in the subsequent entry, this time for Columbus's preposterous location of Cuba at 42 degrees north latitude.

A close analysis of the main text shows, however, that not all the commentary resides in the margins. Obviously anachronistic observations—some explanatory, others critical—are interpolated in various places, sometimes in parentheses or, more disturbingly for those concerned with the integrity of the Columbian word, embedded almost seamlessly in the paraphrase. Among the detectable interpolations are the concern expressed on 30 October about the integrity of the copy Las Casas was working with; the anachronistic intrusion of the Arawak name of the island of Guanahaní (Columbus's "San Salvador") before the first contact with the natives from whom Columbus could have learned it; the mention of Florida many years before it was discovered; and the comical exclamations of incredulity regarding the ephemeral islands Columbus was seeking in the vicinity of what later was to be known as the location of Florida. In each instance, the editorial voice is affecting to speak through Columbus, and the distinction between the author's enunciation and the editor's has been effectively blurred. As I observed

in the essay preceding, we have no way of knowing on how many other occasions, now undetectable, the primary text has been violated, not only by the comparatively benign operation of paraphrasing, but by the physical invasion of the marginal discourse into the presumably unadulterated Columbian discourse itself.

As we have seen, in the physical disposition of Las Casas's manuscript the main text takes shape inside and in relation to the margins. It is in fact impossible to read the main text without also reading the marginalia—unless one physically manipulates the page to block out the commentary. The eye continually and ineluctably skips from the body text to the border and back. Las Casas's explanations, additions, corrections, and signals train the reader to depend on the marginal writing to understand the primary text. And before long one begins to sense that the text is simply not complete without the annotations. The commentary's very existence bespeaks the insufficiency of the main text, the necessity of the supplement. First and foremost, the marginalia situate the reader in a critical stance with respect to the primary text. To the extent that the commentary puts in question Columbus's judgments, interpretations, representations, and actions, it renders his authority relative in value. Beyond questioning the accuracy of the source, the commentary also makes its physical integrity a relative phenomenon. The commentary leads to the conclusion that the primary text is neither an infallible nor even a stable and complete entity. Ultimately, it argues for the need to question, criticize, and revise Columbus.

Las Casas's strongest criticism is reserved for Columbus's treatment of the Indians. The marginal text draws the reader's attention to those portions of the primary text that speak of Arawak generosity, intelligence, and diligence, and their peaceable and welcoming reception of the Christians. The marginal text, however, casts these passages in an ironic light, since Columbus frequently complements such encomiastic observations with an affirmation of the ease with which Spanish domination and exploitation could be established and maintained. In the margins the editorial voice provides an explicit critical counterpoint to Columbus's patently unchristian intentions, often in bitingly sarcastic or openly denunciatory terms. In the entry for 12 November, for example, Columbus states that the previous day six young Indian men in a canoe had come alongside the ship, and when five of the six boarded he

ordered them to be detained. Las Casas remarks sardonically in the margin, "no fue lo mejor del mundo esto" (Colección , 81; this was not the best thing in the world). Columbus then says that he sent some of his crew ashore to take female captives so that the Indian men would behave better in Spain, having women from their own country along, and would be more agreeable to doing as they were told. Las Casas quips, "¡mira que maravilla!" (81; look how marvelous!) A few lines later Columbus relates that a sole man in a canoe had approached the ship later that evening and asked to be taken with the others, apparently because he was the husband of one of the captives and father of her three children, who were also being held on board. The marginal annotation demands, "porque [por qué] no le distes sus hijos" (81; why didn't you give him back his children?).

Indeed, Las Casas's harshest criticisms are expressed in the marginal commentary to passages where Columbus relates the capture of Indians to take back to Spain or makes observations regarding their exploitability. Las Casas categorically condemns the taking of any Indians against their will, for whatever purpose. In the entry for 15 January, Columbus tells of seizing four youths who had given him particularly good directions to nearby islands and making them guides for the return voyage. Las Casas's response is unequivocal: "fue muy mal hecho traerlos contra su voluntad" (Colección , 146; it was very wrong to take them against their will).

The entry for 16 December, which contains some of the Diario 's most lyrical descriptions of the land and people of the Indies, seems to have been of special interest to Las Casas, judging by the various notes ("nõ") that line the margins. It records a cordial meeting between the Admiral and a local cacique during which Columbus obtained information about the location of gold and elicited the full cooperation of his host. Columbus's closing remarks, however, turn to the suitability of the Indians for forced labor: "son buenos para les mandar y les hazer trabajar y sembrar y hazer todo lo otro que fuere menester, y que hagan villas y se enseñen a andar vestidos y a nuestras costumbres" (Colección , 111; they are fit to be ordered about and made to work, plant, and do everything else that may be needed, and build towns and be taught our customs, and to go about clothed, Dunn & Kelley, 237). This passage draws the follow-

ing comment from Las Casas: "algo más parece aquí entenderse [estenderse] el Almirante de lo que devría" (111; the Admiral seems to go farther here than he should).^[19] In itself, the comment is strikingly subdued. But its ironic intent and biting sarcasm are salient in the context of the panegyric character of the rest of the entry; which accentuates the incongruity and the bad faith represented in these closing observations. The meaning of the commentary lies precisely in this contrast between idealization and exploitation, and in the understated tone of the annotation within the larger context of the entire entry, not just the closest passage. This is one of the clearest examples of the integrality of the marginal and main texts in the Las Casas edition.

On 25 December the Santa María ran aground and had to be abandoned. Columbus described at some length the invaluable help he and his crew received from the local Indian cacique :

El cual como lo supo dizen que lloró y enbió toda su gente de la villa con canoas muy grandes y muchas a descargar todo lo de la nao; y así se hizo y se descargó todo lo de las cubiertas en muy breve espacio; tanto fue el grande aviamiento y diligencia que aquel rey dio. Y él con su persona, con hermanos y parientes, estavan poniendo diligençia, así en la nao como en la guarda de lo que se sacava a tierra, para que todo estuviese a muy buen recaudo. De cuando en cuando enbiava uno de sus parientes al Almirante llorando a lo consolar, diziendo que no rescibiese pena ni enojo, qu'él le daría cuanto tuviese.
(Colección , 126)

When he [the cacique ] learned of it [the disabled ship], they said that he cried and sent all his people to unload everything from the ship. And thus it was done and in a very brief time everything from the decks was unloaded, so great was the care and diligence that king exercised. And he himself and his brothers and relatives were as diligent [unloading] the ship as in guarding what was taken to land in order that everything would be well cared for. From time to time he sent one of his relatives to the Admiral, weeping, to console him, saying that he should not be sorrowful or annoyed because he would give him all that he had.
(Dunn & Kelley, 281)

Las Casas's marginal note reads, "nótese aquí la humanidad de los indios contra los tiranos que los an estirpado" (note here the hu-

manity of the Indians in contrast to the tyrants who have extirpated them).

A few lines later in the main text Columbus affirms:

son gente de amor y sin cudiçia y convenibles para toda cosa, que certifico a Vuestras Altezas que en el mundo creo que no hay mejor gente ni mejor tierra. Ellos aman a sus próximos como a sí mismos.

they [are] a loving people, and without greed, and docile in everything. And I assure Your Highnesses that I believe that in the world there are no better people or a better land, they love their neighbors as themselves.

The first of Las Casas's marginal comments to this anecdote underscores the Indians' humanity but also establishes a significant contrast between Indian generosity and the Spaniards' subsequent tyranny—a point both alien and anachronistic with respect to Columbus's discourse. By interjecting the Spanish tyranny of the sixteenth century, the commentary affords readers a different vantage point from which to evaluate the events and words of 1492. The contrast intensifies the polarity: the kindness of the cacique and his people is enhanced in contrast to the later ingratitude of the Spaniards, and the Spaniards" genocidal crimes seem even worse in light of the Indians' generosity. The commentary thus sharpens the significance of the original anecdote ("in the world there are no better people") and uses it as a weapon by obliging the reader to consider the unwarranted violence of the Spanish conquest.

A second marginal note underscores Columbus's panegyric description of his hosts at the point where he affirms that the Indians followed the biblical commandment in their comportment. The criticism, by implication, is that the Christians did not. All of the above is written in the entry for 25 December, significantly identified by Las Casas (or Columbus?) in the section heading as "día de Navidad."

The image of the good Indians is the product ultimately of Las Casas's pen, not Columbus's; at best Columbus seems to have been ambivalent toward them. But Las Casas does not simply paint an edenic scene, the product of a bucolic nostalgia for a lost golden age. The marginal text lays bare the corrosive, subversive intentionality of the idealization.^[20] Through contrastive, oppositional, polemical, and ultimately condemnatory annotations, Las Casas turns Colum-

bus's own words against him, rendering his testimony a witness against itself. Read from the margins, the image of the beatified Indian becomes a component of a rhetorical strategy of contraposition that sets "the humanity of the Indians" against "the tyrants who have extirpated them," who consider themselves to be Christians.

Even those marginal notes that are not explicitly critical frequently point an accusatory finger at the main text. The irony of such passages is superseded only by the shamefulness of Spanish action they imply. The following description of a trading expedition to the domain of Guacanagarí, where Columbus built the ill-fated fort La Navidad and left thirty-nine Spaniards, is simply noted with a marginal abbreviation "nõ" by Las Casas, without further commentary. His restraint seems justified, for the passage clearly speaks for itself:

Después que fue tarde, dioles tras (sic) ánsares muy gordas el señor y unos pedaçitos de oro, y vinieron con ellos mucho número de gente, y les traían todas las cosas que allá avían resgatado, y ellos mismos porfiavan de traellos a cuestas, y de hecho lo hizieron por algunos ríos y por algunos lugares lodosos. El Almirante mandó dar al señor algunas cosas, y quedó ól y toda su gente con gran contentamiento, creyendo verdadermente que avían venido del cielo, y en ver los cristianos se tenían por bien aventurados.
(Colección , 121)

Later, when it was afternoon, the lord gave them three very fat geese and a few small pieces of gold; and a large number of people came and carried for them everything that they had received in trade there; and they insisted on carrying the Spaniards on their backs; and in fact they did so through some rivers and muddy places. The Admiral ordered that they give the lord some things, and the lord and all his people, with great contentment, truly believing that the Christians had come from the heavens, considered themselves very fortunate in seeing them.
(Dunn & Kelley, 267)

The contrast between the helpfulness and reverence shown by the Indians toward the Spaniards and the implicit Spanish betrayal of their trust and goodwill are reminiscent of the discursive strategy employed by Las Casas in the denunciatory Brevíssima relación de la destrucción de las Indias , in which he painstakingly documents, is-

land by island, region by region, the genocide perpetrated by the conquistadors against their peaceable and unsuspecting victims.

Las Casas's commentary continues throughout the Diario and into the "Relación." The annotations to the latter, however, excepting several corrections of fact, are rarely critical. One explanation for this change may be that the two sources are very different kinds of texts, different in form, content, and ideology. The Diario is the account of an exploration, predominantly narrational and replete with detailed nautical, geographical, and commercial observations. The "Relación" has an essentially hermeneutical objective, summarizing the third voyage and, especially, interpreting its spiritual significance in the context of the larger enterprise of the Discovery for a king and queen whose commitment to Columbus was palpably wavering.^[21] Yet the physical integrity of the manuscript suggests that Las Casas transcribed these two texts to be read as if they composed a unit or whole. Clearly, their perceived coherence is not temporal, since there was an intervening second voyage (1493–94) with an accompanying diario (since lost) and at least four cartas-relaciones . Neither is it generic, since the "Relación" is not a day-by-day account. But Las Casas must have had access to the diario of the third voyage, for he seems to have used it together with the "Relación" to compose his account of that voyage in the Historia .^[22]

Las Casas never stated his reasons for choosing the "Relación" over the journal account for his edition of the third voyage, and the choice warrants at least some speculation. A comparison of the fragments in the Historia that appear to have been extracted from the since-lost diario of the third voyage and those that clearly derive from the "Relación" shows that the distinguishing characteristic is the interpretative thrust of the latter, absent in the former. On the finding of the mainland, for example, this journallike fragment is jubilant, but quite literal and to the point:

Volviendo al camino, el viernes, 17 de agosto anduvo 37 leguas, la mar llana; "a Dios, Nuestro Señor" (dice él) "sean dadas infinitas gracias." Dice que con no hallar ya islas le certifica que aquella tierra de donde viene sea gran tierra firme, o adonde está el Paraíso terrenal, "porque todos dizen," dice él, "que está en fin de Oriente, y es éste," dice él.
(Historia , 394)

Under sail again, on Friday, 17 August, he traveled thirty-seven leagues on a calm sea, "May thanks be given," says he, "to God

Our Lord." He says that since he no longer finds islands he certifies that land from which he comes must be a great mainland, or where the terrestrial Paradise is located, "because everyone says," he says, "that it is at the end of the Orient and this is it," says he.

There is a simple, matter-of-fact sailor's straightforwardness about the astounding conclusions Columbus draws here from his observations of geographical phenomena: Since he no longer sees any more islands, the large land mass he has just discovered must be the mainland, and since it is located at the extreme Orient, it must of necessity be the site of the Terrestrial Paradise, because everyone (i.e., all the authorities on the subject) says that is precisely where Paradise is located. Enough said on the question of Eden, the itinerary of the voyage moves on to the next day and the next place. On Saturday, 18 August, he traveled thirty-nine leagues; on Sunday, 19 August, he covered thirty-three leagues, arriving at Beata island, just off the coast of Española; and so on, as the Historia recounts by paraphrasing and probably summarizing its source.

The "Relación," in contrast, offers a convoluted erudite disquisition on the topic, which Las Casas transcribed verbatim or closely paraphrased. Paying special attention to the long interpretative sections concerning the nature and location of Paradise, Las Casas glosses Columbus carefully, adding authoritative references that support his interpretation of Paradise's location in the Indies over other competing sites because, as he puts it:

experimentaba tanta frescura de tierras, y tan verdes y deleitosas arboledas, tanta clemencia y amenidad de sotiles aires, tanta. y tan impetuosa grandeza y lago y ayuntamiento tan capaz y tan largo de tan delgadas y dulcísimas aguas, y allende todo esto, la bondad, liberalidad, simplicidad y mansedumbre de gentes, ¿qué podía otra cosa juzgar ni determinar, sino que allí o por allí, y aun cerca de allí, había la Divina Providencia constituído el Paraíso terrenal, y que aquel lago tan dulce era donde caía el río y fuente del Paraíso y de donde se originaban los cuatro ríos, Eúfrates, Ganges, Tigris e Nilo?
(Historia , 389–90)

he experienced such fresh lands, and such green and delightful groves, so much clemency and amenity in the subtle breezes, so much and such rapturous grandeur and [rapturous] lake and capacious and so large a union of such slender and sweet waters; and moreover, the goodness, generosity, simplicity, and gentleness of

the people. What else could he judge or conclude but that there, or around there, or even close to that place, the Divine Providence had constituted the Terrestrial Paradise, and that freshwater lake was where the river and fountain of Paradise emptied and where the four rivers Euphrates, Ganges, Tigris, and Nile originated?

So obvious is the edenic character of the Indies to Las Casas that he closes this passage with the categorical affirmation that whoever experienced this splendor and did not arrive at the same conclusions as Columbus would deserve to be judged for an idiot ("de ser juzgado por mentecato fuera digno"). Moreover, the paradisiacal qualities of the Indies constitute positive proof of the favor in which God holds these lands and their peoples, and therefore confirms the natives' special aptness for evangelization.

Las Casas's rationale for uniting the Diario and "Relación" in one volume is to be found, I think, not in the texts' similarities but rather in their differences. Read as integral parts of an evolving historical argument and as a preliminary exercise in historiographical methodology, the two-part manuscript provides the skeleton for book 1 of the Historia . First, the Diario presents a fractured protagonist-narrator, a Columbus devoted to the Faith, cognizant of the Indians' suitability for evangelization, and committed to advocating a Christian mission before the Crown. But it also presents Columbus as homo oeconomicus , obsessed with finding gold and spices in order to secure for Ferdinand and Isabella a good return on their investment. Las Casas's concern, as expressed in the commentary, is how the Indians were exploited and enslaved by the mercantile Columbus, who during the first voyage repeatedly took Indian captives to serve as interpreters and guides, and for display to the Court as human samples. Las Casas recognized these actions as preliminaries to the slave trade Columbus was contemplating in the Diario , and which he undertook during the second voyage, and as the basic model for the system of forced labor known as the encomlenda , which was approved by the Crown in the place of outright enslavement.^[23] Every time the Diario relates the seizing of Indians, Las Casas condemns the action in a marginal comment.

The "Relación," in striking contrast, is devoted to establishing the paradisiacal nature of the new lands. Explicit economic concerns are subordinated to the spiritual value of the enterprise. Columbus relates the finding of the mainland, which he claimed was the site of the Terrestrial Paradise, as he had already predicted in

the Diario . Many of Las Casas's marginal notes appear precisely opposite those passages in which Columbus interprets the edenic geography of the new lands. Typically, Las Casas here offers no commentary per se, but a short phrase flagging the passage and summarizing its content. On the only occasion when Columbus tells of taking Indians, Las Casas simply notes the fact in the margin. Apparently he was satisfied to underscore some notable passages but otherwise allow Columbus to speak for himself.

Read together, as Las Casas presented them in his manuscript, the Diario and the "Relación" suggest a development in Columbus's thinking and mode of diction, away from the profane concerns of commercial exploitation so evident in the various accounts of the first and second voyages, and toward a preoccupation with the spiritual significance of the enterprise. The gold sought after so fervently in the Diario (and even more so in the relación of 20 April 1494) is replaced in the "Relación" of the third voyage by the spiritual profit to be derived from the discovery of a land that, according to Columbus, was "más propincua y noble al cielo que otra" (Colección , 189; closer and more noble to heaven than any other). In the "Relación" Las Casas's and Columbus's voices seem finally to be in agreement, and the commentary loses its edge. Nonetheless, the commentary effectively makes Columbus a witness against his earlier self, while at the same time confirming the correctness of Las Casas's indictment.

It is in the context of Las Casas's discourse against the conquest that his critical reading of Columbus must be situated. Read from the margins of the Diario and "Relación," the image of the good Indians contained in these texts becomes a disturbing, haunting testimony not just, or even primarily, to the Indians' character, but to the Europeans' injustice. The marginal writing inscribes Las Casas's reproach into the image that, in turn, becomes an emblem of the condemnation.

One final document helps complete the picture of Las Casas's marginal discourse on the Discovery, which culminated in the Historia de las Indias . Las Casas's copy of Columbus's letter (c. autumn 1500) to doña Juana de la Torre, governess of the prince don Juan, is second only to the Diario /"Relación" manuscript in the number and quality of Las Casas's annotations.^[24]

The letter to doña Juana is perhaps the most anguished of all of Columbus's writings. It was composed at the darkest hour of his

career, between the third and fourth voyages, soon after he was brought back to Spain from Española in shackles, a prisoner of the Crown. It has all the earmarks of an apologia and a self-defense, composed for the sovereigns' benefit. Yet the addressee is not the Crown, nor one of the royal officials involved in overseeing the enterprise of the Indies, but a friend of Columbus's who was also close to Ferdinand and Isabella and therefore able to convey to them its sentiments. The tone of the letter is familiar, and Columbus openly acknowledges his bitterness and despair as well as his negative opinion of the Indians, who by then had rebelled against the Europeans on Española.

In the closing paragraphs of the letter, Columbus summarizes the difficulties he encountered and the benefits that accrued to Spain thanks to his labors. His words drew a series of sharp rebukes from Las Casas, comments that can be read as a synopsis of his views on the Discovery. The two short passages below, the focal point of his ire, are accompanied by no fewer than six marginal comments:

Read in counterpoint with the main text voiced by Columbus, the marginal commentary tells a story that goes something like this: Calling the Indians warlike is hypocritical and ungrateful on the Admiral's part; the truth of the matter is that he owed his life and

property to Guacanagarí, who, out of the goodness of his heart, helped him when he lost his ship. His ignorance regarding their customs and beliefs was astounding and therefore his (negative) opinions of them not to be trusted. God may have permitted the Spaniards to take possession of the Indies, but he did not sanction the way they went about it. He will punish Spain, rendering it the poorest of nations, for having enriched itself unjustly through the exploitation and abuse of the Indians. In fact, the Christian way of doing business was mercilessly to beat and whip the Indians into doing their work for them.

This reading strategy is no doubt self-serving, since Las Casas's authority is the direct beneficiary of the undermining of Columbus's. But it is more than that. It is consistent with the position Las Casas championed in all his written work and political advocacy: the negotiation for the Indians of a definitive and unassailable place at the center of the human community.^[25] The ideological demarginalization Las Casas advocated for the Indians is mirrored in the interpretative strategy he applied to the Columbian texts, through a commentary that invades the primary text and ultimately transforms it. For Las Casas, writing in the margins of Columbus was a choice with profound ideological consequences. In the marginal text is Las Casas's reading of Columbus, an interpretation that becomes a creative act, fundamentally altering for future readers the text as it had existed.

III

Todo en este capítulo contenido lo es a la letra, con algunas palabras añadidas mías.

(Everything in this chapter is [written] word for word, with a few of my own words added.)
Las Casas, Historia de las Indias

Columbus's interpretation, as voiced in the "Relación," of the paradisiacal nature of the Indies becomes Las Casas's dominant theme in the Historia . He develops this topic by alternating between Columbus's testimony and his own experience, usually expressed in the form of commentary confirming an observation first made by the Admiral:

Dice [el Almirante] que era cosa de maravilla ver aquellos valles y los ríos y buenas aguas y las tierras para pan, para ganado de toda suerte de que [los indios] no tienen alguno, para huertas y para todas las cosas del mundo que el hombre sepa pedir.
(Historia , 184)

The Admiral says that it was a thing of wonder to see those valleys and rivers and good waters and lands for bread, for livestock of all sorts of which [the Indians] have none, for orchards and for all things in this world that man can ask for.

In confirming Columbus's observations by citing his own, Las Casas makes explicit and even intensifies the paradisiacal allusions in the Columbian text:

Todas estas son sus palabras y en todo dice gran verdad. Y puesto que por todas partes esta isla es un Paraíso terrenal, pero por esta de la Tortuga es cosa no creíble la hermosura suya, junta a la cual yo viví algunos años."
(184)

All these are his words and he speaks great truth in all he says. Because this island is everywhere a Terrestrial Paradise, but as for the one known as Tortuga, next to which I lived for some years, its beauty is unbelievable.

A few lines earlier, when the edenic quality of the island seems undermined by Columbus's offhand remark that it was quite cold, Las Casas immediately interjects a correction, "De ser felicísima dice bien, pero la frialdad no la tiene, sino frescor muy sin pena" (In saying that it is a most happy island he speaks correctly, but it is not cold, but rather refreshing without any discomfort). He then adds another explanation—that the wind and rain coupled with being at sea must have made it seem cold to the Admiral. When one checks his source for corroboration, however, one finds no mention in the text of rain during the days in question. Such a silent modification of the source suggests that Las Casas had as much or more at stake than did Columbus in maintaining the edenic image of the Indies.

Following his practice in the Diario , Las Casas usually transcribes verbatim in the Historia the idealizing passages, using the first-person singular. The marginal notes are frequently incorporated and expanded in the narrative itself or are carried over into the mar-

gins of the new text. Of the two practices, the former is most revealing of Las Casas's tendency to turn the critical reading strategy he employed in editing the Diario and "Relación," recorded in its margins, into a critical rewriting of the history of the Discovery in the Historia .

The entry for 16 December (which includes Columbus's lyrical descriptions, the meeting with the cacique , and the prospects for forced labor) is paraphrased or quoted integrally in the history. The annotations, however, undergo various important transformations. Three of the notes (marked by the abbreviation "nô") remain in the margin of the new text. But they become summary phrases that explicitly identify the specific aspects of the Columbian passages that caught Las Casas's eye—the gentleness and generosity of the Indians, as well as their belief that the Christians had come from heaven. Thus in the Historia one can verify what the Diario could not show with any real precision: exactly which aspect of the main text Las Casas intended to emphasize. In the passage describing the edenic quality of the country, Las Casas's annotation loses the marginal indicator it had in the Diario , and the main text, which had been paraphrased in the Diario , is expressed as a first-person quotation. Whether Las Casas recreated the "quote" from the paraphrase or still had access to his original source is unclear. Two other notes in the Diario , one flagging a passage on indigenous agriculture and breadmaking, the other a passage in which Columbus tells the Indians about the greatness of his sovereigns, are not reproduced anywhere in the Historia .

Far more interesting, however, is the fate of the two critical annotations Las Casas made in the Diario entry for 16 December. Both question the soundness of statements made by Columbus. The first refers to a passage in which one of the Indian interpreters accompanying the Admiral explains to a cacique that the Spaniards came from heaven and that they are seeking gold. Las Casas's marginal comment in the Diario is in Latin, "satis improportionabiliter hec se habent" (Colección , 110). In the Historia the comment is amplified and translated into Spanish, and Las Casas removes it from the margin into the main text, where it appears in parentheses: "(harto improporcionable cosa es venir del cielo y andar en busca de oro)"—(Historia , 184; it is quite an incommensurate thing to come from heaven and to go in search of gold). The new placement of the ex-

panded comment targets exactly what Las Casas found objectionable—the mixing of gold and souls in the mission's objectives, as stated by Columbus.

The closing lines of the entry are also annotated in the Diario , with a reproachful comment on Columbus's observations regarding the Indians' martial naiveté and suitability for forced labor ("algo más parece aquí e[s]tenderse el Almirante de lo que devría"; the Admiral seems to go farther here than he should). In the Historia this criticism is expanded and integrated into the main text to become a condemnation of the encomienda and other abuses of the conquest. Moreover, Las Casas holds Columbus responsible for having initiated the abuse through his misguided words:

Dice aquí el Almirante: "Crean Vuestras Altezas ... que esta isla y todas las otras son así suyas como Castilla, que aquí no falta salvo asiento y mandarles hacer lo que quisieren, porque yo con esta gente que traigo, que no son muchos, correría todas estas islas sin afrenta, porque ya he visto solo tres destos marineros descendir en tierra, y haber multitud destos indios, y todos huir sin que les quisiesen hacer mal. Ellos no tienen armas, y son todos desnudos y de ningún ingenio en las armas, y muy cobardes, que mil no aguardarán a tres; y así son buenos para les mandar y les hacer trabajar, sembrar y hacer todo lo que fuere menester, y que hagan villas, y se enseñen a andar vestidos y a nuestras costumbres." Estas son palabras formales del Almirante.

Es aquí de notar, que la mansedumbre natural, simple, benigna y humilde condición de los indios, y carecer de armas, con andar desnudos, dió atrevimiento a los españoles a tenellos en poco, y ponellos en tan acerbísimos trabajos que los pusieron, y encarnizarse para oprimillos y consumillos, como los consumieron.^* Y cierto, aquí el Almirante más se extendió a hablar de lo que debiera, y desto que aquí concibió y produjo por su boca, debía de tomar origen el mal tractamiento que después en ellos hizo. ^* [Nota marginal] Nota: La causa por la cual tuvieron los españoles atrevirniento de supeditar y asolar estas gentes y esta fué la bondad y mansedumbre dellos.
(Historia , 184–85)

Here the Admiral says: "Your Highnesses must believe ... that this island and all the others are as much yours as Castile, that there is nothing missing here save for a settlement and to order them to do whatever you may wish, because with the people I have with me, who are not many, I could overrun all this island without

resistance, because I have seen just three of these sailors land, and there being a multitude of these Indians, and all of them take flight without [the sailors] wishing to do them harm. They have no weapons, are all naked and without any skill in weaponry, and very cowardly, that a thousand will not stop three; and so they are good for ordering about and for forcing to work, to plant, and to do all that may be necessary, and to make them build towns, and to teach them to go about clothed and according to our customs." These are the formal words of the Admiral.

It should be noted here that the natural docileness, simple, benign and humble condition of the Indians, and their lack of weapons, together with their going naked, gave the Spaniards the audacity to hold them in low esteem, and put them to such harsh labor as they put them to, and to be relentless in their oppression and destruction of them, as they indeed destroyed them.^* And certainly the Admiral said more here than he should have, and out of that which he conceived here and which came out of his mouth must have originated the bad treatment that he visited upon them afterwards.

^* [Marginal note, in Las Casas's handwriting] Note: The reason the Spaniards dared to oppress and ravage these peoples; and that [reason] was their goodness and gentleness.

Through such fusions of the primary text and marginal commentary from his edition of the Diario and "Relación," Las Casas creates a new text in the Historia , a critical version of the history of Spain in the Indies. The discursive strategies mirror the ideological commitment the Historia promotes, as the once marginal comments on Indian virtue and Spanish bad faith are now firmly established at the center of the text. The purpose of Las Casas's historiographical method of transcription and commentary is not so much the accurate, objective representation of the events of the Discovery, as the orchestration of the prelude to an indictment of Spanish abuses and a revindication of the Indians in the context of a political campaign for reforms in colonial institutions and practices.^[26] Dangerous words lead to reprehensible actions, he suggests in the final phrase of the passage. Through his critique of Columbus's words, he hoped to reform the text of history and, especially, to effect a change in the present and future course of events.

Earlier, we looked at Las Casas's comments in the Diario condemning Columbus's taking of Indians against their will. In the Historia two marginal comments accentuate these reprehensible ac-

tions: the seizing of five Indians who had approached the ship to trade on 12 November and the subsequent apprehension of seven women and their children to pacify the captives on board. The reconstitution of these passages in the Historia shows how Las Casas's critical reading of Columbus's words becomes a critique of historical action as it passes from the edition to the history. The passage is highlighted in the margins by comments that read "Nota unmalhecho del Almirante" (Note a bad deed of the Admiral's) and "Nota otro caso más feo" (Note another even uglier case). The entire passage, mostly paraphrased from the Diario , is framed between two first-person quotes concerning the innate goodness of the Indians, annotated approvingly in the margins. After laying out the particulars of the case, Las Casas comments:

Cosa, cierto, que antes debiera padecer cualquier trabajo y peligro que hacerla, porque, en la verdad, no fué otra cosa sino violar tácita o interpretativamente las reglas del derecho natural y derecho de las gentes, que dictan y tienen que al que simple y confiadamente viene a contratar con otros, mayormente habiéndose ya confiado los unos de los otros y tratado amigablemente, lo dejen tornarse a su casa, sin daño de su persona ni de sus bienes, libre y desembar-gadamente. Agravia este hecho, haberlos rescebido en su tierra y en sus casas con tantas cerimonias y regocijos, adorándolos como a cosas divinas venidas del cielo, según ha parecido. ¿Qué sintiera el Almirante si a los dos cristianos que envió la tierra dentro, por fuerza los detuvieran?
(Historia , 163)

[It was] an action that [the Admiral] should have avoided at all costs, suffering whatever labor and danger [might have been necessary] rather than carrying it out, because, in truth, it was nothing other than a tacit or interpretative violation of precepts of natural law and the law of nations, which dictate that the person who comes simply and trustingly to trade with others, especially when confidence has already been established as a result of previous friendly contact, should be allowed to return to his home, without damage to his person or belongings, freely and unhindered. This deed is aggravated by the fact that the Indians received them in their lands and homes with so many ceremonies and jubilation, adoring them as if they were divine things coming from heaven, as already stated. How would the Admiral have felt if the two Christians he sent inland had been detained by force?

Las Casas goes on to comment that the Indians would have had just cause to wage war against the Spaniards for this violation of their natural rights and that, in any case, it put the Christians in a very bad light. For no matter what good end Columbus hoped to achieve, a bad deed, no matter how little or how much good might come from it, is never justifiable.

Las Casas then attacks Columbus for having taken the women and their children in hopes that their presence would placate the male captives. This action, he argues, only multiplied the earlier sin of seizing the men:

Gentil excusa ha dado para colocar o justificar obra tan nefaria. Pudiérasele preguntar, ¿que si fué pecado y que tan grave, quitar o hurtar o robar con violencia las mujeres que tenían sus proprios maridos, pues el matrimonio es de derecho natural? ... Item ¿Quién había de dar a Dios cuenta de los pecados de adulterio que cometieron los indios que Ilevó consigo, a quien dió por mujeres aquellas mujeres, y si quizá se añidó alguno de incesto, que es mayor que el adulterio, si por caso eran muy propincuos parientes? ¿Y los que cometerían también los maridos de aquállas, casándose no pudiendo, prohibiéndolo la ley natural, con otras mujeres?
(Historia , 164)

He has given a genteel excuse to justify such a nefarious deed. One could ask of him if it wasn't a sin, and a very grave one indeed, to take, or steal, or rob with violence those women who had their own husbands, since matrimony is a natural right.... Likewise, who would be accountable before God for the sins of adultery committed by the Indians he took with him to whom he gave those women, or perhaps even the additional sin of incest, which is worse than adultery, if they happened to be closely related? And what about the sins of adultery committed by the husbands of those women, marrying other women without being able to, it being prohibited by natural law?

The link between reprehensible words, misdeeds, and their ever more nefarious consequences is established by Las Casas in the litany of sins that might hypothetically have been committed by the captives, and for which he holds the Admiral ultimately responsible. Also noteworthy is the excision from this passage, otherwise a close paraphrase of the Diario , of the offensive term cabezas (heads, as of livestock), which Columbus used to refer to the women captives (Varela, 56). It would seem that some of the Admiral's words

were so offensive to Las Casas that his criticism of them could take no form other than tacit suppression.

Las Casas's condemnation of Columbus's words and conduct is projected into the future by the prophetic dimension of the Historia 's historical discourse. After all, the past itself cannot be rectified, only its interpretation and, thereby, actions in the future. In Las Casas's hands the Admiral becomes a symbol of the behavior of an entire nation, and the critique of his deeds an example for future generations. From this perspective, book 1 of the Historia appears not so much the biography of an individual as the reconstitution of an exemplary life to serve as an admonishment for others. The history closes with a contemplation of Columbus's fate: unjustly imprisoned and ultimately impoverished. But Las Casas is quick to point out in the closing chapter of book 1 that neither the Crown nor Bobadilla, the chief justice, was responsible for the Admiral's fate. Ultimately it was God's will: "determinó de le privar, como al cabo le privó, de todo su estado, no sólo en su persona, pero también en sus herederos y sucesores, como parecerá adelante (Historia , 489; [God] decided to deprive him, as he did deprive him, of all his estate, not only that pertaining to his own person, but also his heirs and successors, as will be seen ahead).

Las Casas knew the controversy his Historia would provoke, and in 1559 he forbade publication of the Historia until at least forty years after his death. Only in that way, he must have surmised, could his text reach posterity, his intended audience, free of the mediation and manipulation of his contemporaries. In his testament, dated 17 March 1564, Las Casas reaffirmed his intentions in having written the history to serve as an example and lesson for future generations: "Porque si Dios determinare destruir a España, se vea es por las destrucciones que habemos hecho en las Indias y parezca la razñn de su justicia" (Because if God should decide to destroy Spain, it may be seen that it is because of the destruction we have wrought upon the Indies and the reason for his justice be made evident).^[27]

In sum, Las Casas's marginal commentary does not constitute an accident suffered by the Columbian texts in the long history of their transmission. Rather, providing the commentary is the very reason that Las Casas initially undertook his editions of Columbus's writings. From the margins we come to understand how Las Casas

read, and altered, the Columbian texts as well as the role those texts played in Las Casas's own version of the history of the Discovery.

Today, it is in most cases difficult, if not impossible, to separate Columbus's voice from that of his editor. Las Casas reconstituted and transformed his sources in such a way as to make his own text their indispensable supplement, placing his own marginal word at the center of the discourse on the Discovery. And yet, time and again, modern editors have silently censored or dismembered the marginal text to the point of illegibility in order to satisfy the need we have to believe that we possess a pristine text of Columbus's enterprise in his own words.

Las Casas's marginal writing does not oblige us to accept the version of the Discovery it promotes. It does, however, prevent us from reading Columbus unquestioningly. To read in the margins of Columbus requires that we assume a critical posture with respect to the text before us. Suppressing the marginal commentary cannot eradicate Las Casas's pen from the text. Such excisions serve only to obscure the most explicit aspect of a mediation that permeates the texts as they have been transmitted to us, and the only hard evidence we have to assess its effect on our readings. More importantly, to lose the editorial apparatus is to forfeit its critical intelligence. And, in so doing, we risk forgetting that the image of the Discovery that has endured in Western culture is not simply the product of an original, unmediated, monological word, but of a critical reading, a supplemental writing that questions, criticizes, corrects, protests, and finally condemns.