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Christopher Columbus

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Christopher Columbus
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  • Born: 1451
  • Birthplace: Genoa, Italy
  • Died: 20 May 1506
  • Best Known As: The explorer who opened the door to the Americas

Christopher Columbus sailed from Spain across the Atlantic Ocean in 1492, landing in the "new world" of the Americas and gaining lasting fame. Using ships and money provided by Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castille, Columbus sailed west in search of a sea passage to India. His mission was twofold: open trade routes for exploitation and bring the word of Jesus Christ to the uninitiated. He sailed with three ships (the Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria) and made landfall somewhere in the Bahamas. He returned to Europe to spread the word, and was named "Admiral of the Ocean Seas" by Ferdinand and Isabella. He made three more voyages in the following years, always believing that he had reached Asia, and his success opened the door for Spain to conquer the Americas. Five centuries after his daring voyage, Columbus is still famous but is also the subject of heated discussions about whether he was a good-guy hero who discovered new worlds or a not-so-nice guy who helped grab the Americas from their native inhabitants. Still, he has long been known as the man who "discovered" America, and the second Monday in October is celebrated as Columbus Day in the United States.

Columbus is also known as Cristobal or Christobal Colon (in Spanish) and Cristoforo Colombo (in Italian)... America is named for Amerigo Vespucci, who explored what is now South America a few years after Columbus's initial voyage.

 
 
Biography: Christopher Columbus

The Italian navigator Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) was the discoverer of America. Though he had set out to find a westward route to Asia, his explorations proved to be as important as any alternate way to the riches of Cathay and India.

The archives of Genoa show that the famous discoverer was born Cristoforo Colombo (Spanish, Cristóbal Colón) there between August and October 1451. His father, Domenico Colombo, followed the weaver's craft, and his mother, Suzanna Fontanarossa, came of equally humble stock. Christopher was the eldest child, and two brothers make some appearance in history under their Hispanicized names, Bartolomé and Diego.

Columbus had a meager education and only later learned to read Latin and write Castilian. He evidently helped his father at work when he was a boy and went to sea early in a humble capacity. Since he aged early in appearance and contemporaries commonly took him for older than he really was, he was able to claim to have taken part in events before his time.

In 1475 Columbus made his first considerable voyage to the Aegean island of Chios, and in 1476 he sailed on a Genoese ship through the Strait of Gibraltar. Off Cape St. Vincent they were attacked by a French fleet, and the vessel in which Columbus sailed sank. He swam ashore and went to Lisbon, where his brother Bartolomé already lived. Columbus also visited Galway, in Ireland, and an English port, probably Bristol. If he ever sailed to Iceland, as he afterward claimed to have done, it must have been as a part of this voyage. He made his presumably last visit to Genoa in 1479 and there gave testimony in a lawsuit. Court procedure required him to tell his age, which he gave as "past 27," furnishing reasonable evidence of 1451 as his birth year.

Columbus returned to Portugal, where he married Felipa Perestrelo e Monis, daughter of Bartolomeu Perestrelo, deceased proprietor of the island of Porto Santo. The couple lived first in Lisbon, where Perestrelo's widow showed documents her husband had written or collected regarding possible western lands in the Atlantic, and these probably started Columbus thinking of a voyage of investigation. Later they moved to Porto Santo, where his wife died soon after the birth of Diego, the discoverer's only legitimate child.

Formation of an Idea

After his wife's death, Columbus turned wholly to discovery plans and theories, among them the hope to discover a westward route to Asia. He learned of the legendary Irish St. Brandan and his marvelous adventures in the Atlantic and of the equally legendary island of Antilia. Seamen venturing west of Madeira and the Azores reported signs of land, and ancient authors, notably Seneca and Pliny, had theorized about the nearness of eastern Asia to western Europe, though it is not known just when Columbus read them. He acquired incunabular editions of Ptolemy, Marco Polo, and Pierre d'Ailly, but again it is uncertain how early he read them. He possibly first depended on what others said of their contents.

From Marco Polo, Columbus learned the names of Cathay (north China) and Cipango (Japan). The Venetian traveler had never visited Japan and erroneously placed it 1,500 miles east of China, thus bringing it closer to Europe. Furthermore, Columbus accepted two bad guesses by Ptolemy: his underestimate of the earth's circumference and his overestimate of Asia's eastward extension. With the earth's sphericity taken for granted, all Columbus's mistaken beliefs combined to make his idea seem feasible.

In 1474 the Florentine scientist Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli sent a letter and map to Fernao Martins of Lisbon, telling Martins that a western voyage in the Atlantic would be a shorter way of reaching the Orient than circumnavigation of Africa. Columbus obtained a copy of the letter and used it to clarify his own ideas.

In 1484 Columbus asked John II of Portugal for backing in the proposed voyage. Rejected, Columbus went to Spain with young Diego in 1485, and for nearly 7 years he sought the aid of Isabella of Castile and her husband, Ferdinand of Aragon. The sovereigns took no action but gave Columbus a small annuity that enabled him to live modestly. He found influential friends, including the powerful Duke of Medinaceli and Juan Pérez, prior of La Rábida monastery.

While waiting, the widowed Columbus had an affair with young Beatriz Enriquez de Harana of Cordova, who in 1488 bore his other son, Ferdinand, out of wedlock. He never married her, though he provided for her in his will and legitimatized the boy, as Castilian law permitted.

Preparations for the First Voyage

In 1492 Columbus resumed negotiations with the rulers. The discussions soon broke down, apparently because of the heavy demands by Columbus, who now prepared to abandon Spain and try Charles VIII of France. Father Pérez saved Columbus from this probably fruitless endeavor by an eloquent appeal to the Queen. Columbus was called back, and in April he and the rulers agreed to the Capitulations of Santa Fe, by which they guaranteed him more than half the future profits and promised his family the hereditary governorship of all lands annexed to Castile.

Financing proved difficult, but three ships were prepared in the harbor of Palos. The largest, the 100-ton Santa Maria, was a round-bottomed nao with both square and lateen sails; the caravel Pinta was square-rigged; and the small Niña, also a caravel, had lateen sails. Recruitment proved hard, and sailing might have been delayed had not the Pinzón brothers, mariners and leading citizens of Palos, come to Columbus's aid and persuaded seamen to enlist. The eldest brother, Martin Alonso, took command of the Pinta, and a younger brother, Vicente Yañez, commanded the Niña.

The Departure

The fleet left Palos on Aug. 3, 1492, and, visiting the Canaries, followed the parallel of Gomera westward. Weather remained good during the entire crossing, "like April in Andalusia," as Columbus wrote in his diary, and contrary to popular tales, there was no serious threat of mutiny.

By mid-Atlantic, Columbus evidently concluded he had missed Antilia, so Cipango became his next goal. Landfall came at dawn of October 12, at the Bahama island of Guanahani, straightway renamed San Salvador by Columbus (probably modern San Salvador, or Watlings Island). Arawak natives flocked to the shore and made friends with the Spaniards as they landed. Believing himself in the East Indies, Columbus called them "Indians," a name ultimately applied to all New World aborigines.

The ships next passed among other Bahamas to Colba (Cuba), where the gold available proved disappointing. Turning eastward, Columbus crossed to Quisqueya, renamed Española (Hispaniola), where on Christmas Eve the Santa Maria ran aground near Cap-Haitien. No lives were lost and most of the equipment was salvaged. As relations with the local Taino Arawaks seemed good and Columbus wished to return to Spain immediately, he built a settlement named Navidad for the Santa Maria's crew and left, promising to return in a few months.

The Return

Columbus recrossed the Atlantic by a more northerly route than on his outward passage and reached Europe safely. He had an interview with John II of Portugal, who, by a farfetched interpretation of an old treaty with Castile, claimed the new western islands for himself. Columbus then sailed to Palos and crossed Spain to the court at Barcelona, bearing the artifacts he had brought from Hispaniola and conducting several natives he had induced or forced to accompany him. Strong evidence also suggests that his crew brought syphilis, apparently never reported in Europe before and known to have been endemic in mild form among the Arawaks.

Regarding John II's territorial claims, Isabella and Ferdinand appealed to Pope Alexander VI, an Aragonese Spaniard, for confirmation of their rights, and in 1493 the Pope obliged, granting Castile complete rights west of a line from pole to pole in the Atlantic. But the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) established a new line, from pole to pole, 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands. Spain was entitled to claim and occupy all non-Christian lands west of the line, and Portugal all those to the east.

Second Voyage

Following an enthusiastic reception by Ferdinand and Isabella, "Admiral" Columbus prepared for a second voyage. He sailed from Cadiz with 17 ships and about 1,200 men in September 1493. Columbus entered the West Indies near Dominica, which he discovered and named. Passing westward and touching Marie Galante, Guadeloupe, and other Lesser Antilles, the fleet came to large Borinquén (modern Puerto Rico).

On reaching the Navidad settlement on Hispaniola, Columbus found the place destroyed. The Spaniards had made themselves so hated in their quest of gold and women that Chief Caonabo, more warlike than the others, had exterminated them. Another settlement, Isabela, proved an equally unfortunate location, and in 1495 or 1496 Bartolomé Columbus founded Santo Domingo on the south side of Hispaniola.

From Isabela the Admiral sent home most of the ships, though retaining the bulk of the men. He dispatched expeditions into the center of the island in search of gold and accompanied one in person. Meanwhile, he installed himself as governor of Hispaniola, intending it to be a trading post for commerce with the rich Oriental empires he expected soon to discover.

Exploration in the Caribbean

Columbus now decided to explore Cuba further by tracing the island's southern coast. With three ships, including his favorite Niña, he left Isabela in the spring of 1494 and followed the Cuban coast nearly to its western end. Indians told him of Jamaica not far to the south, and the Admiral turned that way, discovered the island, and had several fights with hostile natives. Returning to the Cuban shore, Columbus sailed to Bahía Cortés, where leaky ships and sailors' complaints forced him to put back.

Back in Hispaniola, Columbus found the Spanish settlers unruly and nearly impossible to govern. Complaints against Columbus reached the Castilian court in such numbers that he at last decided to go to Spain to clear his name. He left in the Niña in March 1496 and reached Cadiz in June. Bartolomé, with the rank of adelantado, remained to govern the colony in his absence.

Third Voyage

The Admiral's reception at court was visibly cooler, but Vasco da Gama's departure from Portugal for India in 1497 caused the Spanish rulers to dispatch Columbus again the following year. There were reports of a great continent south of the Admiral's previous discoveries, and Columbus left Sanlúcar de Barrameda with six ships late in May 1498.

The first land sighted had three hills in view, which suggested the Holy Trinity, and Columbus promptly named the island Trinidad. Since it lies by the Gulf of Paria and the Venezuelan mainland, the Admiral became the discoverer of South America on Aug. 1, 1498. The welcome discovery of pearls from oysters in the shallow waters of offshore islands caused the name "Pearl Coast" to be applied for a time to Venezuela, which Columbus even then recognized as a land of continental proportions because of the volume of water flowing from one of its rivers.

Rebellion and Arrest

The Admiral had left Hispaniolan affairs in bad condition 2 years earlier and now hastened to return there and relieve his hard-pressed brother. On arrival he succeeded in partially quieting by compromise a revolt headed by Francisco Roldán, an officeholder, and resumed his governor-ship. But so many letters of complaint had gone back to Castile regarding the Columbus brothers that the rulers sent out a royal commissioner, Francisco de Bobadilla, with full powers to act as he saw best.

Bobadilla was honest and meant well, but he had already formed a bad opinion of the Columbus family. He put the Admiral and the adelantado in chains and sent them to Spain. Andrés Martin, commanding the ship in which they sailed, offered to remove the shackles, but the Admiral refused permission, as he meant to appear fettered before the sovereigns. On arrival in Cadiz in late November 1500, Columbus went to court to receive a kind welcome and assurance by the monarchs that the chains and imprisonment had not been by their orders.

In 1501 the Admiral began preparing for a fourth voyage. The fleet, consisting of four ships, left Cadiz on May 9, 1502, arriving in Santo Domingo on June 29. The Admiral next sailed to Guanaja Island off Honduras, then down the coast of Central America. When Columbus learned from the natives about another saltwater body, the Pacific, not far away, he felt certain that he was coasting the Malay Peninsula, of which he had learned through the writings of Ptolemy. A strait or open water should permit entry to the Indian Ocean. Although Columbus followed the coast nearly to the Gulf of Darien, he found no strait.

In April 1503 the ships left the mainland, but the hulls were thoroughly bored by teredos and had to be abandoned as unseaworthy in Jamaica. The Admiral and his crews were marooned in Jamaica for a year, during which time Diego Mendez and Bartolomeo Fieschi fetched a small caravel from Hispaniola. Columbus finally reached Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Spain, on Nov. 7, 1504.

Columbus had 18 months of life remaining, and they were unhappy. Though only 53 he was physically an aged man, a sufferer from arthritis and the effects of a bout of malaria. But financially his position was good, as he had brought considerable gold from America and had a claim to much more in Hispaniola. He died in Valladolid on May 20, 1506.

Further Reading

The best works on Columbus are Samuel Eliot Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus (2 vols. and 1 vol. condensation, 1942), which concentrates on the nautical aspects, and, in Spanish, Antonio Ballesteros y Beretta, Cristóbal Colón y el descubrimiento de América (2 vols., 1945), which discusses all phases of Columbus's career. Invaluable as a source is the 1959 translation by Benjamin Keen of Fernando Colón, The Life of the Admiral Christopher Columbus by His Son Ferdinand (1571). Marianne Mahn-Lot, Columbus (1960; trans. 1961), gives a brief and accurate account of the discoverer's life.

More specialized works are Samuel Eliot Morison, The Second Voyage of Christopher Columbus (1939), which traces this voyage until the arrival at Hispaniola, and George E. Nunn, The Geographical Conceptions of Columbus: A Critical Consideration of Four Problems (1924), which has not found general acceptance. A more convincing work by Nunn is The Columbus and Magellan Concepts of South American Geography (1932). Columbus's voyages are discussed in Samuel Eliot Morison, The European Discovery of America: The Northern Voyages (1971). Older works that still have considerable value are Washington Irving, A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (3-and 4-vol. eds., 1828), and John Boyd Thacher, Christopher Columbus: His Life, His Work, His Remains (3 vols., 1903-1904).

Writings devoted to unusual theses are Henry Vignaud, Toscanelli and Columbus: The Letter and Chart of Toscanelli (1901; trans. 1902), which maintains that the Toscanelli letters were forgeries; Salvador de Madariaga, Christopher Columbus (1939; 2d ed. 1949), which proves to the author's satisfaction that Columbus was a Jew; and Edmundo O'Gorman, The Invention of America (1958; trans. 1961), which asserts that Columbus was not a discoverer because he had no intention of making a discovery and never thought he had made one.

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Christopher Columbus

(born between Aug. 26 and Oct. 31?, 1451, Genoa — died May 20, 1506, Valladolid, Spain) Genoese navigator and explorer whose transatlantic voyages opened the way for European exploration, exploitation, and colonization of the Americas. He began his career as a young seaman in the Portuguese merchant marine. In 1492 he obtained the sponsorship of the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand II and Isabella I for an attempt to reach Asia by sailing westward over what was presumed to be open sea. On his first voyage he set sail in August 1492 with three ships — the Santa María, the Niña, and the Pinta — and land was sighted in the Bahamas on October 12. He sailed along the northern coast of Hispaniola and returned to Spain in 1493. He made a second voyage (1493 – 96) with at least 17 ships and founded La Isabela (in what is now the Dominican Republic), the first European town in the New World. This voyage also began Spain's effort to promote Christian evangelization. On his third voyage (1498 – 1500) he reached South America and the Orinoco River delta. Allegations of his poor administration led to his being returned to Spain in chains. On his fourth voyage (1502 – 04) he returned to South America and sailed along the coasts of present-day Honduras and Panama. He was unable to attain his goals of nobility and great wealth. His character and achievements have long been debated, but scholars generally agree that he was an intrepid and brilliant navigator.

For more information on Christopher Columbus, visit Britannica.com.

 
Spotlight: Christopher Columbus

From our Archives: Today's Highlights, August 3, 2005

On this date in 1492, Christopher Columbus set sail from Palos, Spain, on a voyage that would take him to the present-day Americas. His trip financed by Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, Columbus sailed across the Atlantic with three ships, Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria, on a quest to show that one could get to India by sailing west. Columbus and his compatriots made landfall somewhere in the Bahamas.
 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Columbus, Christopher,
Ital. Cristoforo Colombo (krēstô'fōrō kōlôm'), Span. Cristóbal Colón (krēstō'bäl kōlōn'), 1451–1506, European explorer, b. Genoa, Italy.

Early Years

Columbus spent some of his early years at his father's trade of weaving and later became a sailor on the Mediterranean. Shipwrecked near the Portuguese coast in 1476, he made his way to Lisbon, where his younger brother, Bartholomew, an expert chart maker, lived. Columbus, too, became a chart maker for a brief time in that great maritime center during the golden era of Portuguese exploration. Engaged as a sugar buyer in the Portuguese islands off Africa (the Azores, Cape Verde, and Madeira) by a Genoese mercantile firm, he met pilots and navigators who believed in the existence of islands farther west. It was at this time that he made his last visit to his native city, but he always remained a Genoese, never becoming a naturalized citizen of any other country. Returning to Lisbon, he married (1479?) the well-born Dona Filipa Perestrello e Moniz.

By the time he was 31 or 32, Columbus had become a master mariner in the Portuguese merchant service. It is thought by some that he was greatly influenced by his brother, Bartholomew, who may have accompanied Bartholomew Diaz on his voyage to the Cape of Good Hope, and by Martín Alonso Pinzón, the pilot who commanded the Pinta on the first voyage. Columbus was but one among many who believed one could reach land by sailing west. His uniqueness lay rather in the persistence of his dream and his determination to realize this “Enterprise of the Indies,” as he called his plan. Seeking support for it, he was repeatedly rebuffed, first at the court of John II of Portugal and then at the court of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. Finally, after eight years of supplication by Columbus, the Spanish monarchs, having conquered Granada, decided to risk the enterprise.

Voyages to the New World

First Expedition

On Aug. 3, 1492, Columbus sailed from Palos, Spain, with three small ships, the Santa María, commanded by Columbus himself, the Pinta under Martín Pinzón, and the Niña under Vicente Yáñez Pinzón. After halting at the Canary Islands, he sailed due west from Sept. 6 until Oct. 7, when he changed his course to the southwest. On Oct. 10 a small mutiny was quelled, and on Oct. 12 he landed on a small island (Watling Island; see San Salvador) in the Bahamas. He took possession for Spain and, with impressed natives aboard, discovered other islands in the neighborhood. On Oct. 27 he sighted Cuba and on Dec. 5 reached Hispaniola.

On Christmas Eve the Santa María was wrecked on the north coast of Hispaniola, and Columbus, leaving men there to found a colony, hurried back to Spain on the Niña. His reception was all he could wish; according to his contract with the Spanish sovereigns he was made “admiral of the ocean sea” and governor-general of all new lands he had discovered or should discover.

Second Expedition

Fitted out with a large fleet of 17 ships, with 1,500 colonists aboard, Columbus sailed from Cádiz in Oct., 1493. His landfall this time was made in the Lesser Antilles, and his new discoveries included the Leeward Islands and Puerto Rico. The admiral arrived at Hispaniola to find the first colony destroyed by the indigenous natives. He founded a new colony nearby, then sailed off in the summer of 1494 to explore the southern coast of Cuba. After discovering Jamaica he returned to Hispaniola and found the colonists, interested only in finding gold, completely disorderly; his attempts to enforce strict discipline led some to seize vessels and return to Spain to complain of his administration. Leaving his brother Bartholomew in charge at Hispaniola, Columbus also returned to Spain in 1496.

Third Expedition

On his third expedition, in 1498, Columbus was forced to transport convicts as colonists, because of the bad reports on conditions in Hispaniola and because the novelty of the New World was wearing off. He sailed still farther south and made his landfall on Trinidad. He sailed across the mouth of the Orinoco River (in present Venezuela) and realized that he saw a continent, but without further exploration he hurried back to Hispaniola to administer his colony. In 1500 an independent governor arrived, sent by Isabella and Ferdinand as the result of reports on the wretched conditions in the colony, and he sent Columbus back to Spain in chains. The admiral was immediately released, but his favor was on the wane; other navigators, including Amerigo Vespucci, had been in the New World and established much of the coast line of NE South America.

Fourth Expedition

It was 1502 before Columbus finally gathered together four ships for a fourth expedition, by which he hoped to reestablish his reputation. If he could sail past the islands and far enough west, he hoped he might still find lands answering to the description of Asia or Japan. He struck the coast of Honduras in Central America and coasted southward along an inhospitable shore, suffering terrible hardships, until he reached the Gulf of Darién. Attempting to return to Hispaniola, he was marooned on Jamaica. After his rescue, he was forced to abandon his hopes and return to Spain. Although his voyages were of great importance, Columbus died in relative neglect, having had to petition King Ferdinand in an attempt to secure his promised titles and wealth.

Historical Perspective

Columbus was not the first European mariner to sail to the New World—the Vikings set up colonies (c.1000) in Greenland and Newfoundland (see Leif Ericsson and Thorfinn Karlsefni)—but his voyages mark the beginning of continuous European efforts to explore and colonize the Americas. Although historians for centuries disputed his skill as a navigator, it has been proved that with only dead reckoning Columbus was unsurpassed in charting and finding his way about unknown seas. During the 1980s and 90s the long-standing image of Columbus as a hero was tarnished by criticism from Native Americans and revisionist historians. With the 500th anniversary of his first voyage in 1992, interpretations of his motives and impact varied. Although he was always judged to be vain, ambitious, desirous of wealth, and ruthless, traditional historians viewed his voyages as opening the New World to Western civilization and Christianity. For revisionist historians, however, his voyages symbolize the more brutal aspects of European colonization and represent the beginning of the destruction of Native American peoples and culture. One point of agreement among all interpretations is that his voyages were one of the turning points in history.

Bibliography

See J. M. Cohen, comp., The Four Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1969); biographies by S. E. Morison (1942), E. D. S. Bradford (1973), H. Koning (1982), and F. Fernández-Armesto (1991); J. Axtell, Beyond 1492 (1992); W. D. and C. R. Philips, The Worlds of Christopher Columbus (1992); M. Dugard, The Last Voyage of Columbus (2005).

 
History 1450-1789: Christopher Columbus

Columbus, Christopher (Cristofor Colombo, 1451–1506), explorer. Born in the Italian republic of Genoa, Columbus acted as a mariner in the Mediterranean and joined the Italian merchant colony in Lisbon in the 1470s. From Portugal, he sailed north to England, Ireland, and possibly Iceland. He also visited Madeira and the Canary Islands and sailed down the African coast to São Jorge da Mina. By his marriage to Felipa Perestrello e Moniz, member of an Italian-Portuguese noble family, he gained access to the Portuguese and Castilian royal courts.

Columbus became convinced that Asia could be reached by sailing west from Europe, based on rumors of undiscovered islands in the Atlantic, unusual objects found on Atlantic shores, and a wide reading of geography and other sources. He believed that the Earth's circumference was smaller than it is and that Asia would not be too far west from Europe.

After failing to interest the Portuguese king John II in his scheme for a westward passage to Asia, Columbus went to Spain. The Spanish monarchs, Isabella and Ferdinand, assigned experts to investigate the feasibility of a westward voyage. They disputed Columbus's flawed geography, but the spherical shape of the world was never in question. In early 1492, the monarchs, disregarding the skepticism of their experts, agreed to help support Columbus's first voyage at a modest financial risk. They promised to grant him noble status and the titles of admiral, viceroy, and governor-general for any lands he might discover.

With the support of the prominent mariner Martín Alonso Pinzón, Columbus outfitted three vessels for the voyage: the Niña, Pinta, and Mariagalante (Santa María). Leaving in early August of 1492, the fleet sailed first to the Canary Islands and then headed westward with following winds. Columbus and the other pilots in the fleet navigated by dead reckoning, estimating direction by compass, time by sand clock, and speed by eye and feel to plot their course and position.

Early on 12 October the fleet dropped anchor at an island that Columbus renamed San Salvador. Believing they were in Asia, the crew called the natives "Indians." Shortly thereafter, Martín Alonso Pinzón took the Pinta and sailed off to explore and trade on his own. Columbus visited Cuba, vainly seeking the vast commerce and rich ports of Asia, and then sailed to the island he named Hispaniola and explored its northern coast. After the Mariagalante ran aground and wrecked, Columbus founded a settlement for the thirty-nine men he left behind. After Pinzón returned, the Ninña and Pinta set sail for Spain, with seven captured Indians aboard.

Columbus made three other voyages to the Caribbean islands and the mainland of Central and South America. During the second and third he was required to act as a colonial administrator as well as an explorer; his limited administrative skills contributed to growing chaos. A royal investigator arrested Columbus and sent him back to Spain, thus ending his third voyage. The Spanish monarchs allowed him to keep his property, but his titles were thereafter devoid of authority, as the monarchs established a new colonial administration.

On his fourth and final voyage, Columbus mainly explored the coast of Central America, where he encountered fierce local resistance. Turning back, he grounded his two remaining worn-out vessels on the Jamaican coast and spent a miserable year before being rescued. Broken in health, he arrived in Spain on 7 November 1504.

Columbus made every effort to have all his grants and titles restored. Even without them, he was a wealthy man, but he felt betrayed and slighted by his royal patrons. For their part, the Spanish sovereigns justified their withdrawal of support by citing Columbus's mismanagement. Surrounded by family and friends, Columbus died in 1506, rich but dissatisfied. As a man of his time, Columbus was strongly influenced by contemporary norms and beliefs about commerce, religion, and science. Deeply religious, he hoped to supply funds to recapture Jerusalem from the Muslims, in fulfillment of Christian crusading ideas and millenarian prophecies. At the same time, he was a shrewd businessman and used geographical and scientific works in newly available printed editions, making scientific observations of sea and wind and flora and fauna. He attempted to calculate longitude, noted the difference between true and magnetic north, and accurately predicted a lunar eclipse. Instead of finding a new route to Asia, Columbus made the lands and peoples of the Western Hemisphere known to Europeans and set in motion a chain of events that engendered today's close connections among all the world's societies.

Bibliography

Primary Source

Columbus, Christopher. Textos y documentos completos, nuevas cartas. Edited by Consuelo Varela and Juan Gil. Madrid, 1992.

Secondary Sources

Henige, David. In Search of Columbus: The Sources for the First Voyage. Tucson, Ariz., 1991.

Phillips, William D., Jr., and Carla Rahn Phillips. The Worlds of Christopher Columbus. Cambridge, U.K., and New York, 1992.

—WILLIAM D. PHILLIPS, JR.

 
History Dictionary: Columbus, Christopher

An Italian explorer responsible for the European discovery of America in 1492. He had sailed across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain, under the patronage of the king and queen, Ferdinand and Isabella, hoping to find a westward route to India. His ships were the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. Columbus made four voyages to the New World, visiting the Bahamas, Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Trinidad, Venezuela, and the coast of Central America.

 
Wikipedia: Christopher Columbus


Christopher Columbus
Christopher_Columbus_Face.jpg

Portrait by Alejo Fernández, painted between 1505 and 1536. Photo by historian Manuel Rosa.

Born c. 1451
disputed, Genoa, Italy usually accepted
Died May 20 1506
outside Valladolid, Spain
Occupation Maritime explorer for the Crown of Castile
Religious stance Christianity

Christopher Columbus (1451May 20, 1506) was a navigator, colonizer and one of the first Europeans to explore the Americas after the Vikings. Though not the first to reach the Americas from Europe, Columbus' voyages led to general European awareness of the hemisphere and the successful establishment of European cultures in the New World. It is generally believed that he was born in Genoa, although other theories exist. The name Christopher Columbus is the Anglicization of the Latin Christophorus Columbus. Also well known are his name's rendering in modern Italian as Cristoforo Colombo and in Spanish as Cristóbal Colón.

Columbus' voyages across the Atlantic Ocean began a European effort at exploration and colonization of the Western Hemisphere. While history places great significance on his first voyage of 1492, he did not actually reach the South American mainland until his third voyage in 1498. Instead, he discovered San Salvador Island accidentally while trying to find an alternative route to India, hence the Native Americans being called "Indians". Likewise, he was not the earliest European explorer to reach the Americas, and there are accounts of European transatlantic contact prior to 1492. Nevertheless, Columbus's voyage came at a critical time of growing national imperialism and economic competition between developing nation states seeking wealth from the establishment of trade routes and colonies. The term Pre-Columbian is sometimes used to refer to the peoples and cultures of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus and further European influence.

The anniversary of the 1492 voyage (vd. Columbus Day) is observed throughout the Americas and in Spain.

Life

Nationality


It is most widely accepted that Columbus was born in the Republic of Genoa, located in modern-day Italy.[1] 188 notarial, judicial, and administrative documents about some Columbus and his family have been found in the "Archivio di Stato" (national record office) of Genoa, Italy.[2] Some writers hold that his background was Spanish, Portuguese or Greek,[3] but no conclusive evidence has ever been offered. Clues to Columbus' origin such as learned languages and DNA samples have been studied, but to date, DNA tests show only that Columbus was Caucasian, and probably was not (as some have argued) a Sephardic Jew (Spanish/Portuguese)[4]. There was one document, the Last Will and Testament of 1498, where Columbus supposedly said he was from Genoa, but it has now been proven to have been falsified after 1573. [5]

Early life

According to the most widely acknowledged biographies, Columbus was born between August and October 1451 in Genoa. His father was Domenico Colombo, a middle-class wool weaver working between Genoa and Savona. His mother was Susanna Fontanarossa. Bartolomeo, Giovanni Pellegrino and Giacomo were his brothers. Bartolomeo worked in a cartography workshop in Lisbon for at least part of his adulthood.[1]

While information about Columbus' early years is scarce, he probably received an incomplete education. He spoke a Genoese dialect. In one of his writings, Columbus claims to have gone to the sea at the age of 10. In 1470 the Columbus Family moved to Savona, where Domenico took over a tavern. In the same year, Columbus was on a Genoese ship hired in the service of René I of Anjou to support his attempt to conquer the Kingdom of Naples. In 1473 Columbus began his apprenticeship as business agent for the important Centurione, Di Negro and Spinola families of Genoa. Later he allegedly made a trip to Chios, in the Aegean Sea. In May 1476, he took part in an armed convoy sent by Genoa to carry a valuable cargo to northern Europe. He docked in Bristol, Galway, in Ireland and very likely, in 1477 he was in Iceland.
In 1479 Columbus reached his brother Bartolomeo in Lisbon, keeping on trading for the Centurione family.
He married Filipa Moniz, daughter of the Porto Santo governor, Bartolomeo Perestrello.
In 1481, his son, Diego was born.

Physical appearance

Christopher Columbus, conjectural image by Sebastiano del Piombo in the  Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
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Christopher Columbus, conjectural image by Sebastiano del Piombo in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Although an abundance of artwork involving Christopher Columbus exists, no authentic contemporary portrait has been found. The only official portrait was painted by Alejo Fernández, between 1505 and 1536, titled Virgen de los Navegantes in the Royal Alcazar in Seville. In 1595 Theodore de Bry made an etching after a painting of Columbus, made in his lifetime.[6] The etching shows resemblance with the portrait of Sebastiano del Piombo, so this painting might depict Columbus with some accuracy. Over the years, artists who reconstruct his appearance have done so from written descriptions. These writings describe him as having reddish hair, which turned to white early in his life, as well as being a lighter skinned person with too much sun exposure turning his face red.

Despite the clear description of red hair or white hair, textbooks use the Sebastiano del Piombo painting so often that it has become the iconic image of Columbus accepted by popular culture.

Language

See also: Origin theories of Christopher Columbus#Language

Although Genoese documents have been found about a weaver named Colombo, some letters which are said to have been written by Columbus are written in a nonstandard form of Spanish mixed with Portuguese or Catalan phonetics. He used this language when writing personal notes to himself, to his brother, Italian friends, and to the Bank of Genoa. Two of his brothers, also accepted as being wool weavers from Genoa, understood and wrote this form of Spanish/Portuguese as well. Genoese Italian was a language generally written by Genoa's schooled people at that time; the average person from Genoa naturally spoke a Genoese variant of Italian.

In later years, Columbus mastered the use of Latin. He kept a journal in Latin as well as a more private journal in Greek.

Background to voyages

Navigation plans

Europe had long enjoyed a safe land passage to China and India— sources of valued goods such as silk, spices, and opiates— under the hegemony of the Mongol Empire (the Pax Mongolica, or Mongol peace). With the Fall of Constantinople to the Muslims in 1453, the land route to Asia became more difficult. The Ottoman conquest of Egypt similarly impeded the Red Sea route. Portuguese sailors took to traveling south around Africa to Asia. The Columbus brothers had a different idea. By the 1480s, they had developed a plan to travel to the Indies, then construed roughly as all of south and east Asia, by sailing directly west across the "Ocean Sea," i.e., the Atlantic.

Following Washington Irving's myth-filled 1828 biography of Columbus, Americans commonly believed Columbus had difficulty obtaining support for his plan because Europeans thought the Earth was flat.[7] In fact, few at the time of Columbus’s voyage, and virtually no sailors or navigators, believed this.[8] Most agreed that the Earth was a sphere. This had been the general opinion of ancient Greek science, and continued as the standard opinion (for example of Bede in The Reckoning of Time) until scholars misread Isidore of Seville to say the earth was a disk, inventing the T and O map concept. This view was very influential, but never wholly accepted. Knowledge of the Earth's spherical nature was not limited to scientists: for instance, Dante's Divine Comedy is based on a spherical Earth. Columbus put forth arguments based on the circumference of the sphere. Most scholars accepted Ptolemy's claim 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, believed the calculations of Marinus of Tyre, putting the landmass at 225 degrees, leaving only 135 degrees of water. Moreover, Columbus believed one degree represented a shorter distance on the earth's surface than was commonly held. Finally, he read maps as if the distances were calculated in Italian miles (1,238 meters). Accepting the length of a degree to be 56⅔ miles, from the writings of Alfraganus, he therefore calculated the circumference of the Earth as 25,255 kilometers at most, and the distance from the Canary Islands to Japan as 3,000 Italian miles (3,700 km, or 2,300 statute miles) Columbus did not realize Al-Farghani used the much longer Arabic mile (about 1,830 meters).

Columbus' problem was that experts did not accept his estimate. The true circumference of the Earth is about 40,000 km (25,000 sm), a figure established by Eratosthenes in the second century BC,[9] and the distance from the Canary Islands to Japan 19,600 km (12,200 sm). No ship that was readily available in the 15th century could carry enough food and fresh water for such a journey. Most European sailors and navigators concluded, likely correctly, that sailors undertaking a westward voyage from Europe to Asia non-stop would die of thirst or starvation long before reaching their destination. Spain, however, having completed an expensive war, was desperate for a competitive edge over other European countries in trade with the East Indies. Columbus promised such an advantage.

While Columbus' calculations underestimated the circumference of the Earth and the distance from the Canary Islands to Japan by the standards of his peers as well as in fact, almost all Europeans held the mistaken opinion that the aquatic expanse between Europe and Asia was uninterrupted. As the 16th century developed it was the route to America, rather than to Japan, that gave Spain a competitive edge in developing an overseas empire.

Funding campaign

In 1485, Columbus presented his plans to John II, King of Portugal. He proposed the king equip three sturdy ships and grant Columbus one year's time to sail out into the Atlantic, search for a western route to Orient, and then return home. Columbus also requested he be made "Great Admiral of the Ocean", created governor of any and all lands he discovered, and given one-tenth of all revenue from those lands discovered. The king submitted the proposal to his experts, who rejected it. It was their considered opinion that Columbus' proposed route of 2,400 miles was, in fact, far too short.[10]

In 1488 Columbus appealed to the court of Portugal once again, and once again John invited him to an audience. It too was to come to nothing, for not long afterwards came the arrival of Portugal's native son Bartholomeu Dias from a successful rounding of the southern tip of Africa. Portugal was no longer interested in trailblazing a western route to the East.

Columbus traveled from Portugal once more to both Genoa and Venice, but he received encouragement from neither. Previously he had his brother sound out Henry VII of England, to see if the English monarch might not be more amenable to Columbus' proposal. After much carefully considered hesitation Henry's invitation came, too late. Columbus had already committed himself to Spain.

Columbus and Queen Isabella. Detail of the Columbus monument in Madrid (1885).
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Columbus and Queen Isabella. Detail of the Columbus monument in Madrid (1885).

He had sought an audience from the monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, who had united the largest kingdoms of Spain by marrying, and were ruling together. On May 1, 1486, permission having been granted, Columbus laid his plans before Queen Isabella, who, in turn, referred it to a committee. After the passing of much time, these savants of Spain, like their counterparts in Portugal, reported back that Columbus had judged the distance to Asia much too short. They pronounced the idea impractical, and advised their Royal Highnesses to pass on the proposed venture.

However, to keep Columbus from taking his ideas elsewhere, and perhaps to keep their options open, the King and Queen of Spain gave him an annual annuity of 12,000 maravedis ($840) and in 1489 furnished him with a letter ordering all Spanish cities and towns to provide him food and lodging at no cost.[11]

After continually lobbying at the Spanish court, he finally had success 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 Alcázar castle. Isabella turned Columbus down on the advice of her confessor, and he was leaving town in despair, when Ferdinand intervened. Isabella then sent a royal guard to fetch him and Ferdinand later rightfully claimed credit for being "the principal cause why those islands were discovered". King Ferdinand is referred to as "losing his patience" in this issue, but this cannot be proven.

About half of the financing was to come from private Italian investors, whom Columbus had already lined up. Financially broke after 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 Seas" and would receive a portion of all profits. The terms were unusually generous, but as his own son later wrote, the monarchs did not really expect him to return.

According to the contract that Columbus made with King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, if Columbus discovered any new islands or mainland, he would receive many high rewards. In terms of power, he would be given the rank of Admiral of the Ocean Sea (Atlantic Ocean) and appointed Viceroy and Governor of all the new lands. He had the right to nominate three persons, from whom the sovereigns would choose one, for any office in the new lands. He would be entitled to 10 percent of all the revenues from the new lands in perpetuity; this part was denied to him in the contract, although it was one of his demands. Finally, he would also have the option of buying one-eighth interest in any commercial venture with the new lands and receive one-eighth of the profits.

Columbus was later arrested in 1500 and supplanted from these posts. After his death, Columbus's sons, Diego and Fernando, took legal action to enforce their father's contract. Many of the smears against Columbus were initiated by the Spanish crown during these lengthy court cases, known as the pleitos colombinos. The family had some success in their first litigation, as a judgment of 1511 confirmed Diego's position as Viceroy, but reduced his powers. Diego resumed litigation in 1512, which lasted until 1536, and further disputes continued until 1790.[12]

Voyages


First voyage

First voyage.
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First voyage.
A depiction of Columbus claiming possession of the New World in a chromolithograph made by the Prang Education Company in 1893.
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A depiction of Columbus claiming possession of the New World in a chromolithograph made by the Prang Education Company in 1893.

On the evening of August 3, 1492, Columbus departed from Palos with three ships; one larger carrack, Santa María, nicknamed Gallega (the Gallician), and two smaller caravels, Pinta (the Painted) and Santa Clara, nicknamed Niña (the Girl). (The ships were never officially named).[citation needed] They were property of Juan de la Cosa and the Pinzón brothers (Martin Alonzo and Vicente Yáñez), but the monarchs forced the Palos inhabitants to contribute to the expedition. Columbus first sailed to the Canary Islands, which was owned by Castile, where he restocked the provisions and made repairs, and on September 6, he started what turned out to be a five-week voyage across the ocean.

Land was sighted at 2 a.m. on October 12, 1492, by a sailor named Rodrigo de Triana (also known as Juan Rodríguez Bermejo) aboard Pinta.[13] (Columbus would claim the prize.) Columbus called the island (in what is now The Bahamas) San Salvador, although the natives called it Guanahani. Exactly which island in the Bahamas this corresponds to is an unresolved topic; prime candidates are Samana Cay, Plana Cays, or San Salvador Island (named San Salvador in 1925 in the belief that it was Columbus's San Salvador). The indigenous people he encountered, the Lucayan, Taíno or Arawak, were peaceful and friendly. In his journal he wrote of them, "It appears to me, that the people are ingenious, and would be good servants and I am of opinion that they would very readily become Christians, as they appear to have no religion." He also wrote of them, two days after landing, "I could conquer the whole of them with 50 men, and govern them as I pleased." [14]

Captain's Ensign of Columbus' Ships
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Captain's Ensign of Columbus' Ships

Columbus also explored the northeast coast of Cuba (landed on October 28) and the northern coast of Hispaniola, by December 5. Here, the Santa Maria ran aground on Christmas morning 1492 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 left 39 men and founded the settlement of La Navidad in what is now present-day Haiti. Before returning to Spain, Columbus also kidnapped some ten to twenty-five Indians and took them back with him. Only seven or eight of the Indians arrived in Spain alive, but they made quite an impression on Seville.[13]

Columbus headed for Spain, but another storm forced him into Lisbon. He anchored next to the King's harbor patrol ship on March 4, 1493 in Portugal. After spending more than one week in Portugal, he set sail for Spain. He reached Spain on March 15, 1493. Word of his finding new lands rapidly spread throughout Europe:

"Columbus's report to the royal court in Madrid was extravagant. He insisted he had reached Asia (it was Cuba) and an island off the coast of China (Hispaniola). His descriptions were part fact, part fiction: Hispaniola is a miracle. Mountains and hills, plains and pastures, are both fertile and beautiful, the harbors are very good and there are many wide rivers of which the majority contain gold, There are many spices, and great mines of gold and other metals."[15]

Second voyage

Second voyage.
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Second voyage.

Columbus left Cádiz, Spain, on September 24, 1493 to find new territories, with 17 ships carrying supplies, and about 1,200 men to colonize the region. On October 13, the ships left the Canary Islands as they had on the first voyage, following a more southerly course.

On November 3, 1493, Columbus sighted a rugged island that he named Dominica (Latin for Sunday); later that day, he landed at Marie-Galante, which he named Santa Maria la Galante. After sailing past Les Saintes (Los Santos, The Saints), he arrived at Guadeloupe (Santa María de Guadalupe de Extremadura, after the image of the Virgin Mary venerated at the Spanish monastery of Villuercas, in Guadalupe, Spain), which he explored between November 4 and November 10, 1493.

The exact course of his voyage through the Lesser Antilles is debated, but it seems likely that he turned north, sighting and naming several islands, including Montserrat (for Santa Maria de Montserrate, after the Blessed Virgin of the Monastery of Montserrat, which is located on the Mountain of Montserrat, in Catalonia, Spain), Antigua (after a church in Seville, Spain, called Santa Maria la Antigua, meaning "Old St. Mary's"), Redonda (for Santa Maria la Redonda, Spanish for "round", owing to the island's shape), Nevis (derived from the Spanish, Nuestra Señora de las Nieves, meaning "Our Lady of the Snows", because Columbus thought the clouds over Nevis Peak made the island resemble a snow-capped mountain), Saint Kitts (for St. Christopher, patron of sailors and travelers), Sint Eustatius (for the early Roman martyr, St. Eustachius), Saba (also for St. Christopher?), Saint Martin (San Martin), and Saint Croix (Santa Cruz, meaning "Holy Cross"). He also sighted the island chain of the Virgin Islands (and named them Islas de Santa Ursula y las Once Mil Virgenes, Saint Ursula and the 11,000 Virgins, a cumbersome name that was usually shortened, both on maps of the time and in common parlance, to Islas Virgenes), and he also named the islands of Virgin Gorda (the fat virgin), Tortola, and Peter Island (San Pedro).

He continued to the Greater Antilles, and landed at Puerto Rico (originally San Juan Bautista, in honor of Saint John the Baptist, a name that was later supplanted by Puerto Rico (English: Rich Port) while the capital retained the name, San Juan) on November 19, 1493. One of the first skirmishes between native Americans and Europeans since the time of the Vikings[16] took place when Columbus's men rescued two boys who had just been castrated by their captors.

On November 22, Columbus returned to Hispaniola, where he intended to visit Fuerte de la Navidad (Christmas Fort), built during his first voyage, and located on the northern coast of Haiti; Fuerte de la Navidad was found in ruins, destroyed by the native Taino people, whereupon, Columbus moved more than 100 kilometers eastwards, establishing a new settlement, which he called La Isabela, likewise on the northern coast of Hispaniola, in the present-day Dominican Republic. However, La Isabela proved to be a poorly-chosen location, and the settlement was short-lived.

He left Hispaniola on April 24, 1494, arrived at Cuba (naming it Juana) on April 30. He explored the southern coast of Cuba, which he believed to be a peninsula rather than an island, and several nearby islands, including the Isle of Pines (Isla de las Pinas, later known as La Evangelista, The Evangelist). He reached Jamaica on May 5. He retraced his route to Hispaniola, arriving on August 20, before he finally returned to Spain.

During this second trip it was registered the rape of an indigenous woman by one of the Colombus' men (Michel de Cuneo) and with his tolerance:

When I was in the ship, I turned into captivity a beautiful caribe woman, given to me as a gift by the Almirant, and after I took her to my stateroom, and while she was naked as their custom is, I felt desires of laying with her. I want to satisfy my desire but she didn’t want and gave me such a treatment with her nails that I think it would be better to never begun. But when I saw this (and to tell you everything up to the end), I take a rope and whipped her, after what she screamed a lot, in such a way you cannot believe your ears. Finally we reached such an agreement that I can tell you she appeared to be trained in a whore school.

Original text:
Mientras estaba en la barca, hice cautiva a una hermosísima mujer caribe, que el susodicho Almirante me regaló, y después que la hube llevado a mi camarote, y estando ella desnuda según es su costumbre, sentí deseos de holgar con ella. Quise cumplir mi deseo pero ella no lo consintió y me dió tal trato con sus uñas que hubiera preferido no haber empezado nunca. Pero al ver esto (y para contártelo todo hasta el final), tomé una cuerda y le di de azotes, después de los cuales echó grandes gritos, tales que no hubieras podido creer tus oídos. Finalmente llegamos a estar tan de acuerdo que puedo decirte que parecía haber sido criada en una escuela de putas.
[17]

Third voyage

Third voyage.
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Third voyage.
Location of city of Sanlúcar de Barrameda, the starting point for Columbus' third journey.
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Location of city of Sanlúcar de Barrameda, the starting point for Columbus' third journey.

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, his wife's native land. 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