Christopher Columbus (1451 – May 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
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).
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
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
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
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
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
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