From an engraving by P. Mercuri after a contemporary portrait
The deductions of both these learned writers would seem to require more positive corroboration. Not only are they destitute of confirmation, but in the second chapter of his _Historia General_, Las Casas gives the names of many persons who did accompany Columbus in 1493, describing several incidents connected with that expedition and concluding by saying that he heard all these things "from my father who returned [to America] with him, when he went to found settlements in Hispaniola." In the preface which he wrote in 1552 to accompany the publication of his history, _Destruycion de las Indias_, which had been composed ten years earlier, he speaks of his experience extending over more than fifty years, but in his _Historia General_, which is almost a diary of the first half of his life in America, the first voyage that he mentions is that of Don Nicholas de Ovando in 1502. Las Casas was most careful in describing every particular of the events in which he had a part and he nowhere mentions that he accompanied Columbus on any voyage, whereas he dwells at length upon the expedition of Ovando, and in the third chapter of the second book of the _Historia General_ he affirms, "I heard this with my own ears for I went on that voyage with the Comendador de Lares [Ovando] to this island." The phrase is characteristic, for the positive note is rarely absent in the affirmations of Las Casas, nor is it admissible that his experiences on any voyage previous to that of Ovando should find no place in the exact and scrupulous narrative he has left us of his relations with America and his beloved Indians.
In consequence of the persistent and bitter complaints of Columbus against the second Governor of Hispaniola, whose appointment violated the rights secured to the Admiral and his successors by the capitulations of Granada, the catholic sovereign decided to recall Francisco de Bobadilla, whose administration gave cause for dissatisfaction in other respects, and to send Don Nicholas de Ovando to replace him. Ovando was at that time Comendador de Lares and was later raised to the supreme commandership of the Order of Calatrava. He is described as a most prudent man, worthy to govern any number of people, but not Indians; man in word and deed, an avowed enemy of avarice and covetousness; not wanting in humility, as shown in his habits of life, both public and private, though he maintained the dignity and authority of his position.(3)