12.5% of the cost of arming commercial ships, thus obtaining the same percentage of the profits. As shown, his greed and that of the merchants who financed the expedition, was very large and that in the long run was what sunk Columbus and distanced the merchants from the spanish crown.
The Columbus adventure companions were the poorest people and those sentenced to life imprisonment, who saw the enterprise as their only chance of getting out of the dungeons. At the time the spaniards who went to "make" the America, were landless peasants, convicts, mercenaries and the impoverished lower nobility, who sought first and foremost, immediate and disproportionate wealth at any cost.
"As men we are not all very good, and there are some with bad conscience, and since at that time they came from Castile and the Indies many poor spaniards and of great greed, and canine and hungry for wealth and slaves..." (Bernal Diaz Castillo)[1]
The Hispanic colonial history speaks of a group of brave and intrepid "soldiers" and explorers, who came to discover a primitive and savage world for the sake of progress and Christianity. That they risked their lives in favor of religion and humanity. This handful of heroic men, have been depicted as a compact group of "soldiers", directed by a leader respected by all. The disguised reality says just the opposite.
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- ↑ Bernal Díaz del Castillo (1492–1585) was a conquistador, who wrote an eyewitness account of the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards under Hernán Cortés, himself serving as a rodelero under Cortés.
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