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Christopher Columbus (October 30, 1451? –
20 May 1506) was an explorer and trader who crossed the Atlantic Ocean
and reached the Americas on October 12, 1492 under the flag of Castile.
History places a great significance on his landing in America in 1492,
with the entire period of the history of the Americas before this date
usually known as Pre-Columbian, and the anniversary of this event,
Columbus Day, is celebrated in many parts of America. Although there is
evidence of Pre-Columbian trans-Atlantic Ocean European contact,
Columbus is commonly credited as "the" European discoverer of the
Americas because of the profound impact his contact wrought on history.
His voyage marked the beginning of the European exploration and
colonization of the Americas.
It is generally assumed he was Genoese,
although some historians claim he could have been born in other places,
from the Crown of Aragón to the Kingdoms of Galicia or Portugal, or in
the Greek island of Chios, among others. The real name of the explorer
is also unknown; see the section on Columbus' national origin for a
discussion of his origin and names.
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Early life
There are various versions of Columbus'
origins and life before 1476. Research today is casting doubt on the
traditional account and DNA may soon prove his true origins. (See
Columbus' national origin.) The account that has traditionally been
supported by most historians is as follows:
It is thought that Columbus was born
between August 26 and October 31 in the year 1451, in the Italian port
city of Genoa. His father was Domenico Colombo, a woollens merchant, and
his mother was Susanna Fontanarossa, the daughter of a woollens
merchant. Christopher had three younger brothers, Bartolomeo, Giovanni
Pellegrino, and Giacomo, and a sister, Bianchinetta.
In 1470, the family moved to Savona, where
Christopher worked for his father in wool processing. During this
period, he studied cartography with his brother Bartolomeo. Christopher
received almost no formal education; a voracious reader, he was largely
self-taught.
In 1474, Columbus joined a ship of the
Spinola Financiers, who were Genoese patrons of his father. He spent a
year on a ship bound towards Chios (an island in the Aegean Sea) and,
after a brief visit home, spent a year in Chios. It is believed that
this is where he recruited some of his sailors.
In 1476, a commercial expedition gave
Columbus his first opportunity to sail into the Atlantic Ocean. The
fleet came under attack by French privateers off the Cape of St.
Vincent, Portugal. Columbus' ship was burned and he swam six miles to
shore.
By 1477, Columbus was living in Lisbon.
Portugal had become a center for maritime activity, thanks to Infante
Henrique (Prince Henry the Navigator), who commandeered the Age of
Discovery. Henrique's ships sailed for England, Ireland, Iceland,
Madeira, the Azores, and Africa. Columbus' brother Bartolomeo worked as
a mapmaker in Lisbon. At times, the brothers worked together as
draftsmen and book collectors.
He became a merchant sailor with the
Portuguese fleet, and sailed to Iceland via Ireland in 1477. He sailed
to Madeira in 1478 to purchase sugar, and along the coasts of West
Africa between 1482 and 1485, reaching the Portuguese post of Elmina
Castle in the Gulf of Guinea coast.
In 1479, Christopher Columbus married
Felipa Perestrello Moniz, a daughter from a noble Portuguese family with
some Italian ancestry. Felipa's father, Bartolomeu Perestrelo, had
partaken in finding the Madeira Islands and owned one of them (Porto
Santo Island), but had died when Felipa was a baby, leaving his second
wife a wealthy widow. As part of his dowry, Columbus received all of
Perestrello's charts of the winds and currents of the Portuguese
possessions on the Atlantic. Columbus and Felipa had a son, Diego Colón
in 1480. Felipa died in January of 1485. Columbus later found a lifelong
partner in Spain, an orphan named Beatriz Enriquez. She was living with
a cousin in the weaving industry of Córdoba. They never married, but
Columbus left Beatriz a rich woman, and directed Diego to treat her as
his own mother. The two had a son, Ferdinand, in 1488. Both boys served
as pages to Prince Juan of Aragon, son of Ferdinand and Isabella of
Castile, and each later contributed, with fabulous success, to the
rehabilitation of their father's reputation.
Columbus' theories
Christian Europe, which had long enjoyed
safe passage to India and China — sources of valued goods such as silk
and spices — under the hegemony of the Mongol Empire (the Pax Mongolica,
or "Mongol peace"), was now, after the fragmentation of the Mongol
Empire, under complete economic blockade by Muslim states. In response
to Muslim domination on land, Portugal sought an eastward sea route to
the Indies, and promoted the establishment of trading posts and later
colonies along the African coast. Columbus had a different idea. By the
1480s, he had developed a plan to travel to the Indies (then construed
roughly as all of south and east Asia) by instead sailing directly west
across the "Ocean Sea" (the Atlantic).
It is sometimes claimed that the reason
Columbus had difficulty obtaining support for his plan was that
Europeans believed that the Earth was flat. This myth can be traced to
Washington Irving's 1828 novel, The Life and Voyages of Christopher
Columbus. In fact, what was at issue was not the shape, but the
circumference of the earth.
The fact that the Earth is round was
evident to most people of Columbus' time, especially to sailors,
explorers and navigators. Indeed, Eratosthenes (276-194 BCE) had
already, in ancient Alexandrian times, accurately calculated the Earth's
circumference. Most scholars accepted Ptolemy's claim that the
terrestrial landmass (for Europeans of the time, comprising Eurasia and
Africa) occupied 180 degrees of the terrestrial sphere, leaving 180
degrees of water.
Columbus, however, accepted the
calculations of Pierre d'Ailly, that the landmass occupied 225°, leaving
only 135° of water. Moreover, Columbus believed that 1° represented a
shorter distance on the earth's surface than was commonly held. Finally,
he read maps as if the distances were calculated in Roman miles (1,524
meters, or 5,000 feet), rather than in nautical miles (1,853.99 meters,
or 6,082.66 feet, at the equator). He therefore calculated the
circumference of the Earth as 30,600 km (19,000 modern statute miles) at
most, and the distance from the Canary Islands to Japan at 2,400
nautical miles (some 4,444 km). There are some documents pre-dating 1492
that make reference to land beyond Greenland (discovered by the
Vikings), one of which was found, Navigatio Brendani, in the Royal
archives in Lisbon. It has been suggested that Columbus knew of this
document, and believed that this land was Asia, thus seeming to confirm
the calculations of Pierre d'Ailly and giving Columbus the confidence to
go ahead with his voyage. This is speculative, as there is no evidence
that Columbus ever saw the document.
The problem facing Columbus was that
experts did not agree with his estimate of the distance to the Indies.
The true circumference of the Earth is some 40,000 km (24,900 statute
miles of 5,280 feet each), and the distance from the Canary Islands to
Japan is some 10,600 nautical miles (19,600 km). No ship in the
fifteenth century could carry enough food or sail fast enough from the
Canary Islands to Japan. Most European sailors and navigators concluded,
correctly, that sailors undertaking a westward voyage from Europe to
Asia would die of starvation or thirst long before reaching their
destination.
Those experts were right, but Spain, only
recently unified through the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella, and
just Christianized through the expulsion of the Muslims and Jews, was
desperate for a competitive edge over other European countries, in trade
with the East Indies. Columbus promised them that edge.
Columbus was wrong about the circumference
of the Earth and the distance from the Canary Islands to Japan. But most
Europeans were wrong in thinking that the aquatic expanse between Europe
and Asia was uninterrupted. Although Columbus died believing he had
opened up a direct nautical route to Asia, in fact, he established a
nautical route between Europe and the Americas. It was this route to the
Americas, rather than to Japan, that gave Spain the competitive edge it
sought in developing a mercantile empire.
By his third voyage, in 1498, Columbus had
come to the conclusion that the Earth was pear-shaped:
"I had always read that the world, land and
sea, was spherical, and the authority and experience of Ptolemy and all
the rest who have written about this place supported and demonstrated
this idea, together with eclipses of the moon and other illustrations
they make from East to West, such as the elevation of the North Pole in
the southern hemisphere; now I have seen so much deformity that I
started to think about the world and found that it was not round as they
write, but that it is shaped like a pear which is round except where the
stalk is, which there is higher..."
Columbus' campaign for funding
Columbus first presented his plan to the
court of Portugal in 1485. The king's experts believed that the route
would be longer than Columbus thought (the actual distance is even
longer than the Portuguese believed), and they denied Columbus' request.
It is probable that he made the same outrageous demands for himself in
Portugal that he later made in Spain, where he went next. He tried to
get backing from the monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella I of
Castile, who, by marrying, had united the largest kingdoms of Spain and
were ruling them together.
After seven years of lobbying at the
Spanish court, where he was kept on a salary to prevent him from taking
his ideas elsewhere, he was finally successful in 1492. Ferdinand and
Isabella had just conquered Granada, the last Muslim stronghold on the
Iberian peninsula, and they received Columbus in Córdoba, in the
monarchs' Alcázar or castle. Isabella finally turned Columbus down on
the advice of her "think tank", and he was leaving town in despair, when
Ferdinand lost his patience. Isabella sent a royal guard to fetch him
and Ferdinand later rightfully claimed credit for being "the principal
cause why those islands were discovered."
About half of the financing was to come
from private Italian investors, whom Columbus had already lined up.
Financially broke from the Granada campaign, the monarchs left it to the
royal treasurer to shift funds among various royal accounts on behalf of
the enterprise. Columbus was to be made "Admiral of the Ocean Sea", and
granted an inheritable governorship to the new territories he would
reach, as well as a portion of all profits. The terms were absurd, but
his own son later wrote that the monarchs really did not expect him to
return.
Voyages
First voyage
The year 1492, on the evening of August 3,
Columbus left from Palos with three ships, the Santa Maria, Niña and
Pinta. The ships were property of Juan de la Cosa and the Pinzón
brothers (Martin and Vicente Yáñez), but the monarchs forced the Palos
inhabitants to contribute to the expedition. He first sailed to the
Canary Islands, fortunately owned by Castile, where he reprovisioned and
made repairs, and on September 6, started what turned out to be a five
week voyage across the ocean.
A legend is that the crew grew so homesick
and fearful that they threatened to sail back to Spain. Although the
actual situation is unclear, most likely the sailors' resentments merely
amounted to complaints or suggestions.
After 29 days out of sight of land, on 7
October 1493 as recorded in the ship's log, the crew spotted shore birds
flying west and changed direction to make their landfall. A later
comparison of dates and migratory patterns leads to the conclusion that
the birds were Eskimo curlews and American golden plover.
Land was sighted at 2 AM on 12 October by a
sailor aboard Pinta named Rodrigo de Triana. Columbus called the island
he reached San Salvador, although the natives called it Guanahani. The
Native Americans he encountered, the Taíno or Arawak, were peaceful and
friendly. He wrote with such awe of the friendly innocence and beauty of
these Indians that he inadvertently created the enduring myth of the
Noble Savage. "These people have no religious beliefs, nor are they
idolaters. They are very gentle and do not know what evil is; nor do
they kill others, nor steal; and they are without weapons.". No blood
was shed on this first voyage; he believed conversion to Christianity
would be achieved through love, not force.
On this first voyage, Columbus also
explored the northeast coast of Cuba (landed on 28 October) and the
northern coast of Hispaniola, by 5 December. He believed the peaks of
Cuba were the Himalayas of India, which gives one a sense of just how
lost he was and how long it took the peoples of the world to map the
Earth. (The vast interior of the North and South American mainlands
would of course be largely mapped with the leadership of native guides
and interpreters.) Here, the Santa Maria ran aground and had to be
abandoned. He was received by the native cacique Guacanagari, who gave
him permission to leave some of his men behind. Columbus founded the
settlement La Navidad and left 39 men.
On 4 January 1493, he set sail for home by
way of the Azores. He wrestled his ship against the wind and ran into
one of the worst storms of the century. Leaving the island of Santa
Maria in the Azores, Columbus headed for Portugal anchoring in Lisbon
next to the King's harbour patrol ship on 4 March, 1493, where he was
told a fleet of 100 caravels had been lost in the storm. Astoundingly,
both the Niña and the Pinta were spared. Some have speculated that his
landing in Portugal was intentional.
Relations between Portugal and Castile were
poor at the time. Columbus wrote to the King of Portugal, John II, and
went to meet with him at Vale do Paraíso (north of Lisbon). After
spending more than one week in Portugal, he finally set sail for Spain.
Word of his finding new lands rapidly spread throughout Europe. He did
not reach Spain until 15 March, when the story of his journey was
already in its third printing.
He was received as a hero in Spain: this
was his moment in the sun. He displayed several kidnapped natives and
what gold he had found to the court, as well as the previously unknown
tobacco plant, the pineapple fruit, the turkey and the sailor's first
love, the hammock. Naturally, he did not bring any of the coveted [East]
Indies spices, such as the exceedingly expensive black pepper, ginger or
cloves. In his log, he wrote "there is also plenty of ají, which is
their pepper, which is more valuable than black pepper, and all the
people eat nothing else, it being very wholesome" (Turner, 2004, P11).
The word ají is still used in South American Spanish for chili peppers.
Second voyage
Admiral Columbus left from Cádiz, Spain for
his second voyage (1493-1496) on September 24, 1493, with 17 speed boats
carrying supplies, and about 1200 men to assist in the subjugation of
the Taíno and the colonization of the region. On October 13, the ships
left the Canary Islands, following a more southerly course than on the
first voyage.
On November 3, 1493, Columbus sighted a
rugged island that he named Dominica. On the same day, he landed at
Marie-Galante (which he named Santa Maria la Galante). After sailing
past Les Saintes (Todos los Santos), Columbus arrived at Guadaloupe
(Santa Maria de Guadalupe), which he explored from November 4 through
November 10. The exact course of his voyage through the Lesser Antilles
is debated, but it seems likely that Columbus turned north, sighting and
naming several islands including Montserrat (Santa Maria de Monstserrate),
Antigua (Santa Maria la Antigua), Redonda (Santa Maria la Redonda),
Nevis (Santa María de las Nieve or San Martin), Saint Kitts (San Jorge),
Sint Eustatius (Santa Anastasia), Saba (San Cristobal), and Saint Martin
or Saint Croix (Santa Cruz). Columbus also sighted the island chain of
the Virgin Islands, (which he named Santa Ursula y las Once Mil Virgines),
and named the islands of Virgin Gorda, Tortola, and Peter Island (San
Pedro).
Columbus continued to the Greater Antilles,
and landed at Puerto Rico (San Juan Bautista) on November 19, 1493. On
November 22, he returned to Hispaniola, where he found his colonists had
fallen into dispute with Indians in the interior and had been killed. He
established a new settlement at Isabella, on the north coast of
Hispaniola where gold had first been found, but it was a poor location,
and the settlement was also short-lived. He spent some time exploring
the interior of the island for gold, and did find some, establishing a
small fort in the interior. He left Hispaniola on April 24, 1494 and
arrived at Cuba (which he named Juana) on April 30, and Jamaica on May
5. He explored the south coast of Cuba, which he believed to be a
peninsula rather than an island, and several nearby islands, including
the Isle of Youth (La Evangelista), before returning to Hispaniola on
August 20.
Before he left Spain for his second voyage,
he had been directed by Ferdinand and Isabella to maintain friendly,
even loving relations with the natives. However, during his second
voyage he sent a letter to the monarchs proposing to enslave some of the
native peoples, specifically the Caribs, on the grounds of their
aggressiveness. Although his petition was refused by the Crown, in
February 1495, Columbus took 1600 Arawak (a different tribe, who were
hunted by the Carib) as slaves. 560 slaves were shipped to Spain; two
hundred died en route, probably of disease, and of the remainder, half
were ill when they arrived. After legal proceedings, the survivors were
released and ordered to be shipped home. Others of the 1600 were kept as
slaves for Columbus' men in the Americas, and Columbus recorded using
slaves for sex in his journal. A remaining 400 captives, for whom
Columbus had no use, were released; they fled into the hills, making,
according to Columbus, prospects for their future capture dim. Rounding
up the slaves led to the first major battle between the Spanish and the
Indians in the New World.
The main objective of Columbus' journey had
been gold. To further this goal, he imposed a system on the natives in
Cicao on Haiti, whereby all those above fourteen years of age had to
find a certain quota of gold, to be signified by a token placed around
their necks. Those who failed to reach their quota would have their
hands chopped off. Despite such extreme measures, Columbus did not
manage to obtain much gold. One of the primary reasons for this was the
fact that natives became infected with various diseases carried by the
Europeans.
In his letters to the Spanish King and
Queen, Columbus would repeatedly suggest slavery as a way to profit from
the new colonies, but these suggestions were all rejected by the
monarchs, who preferred to view the natives as future members of
Christendom.
Third voyage and arrest
On May 30, 1498, Columbus left with six
ships from Sanlúcar, Spain for his third trip to the New World. He was
accompanied by the young Bartolomé de Las Casas, who would later provide
partial transcripts of Columbus' logs.
Columbus led the fleet to the Portuguese
island of Porto Santo where his wife was from. He then sailed to Madeira
and spent some time there with the Portuguese captain, João Gonçalves da
Camara before sailing to the Canary Islands and Cape Verde, Columbus
landed on the south coast of the island of Trinidad on July 31. From
August 4 through August 12, he explored the Gulf of Paria which
separates Trinidad from Venezuela. He explored the mainland of South
America, including the Orinoco River. He also sailed to the islands of
Chacachcare and Margarita Island and sighted and named Tobago (Bella
Forma) and Grenada (Concepcion). Initially, he described the new lands
as belonging to a previously unknown new continent, but later he
retreated to his position that they belonged to Asia.
Columbus returned to Hispaniola on August
19 to find that many of the Spanish settlers of the new colony were
discontent, having been misled by Columbus about the supposedly
bountiful riches of the new world. Columbus repeatedly had to deal with
rebellious settlers and Indians. He had some of his crew hanged for
disobeying him. A number of returned settlers and friars lobbied against
Columbus at the Spanish court, accusing him of mismanagement. The king
and queen sent the royal administrator Francisco de Bobadilla in 1500,
who upon arrival (August 23) detained Columbus and his brothers and had
them shipped home. Columbus refused to have his shackles removed on the
trip to Spain, during which he wrote a long and pleading letter to the
Spanish monarchs.
Although he regained his freedom, he did
not regain his prestige and lost his governorship. As an added insult,
the Portuguese had won the race to the Indies: Vasco da Gama returned in
September 1499 from a trip to India, having sailed east around Africa.
Fourth and final voyage
Nevertheless, Columbus made a fourth
voyage, nominally in search of the Strait of Malacca to the Indian
Ocean. Accompanied by his brother Bartolomeo and his thirteen-year old
son Fernando, Columbus left Cádiz, Spain on May 11, 1502. Columbus
sailed to Arzila on the Moroccon coast to rescue the Portuguese soldiers
who he heard were there under siege by the Moors. On June 15, they
landed at Carbet on the island of Martinique (Martinica). A hurricane
was brewing, so Columbus continued on, hoping to find shelter on
Hispaniola. Columbus arrived at Santo Domingo on June 29, but was denied
port. Instead, the ships anchored at the mouth of the Jaina River.
After a brief stop at Jamaica, Columbus
sailed to Central America, arriving at Guanaja (Isla de Pinos) in the
Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras on July 30. Here Bartholomew found
native merchants and a large canoe, which was described as "long as a
galley" and was filled with cargo. On August 14, Columbus landed on the
American mainland at Puerto Castilla, near Trujillo, Honduras. Columbus
spent two months exploring the coasts of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa
Rica, before arriving in Almirante Bay, Panama on October 16.
In Panama, Columbus learned from the
natives of gold and a strait to another ocean. After much exploration,
he established a garrison at the mouth of Rio Belen in January 1503. On
April 6, one of the ships became stranded in the river. At the same
time, the garrison was attacked, and the other ships were damaged.
Columbus left for Hispaniola on April 16, but sustained more damage in a
storm off the coast of Cuba. Unable to travel any farther, the ships
were beached in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica, on June 25, 1503.
Columbus and his men were stranded on
Jamaica for a year. Two Spaniards, with native paddlers, were sent by
canoe to get help from Hispaniola. In the meantime, Columbus, in a
desperate effort to induce the natives to continue provisioning him and
his hungry men, successfully intimidated the natives by correctly
predicting a lunar eclipse, using astronomic tables made by Rabbi
Avraham Zacuto of Spain. Grudging help finally arrived on June 29, 1504,
and Columbus and his men arrived in Sanlúcar, Spain, on November 7.
Later life
While Columbus had always given the
conversion of non-believers as one reason for his explorations, he grew
increasingly religious in his later years. He claimed to hear divine
voices, lobbied for a new crusade to capture Jerusalem, often wore
Franciscan habit, and described his explorations to the "paradise" as
part of God's plan which would soon result in the Last Judgement and the
end of the world.
In his later years, Columbus demanded that
the Spanish Crown give him 10% of all profits made in the new lands,
pursuant to earlier agreements. Because he had been relieved of his
duties as governor, the crown felt not bound by these contracts and his
demands were rejected. His family later sued for part of the profits
from trade with America, but ultimately lost some fifty years later.
On May 20, 1506, Columbus died in
Valladolid, fairly wealthy due to the gold his men had accumulated in
Hispaniola. He was still convinced that his journeys had been along the
East Coast of Asia. Following his death, the body of Columbus underwent
excarnation--the flesh was removed so that only his bones remained. Even
after his death, his travels continued: first interred in Valladolid and
then at the monastery of La Cartuja in Seville, by the will of his son
Diego, who had been governor of Hispaniola, the remains were transferred
to Santo Domingo in 1542. In 1795, the French took over, and the corpse
was removed to Havana. After Cuba became independent following the
Spanish-American War in 1898, Columbus' remains were moved back to the
Cathedral of Seville, where they were placed on an elaborate catafalque.
However, a lead box bearing an inscription identifying "Don Christopher
Columbus" and containing fragments of bone and a bullet was discovered
at Santo Domingo in 1877. To lay to rest claims that the wrong relics
were moved to Havana and that Columbus is still buried in the cathedral
of Santo Domingo, DNA samples were taken in June 2003 (History Today
August 2003).
Columbus' national origin
Although the vast majority of historians
consider him Italian, various doubts have been expressed regarding
Columbus' national origin. Even if he is generally assumed to be Italian
(specifically Genoese), his background is clouded in mystery. Very
little is really known about Columbus before the mid-1470s. It has been
suggested that this might have been because he was hiding something—an
event in his origin or history that he deliberately kept a secret.
The issue of Columbus' 'nationality' became
an issue after the rise of nationalism; the issue was scarcely raised
until the time of the quadricentenary celebrations in 1892 (see World's
Columbian Exposition), when Columbus' Genoese origins became a point of
pride for some Italian Americans. In New York City, rival statues of
Columbus were underwritten by the Hispanic and the Italian communities,
and honourable positions had to be found for each, at Columbus Circle
and in Central Park.
One hypothesis is that Columbus served
under the French corsair Guillaume Casenove Coulon and took his surname,
but later tried to hide his piracy. Some Basque historians have claimed
that he was Basque. Others have said that he was a converso (a Spanish
Jew who publicly converted to Christianity). In Spain, even some
converted Jews were forced to leave Spain after much persecution; it is
known that many conversos were still practicing Judaism in secret.
Another theory is that he was from the town
Calvi on the island of Corsica, which at the time was part of the
Genoese republic. Because the often subversive elements of the island
gave its inhabitants a bad reputation, he would have masked his exact
heritage. A few others also claim that Columbus was actually Catalan
(Colom).
Columbus Historian Manuel Rosa writes in
Unmasking Columbus that Colon and Colom are not the same names nor do
they have the same meanings. Columbus is Latin, Colombo is Italian,
Pombo is Portuguese, Colombe is French and Colom is Catalan and all
these translate to dove or pigeon but none of these were the name of the
discoverer. Since the name Colon was a stand-in for the Greek Kolon
chosen by Christopher to mean member none of the above names for pigeon
are correctly applied names.
Other documents found in the Alentejo
region of Portugal suggest he may have been born there. In accordance
with this theory, he named the island of Cuba after the Portuguese town
Cuba in Alentejo — the town where he, according to Portuguese
historians, had been born under the name of Salvador Fernandes Zarco
(SFZ), son of Fernando, Duke of Beja, and Isabel Sciarra — and grandson
of Cecília Colonna. The Portuguese-origin thesis has him using Colom as
a pseudonym. This is based on interpretation of some facts and documents
of his life (as above), but mostly on an analysis of his signature under
the Jewish Kabbalah, where he described his family and origin (by
Macarenhas Barreto: "Fernandus Ensifer Copiae Pacis Juliae illaqueatus
Isabella Sciarra Camara Mea Soboles Cubae.", or "Ferdinand who holds the
sword of power of Beja (Pax Julia in Latin), coupled with Isabel Sciarra
Camara, are my generation from Cuba"). Since he never signed his name
conventionally, the pseudonymus theory is reinforced, his name meaning
in Latin "Bearer of Christ" (Christo ferens) "and of the Holy Spirit"
(Columbus, dove in Latin), a reference to the Order of Christ which
succeeded the Templars in Portugal and initiated the age of exploration.
Another strong case that supports this
thesis is that over forty toponyms in the Caribbean islands are of
Portuguese origin.
The corollary of the above is that he was
(i) knowingly diverting the Castilian kings from their target – India
and (ii) had all the reasons to hide his identity and origin, as
Portugal was the biggest rival of Spain (Castille) in its sea ventures.
In sum, he was a "secret agent".
It is also speculated that Columbus may
have come from the island of Khios (or Chios) in Greece. The evidence
supporting this theory includes that Columbus never said he was from
Genoa but from the Republic of Genoa (Khios was under Genoese control at
the time, and thus part of the Republic of Genoa), and that he kept his
journal in Latin and Greek instead of the Italian of Genoa. He also
referred to himself as "Columbus de Terra Rubra"(Columbus of the Red
Earth), Khios was known for its red soil in the south of the island
where grow the mastic trees that the Genoese traded. There is also a
village named Pirgi in the island of Khios where to this day many of its
inhabitants carry the surname "Colombus."
It has even been suggested that the epitaph
on his tomb, translated as "Let me not be confused forever," is a veiled
hint left by Columbus that his identity was other than he publicly
stated during his life. However, the actual phrase, "Non confundar in
aeternam" (in Latin), is perhaps more accurately translated "Let me
never be confounded," and is contained in several Psalms.
Historian Samuel Eliot Morison, in his book
"Admiral of the Ocean Sea", claims that existing legal documents
demonstrate the Genoese origin of Columbus, his father Domenico, and his
brothers Bartolomeo and Giacomo (Diego). On page 14, Morison writes:
Besides these documents from which we may
glean facts about Christopher's early life, there are others which
identify the Discoverer as the son of Domenico the wool weaver, beyond
the possibility of doubt. For instance, Domenico had a brother Antonio,
like him a respectable member of the lower middle class in Genoa.
Antonio had three sons: Matteo, Amigeto and Giovanni, who was generally
known as Giannetto, the Genoese equivalent of "Johnny." Johnny like
Christopher gave up a humdrum occupation to follow the sea. In 1496 the
three brothers met in a notary's office at Genoa and agreed that Johnny
should go to Spain and seek out his first cousin "Don Cristoforo de
Colombo, Admiral of the King of Spain," each contributing one third of
the traveling expenses. This quest for a job was highly successful. The
Admiral gave Johnny command of a caravel on the Third Voyage to America,
and entrusted him with confidential matters as well.
It is certain that Columbus taught himself
to read and write after arriving in Portugal, learned cutting-edge
navigational and trading skills from the Portuguese, was commissioned by
Castile, received financial backing from Genoese bankers, and was
informed, in his own words, by "wise people, ecclesiastics and laymen,
Latins and Greeks, Jews and Moors and with many others of other sects."
He was, in other words, a man of the Mediterranean.
Columbus' language
Although Genoese documents have been found
about a weaver named Colombo, it has also been noted that, in the
preserved documents, Columbus wrote almost exclusively in Spanish, and
that he used the language, with Portuguese phonetics, even when writing
personal notes to himself, to his brother, Italian friends, and to the
Bank of Genoa.
There is a small handwritten Genoese gloss
in an Italian edition of the History of Plinius that he read in his
second voyage to America. However, it displays both Spanish and
Portuguese influences. Genoese Italian was not a written language in the
15th century, but one would expect a better transliteration into this
dialect from a native speaker. However, many people become "tongue-tied"
when using what is, to them, an intimate childhood language. There is
also a note in non-Genoese Italian in his own Book of Prophecies
exhibiting, according to historian August Kling, "characteristics of
northern Italian humanism in its calligraphy, syntax, and spelling."
Columbus took great care and pride in writing this form of Italian.
Phillips and Phillips point out that five
hundred years ago, the Latinate languages had not distanced themselves
to the degree they have today. Bartolomé de las Casas in his Historia de
las Indias claimed that Columbus did not know Spanish well and that he
was not born in Castile. In his letters he refers to himself frequently,
if cryptically, as a "foreigner." Ramón Menéndez Pidal studied the
language of Columbus in 1942, suggesting that while still in Genoa,
Columbus learned notions of Portugalized Spanish from travelers, who
used a sort of commercial Latin or lingua franca (latín ginobisco for
Spaniards). He suggests that Columbus learned Spanish in Portugal
through its use in Portugal as or "adopted language of culture" from
1450. This same Spanish is used by poets like Fernán Silveira and Joan
Manuel. The first testimony of his use of Spanish is from the 1480s.
Menendez Pidal and many others detect a lot of Portuguese in his
Spanish, where he mixes, for example, falar and hablar. But Menendez
Pidal does not accept the hypothesis of a Galician origin for Columbus
by noting that where Portuguese and Galician diverged, Columbus always
used the Portuguese form.
Latin, on the other hand, was the language
of scholarship, and here Columbus excelled. He also kept his journal in
Latin, and a "secret" journal in Greek.
According to historian Charles Merrill,
analysis of his handwriting indicates that it is typical of someone who
was a native Catalan, and Columbus' phonetic mistakes in Spanish are
"most likely" those of a Catalan. Also, that he married a Portuguese
noblewoman is presented as evidence that his origin was of nobility
rather than the Italian merchant class, since it was unheard of during
his time for nobility to marry outside their class. This same theory
suggests he was the illegitimate son of a prominent Catalan sea-faring
family, which had served as mercenaries in a sea battle against
Castilian forces. Fighting against Ferdinand and being illegitimate were
two excellent reasons for keeping his origins obscure. Furthermore, the
disinterment of his brother's body shows him to be a different age, by
nearly a decade, than the "Bartolome Colombo" of the Genoese family.
After 15 years of research, Manuel Rosa
accepts the theory that Cristóbal Colón was the spy name of a Portuguese
secret agent sent to Spain to mislead the Spanish away from the real
India. This is why he knew Portuguese so well and why the navigator
changed his name only when entering Spain in 1484. Cristóbal Colón was
called our special friend in Seville by Portugal's King John II in 1488
and Colon continously lied to the Spanish. His lies benefited only the
kingdom of Portugal and helped protect the way for Vasco da Gama to
reach the real India. This explains why he headed for Lisbon on the
return from the first voyage and had a meeting with the King of
Portugal, why he knew Portuguese so well, why he kept in constant
contact with Portuguese territory as well as why he was involved in the
debriefing in Lisbon of the secret discovery of the Cape of Good Hope by
Bartolomeu Dias.
In a little accepted, but not overly
unknown theory expanding upon the "Chios theory" of Columbus' origin, he
was the son of a Genoese noble family in Greece—which accounts for his
penchant for the Greek language—who migrated at an early age to Castillo
& Leon near a large Portuguese city, where he adopted Latin, Portuguese,
and Spanish (Castellano) for their potential uses in his journey. As
such, this theory explains how he was an accomplished linguist and how
his theories and plans could have been conceived much ahead of time than
what is normally accepted.
Perceptions of Columbus
Christopher Columbus has had a cultural
significance beyond his actual achievements and actions as an
individual; he also became a symbol, a figure of legend. The mythology
of Columbus has cast him as an archetype for both good and for evil.
The casting of Columbus as a figure of
"good" or of "evil" often depends on people's perspectives as to whether
the arrival of Europeans to the New World and the introduction of
Christianity (particularly the Catholic faith) is seen as positive or
negative.
In addition, the nascent countries of the
New World, particularly the newly independent USA, seemed to need a
historical narrative to give them roots. This narrative was supplied in
part by Washington Irving in 1828 with The life and voyages of
Christopher Columbus, which may be the true source of much of the modern
mythology about the explorer.
Columbus' struggles to civilize the
Americas, and the subsequent effects on the native peoples, were
dramatised in 1492: Conquest of Paradise to commemorate the 500th
anniversary of his landing in the Americas.
Columbus as hero
Traditionally, Columbus is viewed as a man
of heroic stature by the European-descended population of the New World.
He has often been hailed as a man of heroism and bravery, and also of
faith: he sailed westward into mostly unknown waters, and his unique
scheme is often viewed as ingenious. He "set an example for us all by
showing what monumental feats can be accomplished through perseverance
and faith" (George H. W. Bush, June 8, 1989).
Hero worship of Columbus perhaps reached a
zenith around 1892, the 400th anniversary of his first arrival in the
Americas. Monuments to Columbus (including the Columbian Exposition in
Chicago) were erected throughout the United States and Latin America,
extolling him as a hero. The Knights of Columbus, a Catholic men's
fraternal benefit society, had been chartered ten years earlier by the
State of Connecticut. The story that Columbus thought the world was
round while his contemporaries believed in a flat earth was often
repeated. This tale was used to show that Columbus was enlightened and
forward looking. Columbus' apparent defiance of convention in sailing
west to get to the far east was hailed as a model of "American"-style
can-do inventiveness.
In the United States, the admiration of
Columbus was particularly embraced by some members of the Italian
American, Hispanic, and Catholic communities. These groups point to
Columbus as one of their own to show that Mediterranean Catholics could
and did make great contributions to the USA. The modern vilification of
Columbus is seen by his supporters and by many scholars as being
politically motivated and non-historical.
Columbus as villain
Criticism focuses on the continuing
positive Columbus myths and celebrations (such as Columbus Day) and
their effects on American thought towards present-day Native Americans.
Official celebrations of the 500th anniversary of Columbus' first voyage
in 1492 were muted, and demonstrators protested marking the anniversary
at all. It was in this spirit that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez
signed, in October, 2002, a decree changing the name of Venezuela's
"Columbus Day" to "The Day of Indigenous Resistance" in honor of the
nation's indigenous groups. On October 12, 2004, supporters of Chávez
destroyed a 100-year old statue of Columbus in Caracas. They did this
because they found Columbus guilty of 'imperialist genocide'. (For more,
see Columbus Day.) The genocide and atrocious acts committed by the
Spanish against the natives (the Tainos in particular) are well
documented in terrifying detail by Bartolomé de Las Casas in his letters
and book A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies. See Native
American Genocide for more details.
The view of Columbus as a villain received
mass exposure in the United States when an episode of the TV show "The
Sopranos" included a shot of A People's History of the United States by
Howard Zinn and demonstrated a common reaction to critical pedagogy in
U.S. classrooms.
Columbus is also viewed as a villain for
transporting Native Americans to Europe for sale as slaves. There is no
evidence of any previous trans-Atlantic voyages that transported slaves
for sale. Thus, he was the first known European to transport slaves
eastward across the Atlantic, and so is seen by some as the founder of
the Atlantic slave trade in which millions of Africans were transported
westward across the Atlantic for sale as slaves in the atrocity of the
Middle Passage.
Physical appearance
Nobody has ever found an authentic
contemporary portrait of Christopher Columbus. Over the years historians
have presented many images that reconstruct his appearance from written
descriptions. They depict him variously with long or short hair, heavy
or thin, bearded or clean-shaven, stern or at ease. The image at the
beginning of this article and the image to the left both date from close
to Columbus' time, but historians do not know whether the artists
painted them from personal knowledge of his appearance.
Despite
the uncertainty, textbooks in the United States have used the image on
the left so often that it has become the face of Columbus in popular
culture. The image on the right is yet another idea. However, it is
widely accepted that this image actually represents Paolo dal Pozzo
Toscanelli (1397-10 May, 1482).
****
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