By early July, Columbus and his entourage arrived in Seville, where he began commissioning ships and enlisting men for his second voyage and the colonization of “Española.” The five Taínos baptized in Barcelona (see Late May or Early June) reunited with the four Taínos who had remained in Seville (see March 31–April 10), although likely two of the four had died of European diseases by then.
Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand remained concerned that Portugal’s King John II might dispatch a competing fleet to claim the territory awarded them by Pope Alexander VI, i.e., the Taíno homeland they intended to subjugate (see May 3). They had appointed the archdeacon of Seville, Juan Rodríguez de Fonseca, to administer the project with Columbus—Fonseca having proven his administrative ability in the conquest of Granada—and they dispatched letters to both Columbus and Fonseca urging that the expedition depart promptly.
Recruiting men wasn’t difficult, as there were many more applicants than needed—most drawn by the siren call of gold. About 1,200 were selected, including sailors, artisans to build the settlement, soldiers, and gentlemen volunteers, i.e., adventurers. Loans funded a portion of the expedition’s cost, secured by jewels and other property confiscated from Jews expelled from Spain and conversos convicted by the Inquisition.
Pope Alexander had issued his bull, Piis Fidelium, recognizing that King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella were inflamed with devotion to spread the faith to the lands newly “discovered” and approving their nominee—the Catalan friar Bernaldo Buil—as papal nuncio to the “Indies.” But the recruitment of missionaries to assist Buil was more difficult than of gold-seekers, or perhaps the sovereigns’ inflammation was overstated: about a dozen clerics enlisted.
The seven surviving Taínos traveled with Columbus from Seville to Cádiz to embark on the voyage, enslaved to assist in the Taíno homeland’s subjugation. At least two of them were captives seized on Guanahaní on October 14, 1492, including the captive who is one of Encounters Unforeseen’s protagonists. Columbus’s seventeen ships would sail from Cádiz on September 25, 1493.