Many learn of us learn about Christopher Columbus in grade school. We are taught that Columbus discovered the New World and brought civilization to a world that was filled with barbarous people who were cannibals and worshipped multiple Gods. But once you learn the truth surrounding Christopher Columbus, you no longer see him as a respected conquistador (if there is such a thing). Lets dive into the story of Christopher Columbus aka Christophorus Columbus; Ligurian: aka Cristoffa Corombo; Italian: aka Cristoforo Colombo; Spanish: aka Cristóbal Colón.

Christopher Columbus was born in 1451 in the Republic of Genoa. Genoa was an independent state and maritime territory located on the northwestern Italian coast (he was Italian). Genoa served as a depot of drugs, spices, and weaving silk textiles from the East. The Genoese owned most of the trade on the Black Sea. The Genoese had enjoyed a naval ascendency that was the source of their power and position within northern Italy until internal wars and the rise of the Ottoman Turks reduced their trade power. In the 15th century, two of the oldest banks in the world were founded in Genoa, the Bank of Saint George, and Banca Carige. Christopher Columbus donated one-tenth of his income from the discovery of the Americas for Spain to the Bank of Saint George in Genoa for the relief of taxation on foods. 

Columbus went to sea at a young age and travelled widely, as far north as the British Isles and as far south as what is now Ghana. In 1470, the Columbus family moved to Savona and in the same year, Christopher was hired in the service of René of Anjou to support his attempt to conquer the Kingdom of Naples. In 1473, Christopher began his apprenticeship as a business agent for the Centurione, Di Negro, and Spinola families of Genoa. In 1476, he took part in an armed convoy sent by Genoa to carry valuable cargo to northern Europe. From there he sailed on a Portuguese ship from Ireland to Lisbon, Portugal where he continued trading for the Centurione family. Christopher based his operations in Lisbon from 1477 to 1485, where he married Filipa Moniz Perestrelo, daughter of a Porto Santo governor and Portuguese nobleman. He would have one son with her named Diego.

Between 1482 and 1485, Columbus traded (slaves were being traded, along with Gold and other resources) along the coasts of West Africa, reaching the Portuguese trading post of Elmina at the Guinea coast (in present-day Ghana). During this time, Columbus’s wife had died and he had to go back to Portugual and handle his family affairs, including now bringing his son along for the ride. He left Portugal for Castile (Spain) in 1485, where he found a mistress, a 20-year-old orphan named Beatriz Enríquez de Arana. Beatriz likely met Columbus when he was in Córdoba, a gathering site of many Genoese merchants and where the court of the Catholic Monarchs was located. Beatriz gave birth to Columbus’s son Fernando Columbus in July 1488, named after the monarch of Aragon, Ferdinand. 

Columbus was not a scholarly man but he eventually learned Latin, Portuguese, and Castilian. He read widely about astronomy, geography, and history – with a key interest in the distance between continents and lands. Columbus also read the Bible and had a penchant for Biblical prophecies. After the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks, Europeans could no longer safely enjoy the passage to the indies where they could find valuable goods such as spices and silk (like the Genoans did in the past). In 1470, the Florentine astronomer Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli suggested to King Afonso V of Portugal that sailing west across the Atlantic would be a quicker way to reach the Indies, but Afonso rejected his proposal. In 1474, Toscanelli sent Columbus a map with the notion of a westward route to Asia. In the 1480s, the Columbus brothers proposed a plan to reach the Indies by sailing west across the Atlantic Ocean. 

By about 1484, Columbus presented his plans to King John II of Portugal. The king rejected it. Columbus traveled from Portugal to both Genoa and Venice, they rejected it as well. In 1488, Columbus appealed once more to the court of Portugal, that meeting also proved unsuccessful. Columbus then went to the monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, who had united several kingdoms in the Iberian Peninsula by marrying and were ruling together to create the nation of Spain. They believed his plans were impractical. To keep Columbus from taking his ideas elsewhere, and perhaps to keep their options open, the monarchs gave him an allowance, basically keeping him on somewhat of a payroll. Columbus also dispatched his brother Bartholomew to the court of Henry VII of England to inquire whether the English crown might sponsor his expedition, but he was captured by pirates in the process, and only arrived when Columbus was already being re-propositioned by the Spanish crown.The Spanish crown sent Columbus money to buy new clothes and instructions to return to the Spanish court for renewed discussions. 

Columbus waited at King Ferdinand’s camp until Ferdinand and Isabella conquered Granada, the last Muslim stronghold on the Iberian Peninsula. Thereby completely riding Spain of any Muslim influence, turning the entire region Catholic. After several internal conversations, Isabella was finally convinced by the king’s clerk Luis de Santángel, who argued that Columbus would bring his ideas elsewhere, and offered to help arrange the funding. In 1492, in the “Capitulations of Santa Fe” agreement, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella promised Columbus that if he succeeded he would be given the rank of Admiral of the Ocean Sea and appointed Viceroy and Governor of all the new lands he could claim for Spain. 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. Additionally, 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. 

First Voyage – Find the Indies

On the evening of 3 August 1492, Columbus departed from Palos de la Frontera with three ships. The largest was a carrack, the Santa María. The other two were smaller caravels, nicknamed the Pinta (‘painted one’) and the Niña (‘girl’), piloted by the Pinzón brothers(Martín Alonso and Vicente Yáñez, respectively) – see my second post about The Morrish Navigator (https://usuntold.travel.blog/2020/05/26/the-moorish-navigator/). On October 7th, 1492, Columbus and his crew spotted land and named it San Salvador (meaning “Holy Savior”) (modern-day Bahamas). The natives called it Guanahani. Columbus wrote of the indigenous people he first encountered in his journal entry of 12 October 1492:

“Many of the men I have seen have scars on their bodies, and when I made signs to them to find out how this happened, they indicated that people from other nearby islands come to San Salvador to capture them; they defend themselves the best they can. I believe that people from the mainland come here to take them as slaves. They ought to make good and skilled servants, for they repeat very quickly whatever we say to them. I think they can very easily be made Christians, for they seem to have no religion. If it pleases our Lord, I will take six of them to Your Highnesses when I depart, in order that they may learn our language.”

Columbus called the inhabitants of the lands that he visited indios (Spanish for “Indians”). He initially encountered the Lucayan, Taíno, and Arawak peoples. Noting their gold ear ornaments, Columbus took some of the Arawaks prisoner and insisted that they guide him to the source of the gold. Columbus noted the natives were susceptible to easy conquest, writing, “these people are very simple in war-like matters … I could conquer the whole of them with 50 men, and govern them as I pleased.”

Columbus also explored the northeast coast of Cuba. Columbus continued to the northern coast of Hispaniola (modern-day Haiti and Dominican Republic). There, the Santa María ran aground on Christmas Day 1492 and had to be abandoned. The wreck was used as a target for cannon fire to impress the native peoples. Columbus was received by the native chief Guacanagari, who permitted him to leave some of his men behind. Columbus left 39 men, including the interpreter Luis de Torres, and founded the settlement of La Navidad, in present-day Haiti. Columbus took more natives prisoner and continued his exploration. On January 13th, 1493, Columbus made his last stop, in northeast Hispaniola. There he encountered the warlike Ciguayos, the only natives who offered violent resistance during his first voyage to the Americas. The Ciguayos refused to trade the number of bows and arrows that Columbus desired; in the ensuing clash one Ciguayo was stabbed in the butt and another wounded with an arrow in his chest. Because of these events, Columbus called the inlet the Bay of Arrows. Columbus and his crew headed back to Spain.

Second Voyage – Convert Them to Christianity

The purpose of the second voyage was to convert the indigenous Americans to Christianity. Columbus left the port of Cádiz on 24 September 1493, with a fleet of 17 ships carrying 1,200 men and the supplies to establish permanent colonies in the New World. The passengers included priests, farmers, and soldiers, who would be the new colonists. Modern studies suggest that “crew members may have included free black Africans who arrived in the New World about a decade before the slave trade began”. Columbus discovered Dominica (Latin for Sunday), Marie-Galante (Santa María la Galante), and Guadaloupe which he named Santa María de Guadalupe de Extremadura, after the image of the Virgin Mary at a Spanish monastery. Columbus sighted and named several islands along his journeys such as Montserrat (after a monastery in the Montserrat mountains of Spain), Nevis (from Nuestra Señora de las Nieves, “Our Lady of the Snows” because the mountain caps resembled a mountain with snow on top, and Saint Croix (from Santa Cruz, meaning “Holy Cross“). Columbus continued to the Virgin Islands, and landed in Puerto Rico, which he named San Juan Bautista in honor of Saint John the Baptist (a name that was later given to the capital city of San Juan).

On November 22nd, Columbus returned to Hispaniola, where he intended to visit the fort of La Navidad. Columbus found the fort in ruins, destroyed by the Taínos. Among the ruins were the corpses of 11 of the 39 Spaniards who had stayed behind. Columbus then sailed more than 62 miles eastwards along the northern coast of Hispaniola, establishing a new settlement, which he called La Isabela, in the present-day Dominican Republic. However, La Isabela proved to be poorly located and the settlement was short-lived. During his brief reign, Columbus executed Spanish colonists for minor crimes and used dismemberment as another form of punishment. Both colonists and natives were also vulnerable to illness. By the end of 1494, disease and famine had claimed two-thirds of the Spanish settlers. The natives of Hispaniola were systematically subjugated via the encomienda system Columbus implemented. Adapted to the New World from Spain, it resembled the feudal system in Medieval Europe, as it was based on a lord offering “protection” to a class of people who owed labor. Also, Spanish colonists under Columbus’s rule began to buy and sell natives as slaves. 

Columbus fell ill in 1495 and his Spanish colonists no longer held back, “the troops went wild, stealing, killing, raping, and torturing natives, trying to force them to divulge the whereabouts of the imagined treasure-houses of gold.” 50,000 natives perished during this period. After recovering, Columbus organized his troops’ efforts, forming a squadron of several hundred heavily armed men and more than twenty attack dogs. Columbus’s men and dogs hunted down and killed natives who attempted to flee, as well as thousands who were sick and unarmed. The hands of their captives would be cut off and left “dangling by a shred of skin” as a warning to their tribe”. The Arawaks attempted to fight back against Columbus’s men but lacked their armor, guns, swords, and horses. When taken prisoner, they were hanged or burned to death. Natives were hung in groups of thirteen “in memory of Our Redeemer and His twelve Apostles.” When natives on Hispaniola began fighting back against their oppressors, Columbus’s men captured 1,500 Arawak men, women, and children in a single raid. The strongest 500 were sent to Spain to be sold as slaves, with 40% of these dying en route. In the Province of Cibao on Hispaniola, all Cibaoan indigenous residents above 14 years of age were required to find and deliver a specific quota of gold every three months. Upon their doing so, they would receive copper tokens that they wore around their necks. Any Indian found without a copper token had their hands cut off and subsequently bled to death. Since there were no gold mines on the island, the Indians had no chance of meeting Columbus’ quota and thousands were reported to have committed suicide. 

Third Voyage – Find a Continent 

The objective of the third voyage was to verify the existence of a continent that King John II of Portugal suggested was located to the southwest of the Cape Verde Islands. On May 30th, 1498, Columbus left with six ships from Sanlúcar, Spain, for his third trip to the New World. The men sighted the land of Trinidad on July 31st, approaching from the southeast.The fleet made contact with a group of Amerindians in canoes and on August 2nd, Columbus and his men landed at Icacos Point. On August 5th, they landed on the mainland of South America at the Paria Peninsula. Columbus then sailed to the islands of Chacachacare and Margarita (reaching the latter on 14 August), and sighted Tobago and Grenada. In poor health, Columbus returned to Hispaniola on August 19th, only to find that many of the Spanish settlers were in rebellion against his rule, claiming that Columbus had misled them about the supposedly bountiful riches of the New World. Several returning settlers and sailors lobbied against Columbus at the Spanish court, accusing him and his brothers of gross mismanagement. 

By 1499, accusations of tyranny and incompetence on the part of Columbus had reached the Spanish Court. During Columbus’s term as viceroy and governor of the Indies, he had been accused of governing tyrannically, called “the tyrant of the Caribbean”. Ferdinand and Isabella replaced him with Francisco de Bobadilla, a member of the Order of Calatrava. From his inquiry with settlers, Bobadilla reported to Spain that Columbus regularly used torture and mutilation to govern Hispaniola. According to the report, Columbus once punished a man found guilty of stealing corn by having his ears and nose cut off and then selling him into slavery. The document also describes how Columbus put down native unrest and revolt: he first ordered a brutal crackdown in which many natives were killed, and then paraded their dismembered bodies through the streets in an attempt to discourage further rebellion. Bobadilla’s inquiry produced testimony that Columbus forced priests not to baptize natives without his express permission, so he could first decide whether or not they should be sold into slavery. He allegedly captured a tribe of 300 to be sold into slavery, and informed other Christians that half of the indigenous servants should be yielded to him. Further, he allegedly ordered at least 12 Spaniards to be whipped and tied by the neck and feet for trading gold for something to eat without his permission.

Other allegations include that he: ordered a woman to be whipped naked on the back of a donkey for lying that she was pregnant, had a woman’s tongue cut out for seeming to insult him and his brothers, cut a Spaniard’s throat for being homosexual, ordered Christians to be hung for stealing bread, ordered a cabin boy’s hand cut off and posted publicly for using a trap to catch a fish, and ordered for a man to have his nose and ears cut off, as well as to be whipped, shackled, and banished. Multiple culprits were given a potentially fatal 100 lashes, sometimes while naked. Some fifty men starved to death on La Isabela because of tight control over the ship’s rations, despite there being an abundance. In early October 1500, Columbus and his son presented themselves to Bobadilla, and were put in chains aboard La Gorda, Columbus’s ship. They were returned to Spain, and lingered in jail for six weeks before King Ferdinand ordered their release.

Columbus wrote the following to his friend while in jail:

“It is now seventeen years since I came to serve these princes with the Enterprise of the Indies. They made me pass eight of them in discussion, and at the end rejected it as a thing of jest. Nevertheless I persisted therein… Over there I have placed under their sovereignty more land than there is in Africa and Europe, and more than 1,700 islands… In seven years I, by the divine will, made that conquest. At a time when I was entitled to expect rewards and retirement, I was incontinently arrested and sent home loaded with chains… The accusation was brought out of malice on the basis of charges made by civilians who had revolted and wished to take possession on the land… I beg your graces, with the zeal of faithful Christians in whom their Highnesses have confidence, to read all my papers, and to consider how I, who came from so far to serve these princes… now at the end of my days have been despoiled of my honor and my property without cause, wherein is neither justice nor mercy.”

Not long after, they were summoned to Alhambra palace in Granada. There, the royal couple heard the Columbus and his brother’s please and restored their freedom and wealth; and, after much persuasion, agreed to fund Columbus’s fourth voyage. But the door was firmly shut on Columbus’s role as governor.

Fourth Voyage – Find the Strait of Malacca

In search of the Strait of Malacca to the Indian Ocean Columbus left Cádiz on 11 May 1502, with his flagship Santa María and the vessels Gallega, Vizcaína, and Santiago de Palos. Columbus sailed to Central America, arriving at Guanaja (Isla de Pinos) in the Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras on July 30th. On August 14th, he landed in Honduras, later visiting Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. Columbus left for Hispaniola. On May 10th he sighted the Cayman Islands, naming them “Las Tortugas” after the numerous sea turtles there. His ships next sustained more damage in a storm off the coast of Cuba. Unable to travel farther, on June 25th, 1503 they were beached in St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica.

For one year Columbus and his men remained stranded on Jamaica. Columbus, in a desperate effort to induce the natives to continue provisioning him and his hungry men, won their favor by predicting a lunar eclipse. Help finally arrived and Columbus and his men arrived in Sanlúcar, Spain, on November 7th.

Later Life

Columbus would not return to the New World again but spent time writing two books. One was a Book of Privileges (1502), detailing and documenting the rewards from the Spanish Crown to which he believed he and his heirs were entitled, and a Book of Prophecies (1505), in which he considered his achievements as an explorer but a fulfillment of Bible prophecy in the context of Christian eschatology. In his later years, Columbus demanded that the Spanish Crown give him 10 percent of all profits made in the new lands, as stipulated in the Capitulations of Santa Fe. Because he had been relieved of his duties as governor, the crown did not feel bound by that contract and his demands were rejected. After his death, his heirs sued the Crown for a part of the profits from trade with America, as well as other rewards. This led to a protracted series of legal disputes known as the pleitos colombinos (“Columbian lawsuits”). 

Columbus was later was plagued with what was thought to be influenza and other fevers, bleeding from the eyes, temporary blindness and prolonged attacks of gout. The attacks increased in duration and severity, sometimes leaving Columbus bedridden for months at a time. Based on Columbus’s lifestyle and the described symptoms, modern doctors suspect that he suffered from reactive arthritis, rather than gout. Reactive arthritis is a joint inflammation caused by intestinal bacterial infections or after acquiring certain sexually transmitted diseases (primarily chlamydia or gonorrhea). On May 20th 1506, aged 54, Columbus died in Valladolid, Spain. In about 1536, the remains of both Columbus and his son Diego were moved to a cathedral in Santo Domingo, in the present-day Dominican Republic. By some accounts, around 1796, when France took over the entire island of Hispaniola, Columbus’s remains were moved to Havana, Cuba. After Cuba became independent following the Spanish–American War in 1898, the remains were moved back to the Cathedral of Seville, Spain, where they were placed on an elaborate catafalque. 

Though Christopher Columbus came to be considered the discoverer of America, he truly was not the discoverer of the land. America had first been discovered and populated by Asians crossing Beringia (its indigenous population), and the first Europeans to reach its shores were Erik the Red in 10th-century Greenland and his son Leif Erikson in 11th-century Vinlandat L’Anse aux Meadows. “Columbus’s claim to fame isn’t that he got there first, it’s that he stayed.”

Now what do you think of Christopher Columbus? Still a pretty picture or a more realistic down to Earth detailed account of what it really took to start what would become what we know today as colonialism? With the knowledge that Columbus learned being from Genoa, his time as a mariner, his trevails to northern Europe, and his time spent on the west african coast it is not too far fetched to correctly label him as a notorious offender of human kind – because his foundation made him what he would become. At the end of the day, regardless of all the power and glory he received at a time in his life, Columbus would die a man of little power and nothing much to show for one of the greatest feats in the world.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyages_of_Christopher_Columbus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Genoa