¹ The Earliest Life of Gregory the Great, by an Anonymous Monk of Whitby, ed. and trans, by Colgrave, Bertram (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1968), p. 129.Google Scholar

² This is a view not generally admitted. Both among historians and librarians (e.g., as a bibliographical main entry) Columbus is regarded as the author of the text. Yet this is to dissemble, and debases the usual conception of “authorship” in terms of a visible intellectual product. The great majority of the text (four-fifths at least) is admittedly in Las Casas’ own words, with a degree of paraphrase that can only be surmised. In its own way Las Casas’ reprocessed amalgam is reminiscent of the paraphrastic exercises carried out in late classical times, for which see, most recently, Roberts, Michael, Biblical Epic and Rhetorical Paraphrase in Late Antiquity (Liverpool: Cairn, 1985).Google Scholar

³ A word on nomenclature is in order here. We use “summary” and diario interchangeably, the former to emphasize the document’s character, the latter in deference to recent common usage. In fact Las Casas referred to the text as “libro de su primera navegación y descubrimiento.”

⁴ There is no internal evidence in the summary that suggests any date or even any period for the transcription and scholarly opinion ranges from shortly after Las Casas' arrival in Hispaniola in 1502, to 1552, the date of his visit to the material collected and left by Ferdinand Columbus. Weight of opinion seems to favor a later date and in the absence of conpelling arguments for earlier dates we accept it here.

⁵ George Orwell, 1984.

⁶ Vignaud, Henri, Histoire critique de la grande entreprise de Christophe Colomb, 2 vols., (Paris, 1911)Google Scholar; Carbia, Rómulo D., La nueva historia del descubrimiento de América (Buenos Aires, 1936).Google Scholar

⁷ Morison, Samuel Eliot, “Texts and Translations of the Journal of Columbus’ First Voyage,” The Hispanic American Historical Review 19: 3(August 1939), 235–261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸ Fuson, Robert H., “The Diario de Colón: A Legacy of Poor Transcription, Translation, and Interpretation.” in, In the Wake of Columbus, eds. de Vorsey, Louis Jr. and Parker, John (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1985), pp. 51–75 Google Scholar; Varela, Consuelo, “Prólogo,” in, Cristobal Colón. Textos y documentos completos (Madrid: Alianza, 1982), pp. vii-lxii.Google Scholar

⁹ Peter Hulme has also noted the limitations of the criticism on the summary in an illuminating essay in which he studies the discourses of “Oriental civilization” and “savagery” in the text. See Hulme, Peter, “Columbus and the Cannibals,” in Colonial Encounters. Europe and the Native Caribbean, 1492–1797 (London: Methuen, 1986), p. 18.Google Scholar

¹⁰ All quotations are from Alvar’s, Manuel edition, Diario del descubrimiento (Gran Canaria: Edi-ciones del Excmo. Cabildo Insular de Gran Canaria, 1976), 2 vols.Google Scholar Alvar’s edition presents a transcription of the Las Casas manuscript and an annotated modernized version of the summary. All quotes in this paper are from the modernized version, to facilitate reading. In the modernized text direct quotations appear in quotation marks and the editorial interpolations are separated from the rest of the text in parentheses. There are no such diacritical marks in the original version, however. The editorial commentary itself is all that signals the transition from indirect to direct discourse and vice versa. 12 November; Alvar, I, 120–21.

¹¹ “Para creer qu’el cuadrante andaba bueno, le movía ver diz que el norte tan alto como en Castilla, y si esto es verdad much allegado y alto andaba con la Florida; pero ¿dónde están luego agora estas islas que entre manos traía? Ayudaba a esto que hacía diz que gran calor; pero claro es que si estuviera en la costa de la Florida que no hobiera calor, sino frío. Y es también manifesto que cuarenta y dos grados en ninguna parte de la tierra se cree hazer calor si no fuesse por alguna causa de per accidens lo que hasta hoy no creo yo que se sabe.” (21 November) It seems Las Casas could not resist the temptation to correct Columbus’ blunder, so obvious in retrospect.

¹² J. A. Vázquez’s paper is one of the few exceptions. Vázquez points out many of the explicit interpolations in the summary and suggests others which are more difficult to prove. Moreover, he discusses Las Casas’ marginal comments. This dimension of his study is especially valuable since most editions of the summary do not include the marginal notes, yet they are so useful for understanding the editor’s most intimate opinions on Columbus’ text. See Vázquez, J.A., “Las Casas’ Opinions in Columbus’ Diary,” Topic 21(Spring, 1971), pp. 45–56.Google Scholar

¹³ Bakhtin explains the fundamental role that discursive intentionality plays in the signifying pro-cesses of a given text as follows: “To study the word as such, ignoring the impulse that reaches out beyond it, is just as senseless as to study psychological experience outside the context of that real life toward which it is directed and by which it is determined. … As a living socio-ideological concrete thing…language, for the individual consciousness, lies on the borderline between oneself and the other. The word in language is half someone else’s. It becomes One’s own’ only when the speaker populates it with his own intention, his own accent, when he appropriates the word, adapting it to his own semantic and expressive intention.” Bakhtin, M.M., “Discourse in the Novel,” in The Dialogic Imagination, ed. Holquist, Michael, trans. Emerson, Caryl and Holquist, Michael (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982), pp. 293–294.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Our observations are based on a concept of the text as a discursive phenomenon since we believe it is impossible to separate what is uttered from the manner in which it is uttered. In other words, we consider the generation of meaning as a product of the interaction between the content and the form the expression of the content assumes in the text.

¹⁵ Julia Kristeva develops her basic theory of intertextuality in Le texte du roman (Paris: Mouton, 1970), and in Sémiotiké, recherches pour une sémanalyse (Paris: Seuil, 1969).

¹⁶ See, for example, Jenny, Laurent, “The Strategy of Form,” in French Literary Theory Today ed. Todorov, Tsvetan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 34–63 Google Scholar; Culler, Jonathan, “Presupposition and Intertextuality,” in The Pursuit of Signs (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981), pp. 100–118 Google Scholar; Genette, Gérard, Palimpsestes: la littérature au second degré (Paris: Seuil, 1982).Google Scholar

¹⁷ Genette, , Palimpsestes…, p. 286.Google Scholar

¹⁸ These three aspects are also prominent in Columbus,’ letter to Luis de Santangel dated 15 February, 1493. This letter, announcing the discovery, was addressed to the Catholic monarchs’ secretary. It appears to be a summary of the original log, although it differs substantially from Las Casas’ summary in that it emphasizes the economic aspects of the enterprise. See “Carta a Luis de Santangel,” in Cristóbal Colón. Textos y documentos completos, pp. 139–46.

¹⁹ Alvar, 1,118–19.

²⁰ See, for example, the polemical treatise Las Casas presented at the Valladolid debate in 1550/51, Del único modo de atraer a todos los pueblos a la verdadera religión (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1942), and the Historia de las Indias, where the log becomes an intertext in the most common sense of the term. In the prologue to the Historia, Las Casas’ ideological intentionality is obvious when he affirms that he writes in order to “librar mi nación española del error y engaño gravísimo y perniciosisimo en que vive y siempre hasta hoy ha vivido, estimado destas océanas gentes faltarles el ser de hombre, haciéndolas brutales bestias incapaces de virtud y doctrina.” Historia de la Indias 3 vols.(Hollywood, Florida: Ediciones del Continente, 1985), 1,20–21. The log is employed by Las Casas precisely to subvert this vision of the Amerindian.

²¹ Morison, Samuel Eliot, Admiral of the Ocean Sea, 2 vols. (Boston: Little Brown and Co., 1942), 1, 248.Google Scholar

²² Columbus, Christopher, The Voyages of Christopher Columbus, ed. Jane, Cecil (London: Argonaut Press, 1930), p. 331n9.Google Scholar

²³ de Madariaga, Salvador, Vida del muy magnífico Señor Don Cristóbal Colón (3d ed. : Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 1944), p. 288.Google Scholar

²⁴ Ibid.

²⁵ Burgos, Angel Didiez, Guanahaní y Mayaguain (Santo Domingo: Editora Cultural Dominicana, 1974), p. 73.Google Scholar

²⁶ Ibid., pp. 73–75.

²⁷ Kelley, James E. Jr., “In the Wake of Columbus on a Portolan Chart” in In the Wake of Colum-buss, ed. Vorsey, Louis De. Jr. and Parker, John (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1985), p. 105,Google Scholar with emphasis added. Kelley, Cf., “The Navigation of Columbus in his First voyage to America” in Columbus and His World. Proceedings of the First San Salvador Conference, ed. Gerace, Donald T. (Ft. Lauderdale: Bahamian Field Station, 1987), pp. 127–129.Google Scholar

²⁸ Alvar, 1,70–71, 78.

²⁹ Kelley, , “In the Wake of Columbus,” p. 106.Google Scholar

³⁰ In this they belie the statement in Granzotto, Gianni, Christopher Columbus (Garden City: Doubl-eday, 1985), p. 127,Google Scholar that the publicized lower figures became “increasingly less” as the voyage pre-ceeded.

³¹ Kelley, , “In the Wake of Columbus,” p. 106.Google Scholar

³² Ibid; Laguardia Trias, Rolando A., El enigma de las latitudes de Colón (Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid, 1974), pp. 55–56,Google Scholar points out that Columbus’ 5s and 9s were quite distinct from one another.

³³ Morison, , Admiral of the Ocean Sea, 1, 266.Google Scholar

³⁴ E.g., de Armas, Antonio Rumeu, “El ‘Diario de a bordo’ de Cristóbal Colón: el problema del paternidad del extracto,” Revista de Indias, 36(1976), 16–17 Google Scholar; McElroy, John W., “The Ocean Navigation of Columbus on his First Voyage,” American Neptune, 1(1941), 10–11 Google Scholar; Morison, , Admiral of the Ocean Sea, 1, 206–207 Google Scholar; Columbus, Christopher, Journals and Other Documents on the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, trans, and ed. by Morison, Samuel Eliot (New York: Heritage Press, 1963), p. 42 Google Scholar; Morison, “Texts and Translations 239–40.

³⁵ Alvar, 1,78.

³⁶ Morison, , Journals, p. 57.Google Scholar

³⁷ Jane, , Voyages, p. 143.Google Scholar

³⁸ Alvar, 1,70. On the first day the ships lay becalmed.

³⁹ Although Columbus apparently had a well-defined notion of the distance to the Far East, his estimate was less than the distance from the Canaries to San Salvador by some three hundred leagues. Given his firm belief in the approximate distance to his intended location, there would have been little reason to begin distorting the record so early.

⁴⁰ Alvar, , Diario, 1, 70–72, 74–76, 83–85.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Ibid, 1,79.

⁴² Ibid, 1,80. Eight of these occur before 25 September.

⁴³ Note that the congruence in this regard is greatest from 25 September onwards.

⁴⁴ Whether Las Casas had this propensity cannot be gleaned from the published versions of his Historia de las Indias, one of which renders all numbers in integers, another all numbers in words. …

⁴⁵ McElroy, , “Ocean Navigation,” 217.Google Scholar Ferro, Cf.Gaetano, “Columbus and his Sailings, According to the ‘Diary’ of the First Voyage: Observations of a Geographer” in Columbus and His World, 103.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Morison, , Journals, 45.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Columbus, Ferdinand, Le Historie délia vita e dei fatti di Cristoforo Colombo, ed. by Caddeo, Rinaldo 2 vols. (Milan: Edizioni Alpes, 1930), 1:8.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Ibid., 1:134. Alvar, Cf., Diario, 1:70,Google Scholar and de las Casas, Bartolomé, Historia de las Indias, ed. by Carlo, Agustín Millares 3 vols. (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1951), 1:183.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ d’Anghiera, Pietro Martire, De Orbo Novo Decadas Octo (Alcalá, 1530), F. 111.Google Scholar de Oviedo, Gonzalo Fernández y Valdés, , Historia general y natural de las Indias, islas y tierra-firme del mar océano, ed. by de los Ríos, Amador 4 vols. (Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia, 1851–55), 1:21–24.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ For the background and course of the various pleitos see Morison, , Admiral of the Ocean Sea, 1:177–82Google Scholar; Schoenrich, Otto, The Legacy of Christopher Columbus 2 vols. (Glendale, CA: A.H. Clark and Co., 1949), 1:83–129 passim.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Pleitos Colombinos, ed. by Oregón, Antonio Muro, Florentino Pérez Embid, and Francisco Morales Padrón (Seville: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos, 1964–84), vols. 1,3,8 passim Google Scholar; Colección de documentos ineditos relativos al descubrimiento, conquista y organización de las posesiones españolas de Ultramar, ed. by Fernández Duro, Cesáreo 25 vols. (Madrid: Tipográfico Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, 1885–1932): vols. 7 and 8 passim Google Scholar; de Gandía, Enrique, “Los pleitos Colombinos y la transformación de la India en America,” Investigaciones y Ensayos, 22 (1977): 47–86.Google Scholar

⁵² Which hardly supports the argument of Rumeu de Armas, “‘Diario de a bordo’,” that Las Casas relied slavishly on Ferdinand Columbus’ account—was in fact a mere copyist, even of the summarized portions of the text.

⁵³ Lucian, , A True History and Lucius or the Ass, trans, by Paul Turner, (London: J. Calder, 1958): 4,Google Scholar referring to the Odyssey, widely regarded in antiquity as a true account of an actual sea voyage.

⁵⁴ One of us (Henige) takes many of these issues up in a full-length study of the diario as a historical source, to be published in 1990.

⁵⁵ This issue has recently been discussed in LaCapra, Dominick, History and Criticism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985), esp. 15–44, 115–42.Google Scholar