Columbus Day
First Landing of Columbus on the Shores of the New World, after the painting by Discoro Téofilo de la Puebla
Observed by	Various countries in the Americas, Spain
Type	Historical
Significance	Celebrations honoring Christopher Columbus's first voyage to the Americas in 1492
Date	October 12 (actual/traditional); second Monday in October (observed in the United States)
2011 date	October 10
2012 date	October 8
2013 date	October 14
Related to	Thanksgiving in Canada, which falls on the same date

Many countries in the New World and elsewhere celebrate the anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas, which occurred on October 12, 1492, as an official holiday. The event is celebrated as Columbus Day in the United States, as Día de la Raza in many countries in Latin America, as Discovery Day in the Bahamas, as Día de la Hispanidad, Fiesta Nacional in Spain, Día del Respeto a la Diversidad Cultural (Day of Respect for Cultural Diversity) in Argentina and as Día de las Américas (Day of the Americas) in Uruguay. These holidays have been celebrated unofficially since the late 18th century, and officially in various areas since the early 20th century.

United States observance[link]

History[link]

Columbus Day first became an official state holiday in Colorado in 1906, and became a federal holiday in 1937, though people have celebrated Columbus' voyage since the colonial period. In 1792, New York City and other U.S. cities celebrated the 300th anniversary of his landing in the New World. President Benjamin Harrison called upon the people of the United States to celebrate Columbus Day on the 400th anniversary of the event. During the four hundredth anniversary in 1892, teachers, preachers, poets and politicians used Columbus Day rituals to teach ideals of patriotism. These patriotic rituals were framed around themes such as support for war, citizenship boundaries, the importance of loyalty to the nation, and celebrating social progress.^[1][2]

Catholic immigration in the mid-19th century induced discrimination from anti-immigrant activists. Like many other struggling immigrant communities, Catholics developed organizations to fight discrimination and provide insurance for the struggling immigrants. One such organization, the Knights of Columbus, chose that name in part because it saw Christopher Columbus as a fitting symbol of Catholic immigrants' right to citizenship: one of their own, a fellow Catholic, had discovered America.^[1]

Many Italian-Americans observe Columbus Day as a celebration of their heritage, the first occasion being in New York City on October 12, 1866.^[3] Columbus Day was first popularized as a holiday in the United States through the lobbying of Angelo Noce, a first generation Italian, in Denver. The first official, regular Columbus Day holiday was proclaimed by Colorado governor Jesse F. McDonald in 1905 and made a statutory holiday in 1907.^[4] In April 1934, as a result of lobbying by the Knights of Columbus, Congress and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt made October 12 a federal holiday under the name Columbus Day.^[4][5]

Since 1971, the holiday has been fixed to the second Monday in October,^[6] coincidentally the same day as Thanksgiving in neighboring Canada (which was fixed to that date in 1959). It is generally observed nowadays by banks, the bond market, the U.S. Postal Service and other federal agencies, most state government offices, and some school districts. Some businesses and some stock exchanges remain open, also some states and municipalities abstain from observing the holiday.^[7]

Local observance of Columbus Day[link]

Actual observance varies in different parts of the United States, ranging from large-scale parades and events to complete non-observance. Most states celebrate Columbus Day as an official state holiday, though many mark it as a "Day of Observance" or "Recognition" and three do not recognize it at all. Most states (including states where it's not a legal holiday) close schools and other state services, while others operate as normal.

San Francisco claims the nation's oldest continuously existing celebration with the Italian-American community's annual Columbus Day Parade, which was established by Nicola Larco in 1868,^[8] while New York City boasts the largest.^[9][10][11]

As in the mainland U.S., Columbus Day is a legal holiday in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico. In the United States Virgin Islands, the day is celebrated as both Columbus Day and "Puerto Rico Friendship Day."^[12]

Virginia also celebrates two legal holidays on the day, Columbus Day and Yorktown Victory Day, which honors the final victory at the Siege of Yorktown in the Revolutionary War.^[13]

Non-observance[link]

Hawaii, Alaska, and South Dakota are the three states that do not recognize Columbus Day at all, though Hawaii and South Dakota mark the day with an alternative holiday or observance. Hawaii celebrates Discoverers' Day, which commemorates the Polynesian discoverers of Hawaii on the same date, the second Monday of October,^[14][15] though the name change has not ended protest related to the observance of Columbus' discovery.^[16][17] The state government does not treat either Columbus Day or Discoverers' Day as a legal holiday;^[18] state, city and county government offices and schools are open for business. South Dakota celebrates the day as an official state holiday known as "Native American Day" rather than Columbus Day.^[19] Nevada does not celebrate Columbus Day as an official holiday; however, the governor is "authorized and requested" by statute to proclaim the day each year.^[20] This probably has less to do with any objection to the celebration of the day than the fact that it is relatively close to Nevada Day, and schools and banks can only be closed for so many days.

Several other states have removed Columbus Day as a paid holiday for government workers while still maintaining it either as a day of recognition or a legal holiday for other purposes. These include California^[21][22][23] and Texas.^[24]

In 2007, Dane County Wisconsin Supervisor Ashok Kumar replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous People's Day.^[25] The city of Berkeley, California has replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous People's Day since 1992,^[26] a move which has been replicated by several other localities.^[27] Two other California cities, Sebastopol and Santa Cruz, now celebrate Indigenous People's Day.^[27] South Dakota renamed the holiday "Native American Day".^[28] Various tribal governments in Oklahoma designate the day "Native American Day", or name the day after their own tribe.^[29] The Navajo Nation replaced Columbus Day with Navajo Nation Sovereignty Day, which is observed on April 4.^{[citation needed]}

Latin American observance[link]

Día de la Raza[link]

The date Columbus arrived in the Americas is celebrated in many countries in Latin America. The most common name for the celebration in Spanish (including in some Latino communities^[30] in the United States) is the Día de la Raza ("day of the race" or "day of the [hispanic] people"), commemorating the first encounters of Europeans and Native Americans. The day was first celebrated in Argentina in 1917, Venezuela and Colombia in 1921, Chile in 1922, and Mexico in 1928. The day was also celebrated under this title in Spain until 1957, when it was changed to the Día de la Hispanidad ("Hispanity Day"), and in Venezuela until 2002, when it was changed to the Día de la Resistencia Indígena (Day of Indigenous Resistance). Originally conceived of as a celebration of Hispanic influence in the Americas, as evidenced by the complementary celebrations in Spain and Latin America, Día de la Raza has come to be seen by some^[who?] in Latin America as a counter to Columbus Day; a celebration of the resistance against the arrival of Europeans to the Americas and of the native races and cultures.

In the U.S. Día de la Raza has served as a time of mobilization for pan-ethnic Latino activists, particularly in the 1960s. Since then, La Raza has served as a periodic rallying cry for Hispanic activists. The first Hispanic March on Washington occurred on Columbus Day in 1996. The name has remained in the largest Hispanic social justice organization, the National Council of La Raza.^[1]

Venezuela[link]

Current state (June 6, 2006) of the Columbus Walk in Caracas. The statue was knocked down by activists after a "public trial" during the celebrations of the newly instituted "Day of the Indigenous Resistance" (October 12) in 2004^[31][32]

Between 1921 and 2002, Venezuela celebrated Día de la Raza along with many other Latin American nations. The original holiday was officially established in 1921 under President Juan Vicente Gómez. In 2002, under president Hugo Chávez, the name was changed to Día de la Resistencia Indígena (Day of Indigenous Resistance) to commemorate the Indigenous peoples' resistance to European settlement. On October 12, 2004 a crowd of pro-government activists toppled the statue of Columbus in Caracas and sprayed allusive graffiti over its pedestal. The pro-Chávez website Aporrea wrote: "Just like the statue of Saddam in Baghdad, that of Columbus the tyrant also fell this October 12, 2004 in Caracas."^[33] The famous toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue had occurred the previous year.

Costa Rica[link]

Since 1994, Costa Rica had changed the official holiday from Día de la Raza to Día de las Culturas (Day of the cultures) to recognize the mix of European, American, African and Asian cultures that helped to compose Costa Rican (and Latin American) culture.^[34]

Spain[link]

Since 1987, Spain has celebrated the anniversary of Columbus's arrival in the Americas as its Fiesta Nacional or "National Day".^[35] Previously Spain had celebrated the day as Día de la Hispanidad, emphasizing Spain's ties with the Hispanidad, the international Hispanic community.^[35] In 1981 a royal decree established the Día de la Hispanidad as a national holiday.^[35] However, in 1987 the name was changed to Fiesta Nacional, and October 12 became one of two national celebrations, along with Constitution Day on December 6.^[36] Spain's "national day" had moved around several times during the various regime changes of the 20th century; establishing it on the day of the international Columbus celebration was part of a compromise between conservatives, who wanted to emphasize the status of the monarchy and Spain's history, and Republicans, who wanted to commemorate Spain's burgeoning democracy with an official holiday.^[36] Since 2000, October 12 has also been Spain's Day of the Armed Forces, celebrated each year with a military parade in Madrid.^[36] Other than this, however, the holiday is not widely or enthusiastically celebrated in Spain; there are no other large-scale patriotic parades, marches, or other events, and the observation is generally overshadowed by the feast day of Our Lady of the Pillar (Fiestas del Pilar).^[36]

Opposition to Columbus celebrations[link]

Opposition to Columbus Day dates to at least the 19th century where activists had sought to eradicate Columbus Day celebrations because of its association with immigrants and the Knights of Columbus. They were afraid it was being used to expand Catholic influence.^[37] By far the more common opposition today, decrying Columbus's and Europeans' actions against the indigenous populations of the Americas, did not gain much traction until the latter half of the 20th century. This opposition has been spearheaded by indigenous groups, though it has spread into the mainstream.

There are two main strands of this critique, which are interrelated. The first refers primarily to the indigenous population collapse and cruel treatment towards indigenous peoples during the European colonization of the American continents which followed Columbus's discovery. Some, such as AIM, have argued that the responsibility of contemporary governments and their citizens for allegedly ongoing acts of genocide against Native Americans are masked by positive Columbus myths and celebrations. These critics argue that a particular understanding of the legacy of Columbus has been used to legitimize their actions, and it is this misuse of history that must be exposed. F. David Peat asserts that many cultural myths of North America exclude or diminish the culture and myths of Native Americans. These cultural myths include ideas expressed by Michael Berliner of the Ayn Rand Institute claiming that Western civilization brought “reason, science, self-reliance, individualism, ambition, and productive achievement” to a people who were based in “primitivism, mysticism, and collectivism”, and to a land that was “sparsely inhabited, unused, and underdeveloped.”^[38] American anthropologist Jack Weatherford says that on Columbus Day Americans celebrate the greatest waves of genocide of the Indians known in history.^[39] American Indian Movement of Colorado leader and activist Ward Churchill takes this argument further, contending that the mythologizing and celebration of the European settlement of the Americas in Columbus Day make it easier for people today to avoid taking responsibility for their own actions, or the actions of their governments regarding indigenous populations. He wrote in his book Bringing the Law Back Home:

Very high on the list of those expressions of non-indigenous sensibility [that] contribute to the perpetuation of genocidal policies against Indians are the annual Columbus Day celebration, events in which it is baldly asserted that the process, events, and circumstances described above are, at best, either acceptable or unimportant. More often, the sentiments expressed by the participants are, quite frankly, that the fate of Native America embodied in Columbus and the Columbian legacy is a matter to be openly and enthusiastically applauded as an unrivaled "boon to all mankind". Undeniably, the situation of American Indians will not — in fact cannot — change for the better so long as such attitudes are deemed socially acceptable by the mainstream populace. Hence, such celebrations as Columbus Day must be stopped.

A second strain of the criticism of Columbus Day focuses on the character of Columbus himself. In time for the observation of Columbus Day in 2004, the final volume of a compendium of Columbus-era documents was published by the University of California, Los Angeles's Medieval and Renaissance Center. Geoffrey Symcox, the general editor of the project, asserted: "While giving the brilliant mariner his due, the collection portrays Columbus as an unrelenting social climber and self-promoter who stopped at nothing— not even exploitation, slavery, or twisting Biblical scripture— to advance his ambitions… Many of the unflattering documents have been known for the last century or more, but nobody paid much attention to them until recently… The fact that Columbus brought slavery, enormous exploitation or devastating diseases to the Americas used to be seen as a minor detail - if it was recognized at all - in light of his role as the great bringer of white man's civilization to the benighted idolatrous American continent. But to historians today this information is very important. It changes our whole view of the enterprise."^[40]

Most critiques combine elements of both strains. Journalist and media critic Norman Solomon reflects in Columbus Day: A Clash of Myth and History that many people choose to hold on to the myths surrounding Columbus whereas historians who deal with the evidence are frequently depicted as "politically correct" revisionists. He quotes from the logbook Columbus's initial description of the Indians: "They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance.... They would make fine servants.... With 50 men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want." In 1495, during the Second Voyage, Indians were transported to Spain as slaves, many dying en route. "Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity," Columbus later wrote, "go on sending all the slaves that can be sold." Solomon states that the most important contemporary documentary evidence is the multi-volume History of the Indies by the Catholic priest Bartolomé de las Casas who observed the region where Columbus was governor. In contrast to "the myth" Solomon quotes Las Casas who describes Spaniards driven by "insatiable greed" — "killing, terrorizing, afflicting, and torturing the native peoples" with "the strangest and most varied new methods of cruelty" and how systematic violence was aimed at preventing "Indians from daring to think of themselves as human beings." The Spaniards "thought nothing of knifing Indians by tens and twenties and of cutting slices off them to test the sharpness of their blades", wrote Las Casas. "My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I tremble as I write."^[41]

In the summer of 1990, 350 representatives from Indian groups from all over the hemisphere, met in Quito, Ecuador, at the first Intercontinental Gathering of Indigenous People in the Americas, to mobilize against the quincentennial celebration of Columbus Day. The following summer, in Davis, California, more than a hundred Native Americans gathered for a follow-up meeting to the Quito conference. They declared October 12, 1992, "International Day of Solidarity with Indigenous People." The largest ecumenical body in the United States, the National Council of Churches, called on Christians to refrain from celebrating the Columbus quincentennial, saying, "What represented newness of freedom, hope, and opportunity for some was the occasion for oppression, degradation and genocide for others."^[42]

See also[link]

• Age of Discovery
• Leif Erikson Day
• World's Columbian Exposition
• Space Flight Europe-America 500

References[link]

External links[link]

• Berkeley's Indigenous Peoples Day— History of the annual celebration, pow wow and Native American market
• Today in History: October 12 — An article about Columbus Day at The Library of Congress
• Native American Day in South Dakota
• Transform Columbus Day Alliance — Denver-based organization with background on opposition to Columbus Day
• Columbus Day Celebrates Western Culture - Frontpagemag.com

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Columbus Day

Christopher Columbus
Posthumous portrait of Christopher Columbus by Sebastiano del Piombo. There are no known authentic portraits of Columbus.[1]
Born	Unknown, but before 31 October 1451 Genoa, Republic of Genoa, in present-day Italy
Died	20 May 1506 (probably 54) Valladolid, Crown of Castile, in present-day Spain
Nationality	Genoese
Other names	Italian: Cristoforo Colombo Catalan: Cristòfor Colom Spanish: Cristóbal Colón Portuguese: Cristóvão Colombo Latin: Christophorus Columbus Genoese: Christoffa Corombo
Occupation	Maritime explorer for the Crown of Castile
Title	Admiral of the Ocean Sea; Viceroy and Governor of the Indies
Religion	Roman Catholic
Spouse	Filipa Moniz Perestrelo (c. 1455–85)
Partner	Beatriz Enríquez de Arana (c. 1485–1506)
Children	Diego Fernando
Relatives	Giovanni Pellegrino, Giacomo and Bartholomew Columbus (brothers)
Signature

Christopher Columbus (before 31 October 1451 – 20 May 1506) was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in what is today northwestern Italy.^[2][3][4][5] Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents. Those voyages, and his efforts to establish permanent settlements in the island of Hispaniola, initiated the process of Spanish colonization, which foreshadowed the general European colonization of what became known as the "New World".

In the context of emerging western imperialism and economic competition between European kingdoms seeking wealth through the establishment of trade routes and colonies, Columbus's speculative proposal to reach the East Indies by sailing westward received the support of the Spanish crown, which saw in it a promise, however remote, of gaining the upper hand over rival powers in the contest for the lucrative spice trade with Asia. During his first voyage in 1492, instead of reaching Japan as he had intended, Columbus landed in the Bahamas archipelago, at a locale he named San Salvador. Over the course of three more voyages, Columbus visited the Greater and Lesser Antilles, as well as the Caribbean coast of Venezuela and Central America, claiming them for the Spanish Empire.

Though Columbus was not the first European explorer to reach the Americas (having been preceded by the Norse expedition led by Leif Ericson in the 11th century^[6]), Columbus's voyages led to the first lasting European contact with America, inaugurating a period of European exploration and colonization of foreign lands that lasted for several centuries. They had, therefore, an enormous impact in the historical development of the modern Western world. Columbus himself saw his accomplishments primarily in the light of the spreading of the Christian religion.^[2]

Never admitting that he had reached a continent previously unknown to Europeans, rather than the East Indies he had set out for, Columbus called the inhabitants of the lands he visited indios (Spanish for "Indians").^[7][8][9] Columbus's strained relationship with the Spanish crown and its appointed colonial administrators in America led to his arrest and dismissal as governor of the settlements in Hispaniola in 1500, and later to protracted litigation over the benefits which Columbus and his heirs claimed were owed to them by the crown.

Early life[link]

Christopher Columbus at the gates of the monastery of Santa Maria de la Rabida with his son Diego. Painting by Benito Mercade y Fabregas

The name Christopher Columbus is the Anglicisation of the Latin Christophorus Columbus. His name in Italian is Cristoforo Colombo and in Spanish it is Cristóbal Colón. Columbus was born before 31 October 1451 in Genoa, part of modern Italy.^[10] His father was Domenico Colombo, a middle-class wool weaver who worked both in Genoa and Savona and who also owned a cheese stand at which young Christopher worked as a helper. Christopher's 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.^[11]

Columbus never wrote in his native language, which is presumed to have been a Genoese variety of Ligurian (his name would translate in 16th century Genoese language as Christoffa^[12] Corombo^[13] pron. IPA: [kriˈʃtɔffa kuˈɹuŋbu]^[14][15]). 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. Some modern historians have argued that Columbus was not from Genoa, but instead, from Catalonia,^[16] Portugal,^[17] or Spain.^[18] These competing hypotheses have generally been discounted by mainstream scholars.^[19]

Columbus's notes in Latin, on the margins of his copy of The Travels of Marco Polo

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, a Genoese colony in the Aegean Sea.^[20] 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, England;^[21] Galway, Ireland and was possibly in Iceland in 1477. In 1479 Columbus reached his brother Bartolomeo in Lisbon, while continuing trading for the Centurione family. He married Filipa Moniz Perestrelo, daughter of the Porto Santo governor and Portuguese nobleman of Genoese origin Bartolomeu Perestrello. In 1479 or 1480, his son Diego Columbus was born. Between 1482 and 1485 Columbus traded along the coasts of West Africa, reaching the Portuguese trading post of Elmina at the Guinea coast.^[2] Some records report that Filipa died in 1485. It is also speculated that Columbus may have simply left his first wife. In either case Columbus found a mistress in Spain in 1487, a 20-year-old orphan named Beatriz Enríquez de Arana.^[22]

Ambitious, Columbus eventually learned Latin, as well as Portuguese and Castilian, and read widely about astronomy, geography, and history, including the works of Ptolemy, Cardinal Pierre d'Ailly's Imago Mundi, the travels of Marco Polo and Sir John Mandeville, Pliny's Natural History, and Pope Pius II's Historia Rerum Ubique Gestarum. According to historian Edmund Morgan,

Columbus was not a scholarly man. Yet he studied these books, made hundreds of marginal notations in them and came out with ideas about the world that were characteristically simple and strong and sometimes wrong, the kind of ideas that the self-educated person gains from independent reading and clings to in defiance of what anyone else tries to tell him.^[23]

Throughout his life, Columbus also showed a keen interest in the Bible and in Biblical prophecies, and would often quote biblical texts in his letters and logs. For example, part of the argument that he submitted to the Spanish Catholic Monarchs when he sought their support for his proposed expedition to reach the Indies by sailing west was based on his reading of the Second Book of Esdras (see 2 Esdras 6:42, which Columbus took to mean that the Earth is made of six parts of land to one of water). Towards the end of life, Columbus produced a Book of Prophecies in which his career as an explorer is interpreted in the light of Christian eschatology and of apocalypticism.^[11]

Quest for Asia[link]

"Columbus map", drawn ca. 1490 in the Lisbon workshop of Bartolomeo and Christopher Columbus^[24]

Background[link]

Under the Mongol Empire's hegemony over Asia (the so-called Pax Mongolica, or Mongol peace), Europeans had long enjoyed a safe land passage, the so-called "Silk Road", to China and India, which were sources of valuable goods such as silk, spices, and opiates. With the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the land route to Asia became much more difficult and dangerous. Portuguese navigators, under the leadership of King John II, sought to reach Asia by sailing around Africa. Major progress in this quest was achieved in 1488, when Bartolomeu Dias reached the Cape of Good Hope, in what is now South Africa. Meanwhile, in the 1480s the Columbus brothers had developed a different plan to reach the Indies (then construed roughly as all of south and east Asia) by sailing west across the "Ocean Sea", i.e., the Atlantic.

Geographical considerations[link]

Washington Irving's 1828 biography of Columbus popularized the idea that Columbus had difficulty obtaining support for his plan because many Catholic theologians insisted that the Earth was flat.^[25] In fact, most educated Westerners had understood that the Earth was spherical at least since the time of Aristotle, who lived in the 4th century BC and whose works were widely studied and revered in Medieval Europe.^[26] The sphericity of the Earth is also accounted for in the work of Ptolemy, on which ancient astronomy was largely based. Christian writers whose works clearly reflect the conviction that the Earth is spherical include Saint Bede the Venerable in his Reckoning of Time, written around AD 723. In Columbus's time, the techniques of celestial navigation, which use the position of the sun and the stars in the sky, together with the understanding that the Earth is a sphere, had long been in use by astronomers and were beginning to be implemented by mariners.^[27]

Where Columbus did differ from the view accepted by scholars in his day was in his estimate of the westward distance from Europe to Asia. Columbus's ideas in this regard were based on three factors: his low estimate of the size of the Earth, his high estimate of the size of the Eurasian landmass, and his belief that Japan and other inhabited islands lay far to the east of the coast of China. In all three of these issues Columbus was both wrong and at odds with the scholarly consensus of his day.

As far back as the 3rd century BC, Eratosthenes had correctly computed the circumference of the Earth by using simple geometry and studying the shadows cast by objects at two different locations: Alexandria and Syene (modern-day Aswan).^[28] Eratosthenes's results were confirmed by a comparison of stellar observations at Alexandria and Rhodes, carried out by Posidonius in the 1st century BC. These measurements were widely known among scholars, but confusion about the old-fashioned units of distance in which they were expressed had led, in Columbus's day, to some debate about the exact size of the Earth.

Toscanelli's notions of the geography of the Atlantic Ocean, which directly influenced Columbus's plans

From d'Ailly's Imago Mundi Columbus learned of Alfraganus's estimate that a degree of latitude (or a degree of longitude along the Equator) spanned 56⅔ miles, but did not realize that this was expressed in the Arabic mile (about 1,830 m) rather than the shorter Roman mile with which he was familiar (1,480 m).^[29] He therefore estimated the circumference of the Earth to be about 30,200 km, whereas the correct value is 40,000 km (25,000 mi).

Furthermore, most scholars accepted Ptolemy's estimate that Eurasia spanned 180° longitude, rather than the actual 130° (to the Chinese mainland) or 150° (to Japan at the latitude of Spain). Columbus, for his part, believed the even higher estimate of Marinus of Tyre, which put the longitudinal span of the Eurasian landmass at 225°, leaving only 135° of water. He also believed that Japan (which he called "Cipangu", following Marco Polo) was much larger, further to the east from China ("Cathay"), and closer to the Equator than it is, and that there were inhabited islands even further to the east than Japan, including the mythical Antillia, which he thought might lie not much further to the west than the Azores. In this he was influenced by the ideas of Florentine physician Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli, who corresponded with Columbus before his death in 1482 and who also defended the feasibility of a westward route to Asia.^[30]

Columbus therefore estimated the distance from the Canary Islands to Japan to be about 3,000 Italian miles (3,700 km, or 2,300 statute miles), while the correct figure is 19,600 km (12,200 mi)^{[citation needed]}, or about 12,000 km along a great circle. No ship in the 15th century could carry enough food and fresh water for such a long voyage and the dangers involved in navigating through the uncharted ocean would have been formidable. Most European navigators reasonably concluded that a westward voyage from Europe to Asia was unfeasible. The Catholic Monarchs, however, having completed an expensive war in the Iberian Peninsula, were desperate for a competitive edge over other European countries in the quest for trade with the Indies. Columbus promised such an advantage.

Nautical considerations[link]

Though Columbus was wrong about the number of degrees of longitude that separated Europe from the Far East and about the distance that each degree represented, he did possess valuable knowledge about the trade winds, which would prove to be the key to his successful navigation of the Atlantic Ocean. During his first voyage in 1492, the brisk trade winds from the east, commonly called "easterlies", propelled Columbus's fleet for five weeks, from the Canary Islands to The Bahamas. To return to Spain against this prevailing wind would have required several months of an arduous sailing technique, called beating, during which food and drinkable water would probably have been exhausted.

Instead, Columbus returned home by following the curving trade winds northeastward to the middle latitudes of the North Atlantic, where he was able to catch the "westerlies" that blow eastward to the coast of Western Europe. There, in turn, the winds curve southward towards the Iberian Peninsula.^[31][32][33]

It is unclear whether Columbus learned about the winds from his own sailing experience or if he had heard about them from others. The corresponding technique for efficient travel in the Atlantic appears to have been discovered first by the Portuguese, who referred to it as the Volta do mar ("turn of the sea"). Columbus's knowledge of the Atlantic wind patterns was, however, imperfect at the time of his first voyage. By sailing directly due west from the Canary Islands during hurricane season, skirting the so-called horse latitudes of the mid-Atlantic, Columbus risked either being becalmed or running into a tropical cyclone, both of which he luckily avoided.^[30]

Quest for support[link]

In 1485, Columbus presented his plans to John II, King of Portugal. He proposed that 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 the Orient, and return.

Columbus and Queen Isabella. Detail of the Columbus monument in Madrid (1885).^[34]

Columbus also requested he be made "Great Admiral of the Ocean", appointed governor of any and all lands he discovered, and given one-tenth of all revenue from those lands.

The king submitted Columbus's proposal to his experts, who rejected it. It was their considered opinion that Columbus's estimation of a travel distance of 2,400 miles (3,860 km) was, in fact, far too low.^[30]

In 1488 Columbus appealed to the court of Portugal once again, and once again John II invited him to an audience. That meeting also proved unsuccessful, in part because not long afterwards Bartolomeu Dias returned to Portugal with news of his successful rounding of the southern tip of Africa (near the Cape of Good Hope). With an eastern sea route to Asia apparently at hand, King John was no longer interested in Columbus's far-fetched project.

Columbus traveled from Portugal to both Genoa and Venice, but he received encouragement from neither. Columbus had also dispatched his brother Bartholomew to the court of Henry VII of England, to inquire whether the English crown might sponsor his expedition, but also without success.

Columbus had sought an audience from the monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, who had united many kingdoms in the Iberian Peninsula by marrying, and were ruling together. On 1 May 1486, permission having been granted, Columbus presented his plans to Queen Isabella, who, in turn, referred it to a committee. After the passing of much time, the savants of Spain, like their counterparts in Portugal, replied that Columbus had grossly underestimated the distance to Asia. 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 Catholic Monarchs gave him an annual allowance of 12,000 maravedis and in 1489 furnished him with a letter ordering all cities and towns under their domain to provide him food and lodging at no cost.^[35]

~ Flagship of Columbus ~ Fleet of Columbus ~ ~ 400th Anniversary Issues of 1893 ~

---

U.S. stamps reflecting the most commonly held view as to what Columbus's first fleet might have looked like. The Santa Maria, the flagship of Columbus's fleet, was a carrack—a merchant ship of between 400 and 600 tons, 75 feet (23 m) long, with a beam of 25 feet (7.6 m), allowing it to carry more people and cargo. It had a deep draft of 6 feet (1.8 m). The vessel had three masts: a mainmast, a foremast, and a mizzenmast. Five sails altogether were attached to these masts. Each mast carried one large sail. The foresail and mainsail were square; the sail on the mizzen was a triangular sail known as a lateen mizzen. The ship had a smaller topsail on the mainmast above the mainsail and on the foremast above the foresail. In addition, the ship carried a small square sail, a spritsail, on the bowsprit.^[36][37]

Agreement with the Spanish crown[link]

After continually lobbying at the Spanish court and two years of negotiations, 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 by mule in despair, when Ferdinand intervened. Isabella then sent a royal guard to fetch him and Ferdinand later claimed credit for being "the principal cause why those islands were discovered".^[38]

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 son Diego later wrote,^{[citation needed]} the monarchs did not really expect him to return.

In the "Capitulations of Santa Fe", 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% 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.^[30]

Columbus's coat of arms, as depicted in his Book of Privileges (1502)

Columbus was later arrested in 1500 and dismissed from his posts. He and his sons, Diego and Fernando, then conduced a lengthy series of court cases against the Castilian crown, known as the pleitos colombinos, alleging that the Crown had illegally reneged on its contractual obligations to Columbus and his heirs. The Columbus 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.^[39]

Voyages[link]

Voyages of Christopher Columbus

Between 1492 and 1503, Columbus completed four round-trip voyages between Spain and the Americas, all of them under the sponsorship of the Crown of Castile. These voyages marked the beginning of the European exploration and colonization of the American continents, and are thus of enormous significance in Western history. Columbus himself always insisted, in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary, that the lands that he visited during those voyages were part of the Asian continent, as previously described by Marco Polo and other European travelers.^[11] Columbus's refusal to accept that the lands he had visited and claimed for Spain were not part of Asia might explain, in part, why the American continent was named after the Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci and not after Columbus.^[40]

First voyage[link]

Christopher Columbus on the Santa María in 1492. Painting by Emanuel Leutze.

On the evening of 3 August 1492, Columbus departed from Palos de la Frontera with three ships: a larger carrack, Santa María, nicknamed Gallega ("Galician"), and two smaller caravels, Pinta ("Painted") and Santa Clara, nicknamed the Niña ("Girl") after her owner Juan Niño of Moguer.^[41] The monarchs forced the Palos inhabitants to contribute to the expedition. The Santa María was owned by Juan de la Cosa and was piloted by Columbus. The Pinta and the Niña were piloted by the Pinzón brothers (Martín Alonso and Vicente Yáñez).

Columbus first sailed to the Canary Islands, which belonged to the Castile, where he restocked the provisions and made repairs. After stopping over in Gran Canaria, he finally departed from San Sebastián de La Gomera on 6 September, for what turned out to be a five-week voyage across the ocean. A lookout on the Pinta, Rodrigo de Triana (also known as Juan Rodriguez Bermeo), spotted land about 2:00 on the morning of 12 October, and immediately alerted the rest of the crew with a shout. Thereupon, the captain of the Pinta, Martín Alonso Pinzón, verified the discovery and alerted Columbus by firing a lombard.^[42] Columbus later maintained that he himself had already seen a light on the land a few hours earlier, thereby claiming for himself the lifetime pension promised by Ferdinand and Isabella to the first person to sight land.^[43]

First voyage. Modern placenames in black, Columbus's placenames in blue.

Columbus called the island (in what is now The Bahamas) San Salvador; 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 (so named 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. From the 12 October 1492 entry in his journal he wrote of them, "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."^[44] He remarked that their lack of modern weaponry and even metal-forged swords or pikes was a tactical vulnerability, writing, "I could conquer the whole of them with 50 men, and govern them as I pleased."^[45]

Columbus also explored the northeast coast of Cuba, where he landed on 28 October. On 22 November, Martín Alonso Pinzón took the Pinta on an unauthorized expedition in search of an island called "Babeque" or "Baneque", which the natives had told him was rich in gold. Columbus, for his part, continued to the northern coast of Hispaniola, where he landed on 5 December.^[46]

There, the Santa María ran aground on Christmas Day 1492 and had to be abandoned. Columbus was received by the native cacique Guacanagari, who gave him permission to leave some of his men behind. Columbus left 39 men, including Luis de Torres, the Converso interpreter, who spoke Hebrew and Arabic, and founded the settlement of La Navidad at the site of present-day Môle-Saint-Nicolas, Haiti.^[47] He kept sailing along the northern coast of Hispaniola with a single ship, until he encountered Pinzón and the Pinta on 6 January.

On 13 January 1493 Columbus made his last stop in the New World. He landed on the Samaná Peninsula where he met the hostile Ciguayos who presented him with his only violent resistance during his first voyage to the Americas. Because of this, and the Ciguayos' use of arrows, he called the inlet where he met them the Bay of Arrows (or Gulf of Arrows).^[48] Today the place is called the Bay of Rincon, in Samaná, the Dominican Republic.^[49] Columbus kidnapped about 10 to 25 natives and took them back with him (only seven or eight of the native Indians arrived in Spain alive, but they made quite an impression on Seville).^[50]

The return of Christopher Columbus; his audience before King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. Painting by Eugène Delacroix

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

Second voyage[link]

Columbus left the port of Cadiz 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 colonists included priests, farmers, and soldiers. This reflected the new policy of creating not just "colonies of exploitation", but also "colonies of settlement" from which to launch missions dedicated to converting the natives to Christianity.^[51] Modern studies suggest that, as reported by the Washington Post, "crew members may have included free black Africans who arrived in the New World about a decade before the slave trade began."^[52]

As in the first voyage, the fleet stopped at the Canary Islands, from which it departed on 13 October, following a more southerly course than on the previous expedition. On 3 November, Columbus sighted a rugged island that he named Dominica (Latin for Sunday); later that day, he landed at Marie-Galante, which he named Santa María la Galante. After sailing past Les Saintes (Los Santos, "The Saints"), he arrived at the island of Guadeloupe, which he named Santa María de Guadalupe de Extremadura, after the image of the Virgin Mary venerated at the Spanish monastery of Villuercas, in Guadalupe, Spain. He explored that island from 4 to 10 November.

Michele da Cuneo, Columbus's childhood friend from Savona, sailed with Columbus during the second voyage and wrote: "In my opinion, since Genoa was Genoa, there was never born a man so well equipped and expert in the art of navigation as the said lord Admiral."^[53] Columbus named the small island of "Saona ... to honor Michele da Cuneo, his friend from Savona."^[54] The priest Bartolomé de las Casas also accompanied Colombus on this voyage.^[55]

Second voyage

The exact course of Columbus's voyage through the Lesser Antilles is debated, but it seems likely that he turned north, sighting and naming several islands, including:

• Montserrat (for Santa María 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 María la Antigua, meaning "Old St. Mary's"),
• Redonda (Santa María la Redonda, Spanish for "St. Mary the Round", owing to the island's shape),
• Nevis (derived from the Spanish Nuestra Señora de las Nieves, ¨"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 (after the Biblical Queen of Sheba),
• Saint Martin (San Martín), and
• Saint Croix (from the Spanish Santa Cruz, meaning "Holy Cross").

Columbus also sighted the chain of the Virgin Islands, which he named Islas de Santa Úrsula y las Once Mil Vírgenes, "Islands of Saint Ursula and the 11,000 Virgins" (shortened, both on maps of the time and in common parlance, to Islas Vírgenes). He also named the islands of Virgin Gorda ("Fat Virgin"), Tortola, and Peter Island (San Pedro).

He continued to the Greater Antilles, and landed in Puerto Rico, which he named San Juan Bautista in honor of Saint John the Baptist (a name that was later retained only for the capital city of San Juan). One of the first skirmishes between native Americans and Europeans since the time of the Vikings^[56] occurred when Columbus's men rescued two boys who had just been castrated by their captors.

On 22 November Columbus returned to Hispaniola, where he intended to visit the fort of La Navidad, built during his first voyage and located on the northern coast of Haiti. Columbus found the fort in ruins, destroyed by the native Taino people.^[57] Among the ruins were the corpses of 11 of the 39 Spaniards who had stayed behind as the first colonists in the New World.

In retaliation for the attack on La Navidad, Columbus demanded that each Taino over 14 years of age deliver a hawk's bell full of gold powder every three months or, when this was lacking, twenty-five pounds of spun cotton. If this tribute was not delivered, the Taínos had their hands cut off and were left to bleed to death. Columbus then sailed more than 100 kilometers eastwards along the northern coast of Hispaniola, establishing a new settlement, which he called La Isabela, in the present-day Dominican Republic.^[58] However, La Isabela proved to be poorly located and the settlement was short-lived.

Columbus left Hispaniola on 24 April 1494, arriving at Cuba (which he named Juana) on 30 April. He explored the southern coast of Cuba, which he believed to be part of a peninsula attached to mainland Asia, as well as several nearby islands, including the Isle of Pines (which he named La Evangelista, "The Evangelist"). He reached Jamaica on 5 May.^{[citation needed]} He retraced his route to Hispaniola, arriving on 20 August, before he finally returned to Spain.

Third voyage[link]

On 30 May 1498, Columbus left with six ships from Sanlúcar, Spain, for his third trip to the New World. Three of the ships headed directly for Hispaniola with much-needed suplies, while Columbus took the other three in an exploration of what might lie to the south of the Caribbean islands he had already visited, including a hope-for passage to continental Asia.^[59]

Third voyage

Columbus led his 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. As he crossed the Atlantic, Columbus discovered that the angle between North as indicated by a magnetic compass and North as measured by the position of the pole star changed with his position (a phenomenon now known as "compass variation"). He would later use his previous measurements of the compass variation to adjust his reckoning.^[2]

After being becalmed for several days in the doldrums of the mid-Atlantic, Columbus's fleet regained its wind and, dangerously low on water, turned north in the direction of Dominica, which Columbus had visited in his previous voyage. The ships landed on the southern coast of the island of Trinidad on 31 July. After resupplying with food and water, from 4 to 12 August Columbus explored the Gulf of Paria, which separates Trinidad from what is now Venezuela, near the delta of the Orinoco River. He then touched the mainland of South America at the Paria Peninsula.

Columbus correctly interpreted the enormous quantity of fresh water that the Orinoco delivered into the Atlantic Ocean as evidence that he had reached a continental landmass. As he sailed the Gulf of Paria, he observed the diurnal rotation of the pole star in the sky, which he erroneously interpreted as evidence that the Earth was not perfectly spherical, but rather bulged out like a pear around the new-found continent.^[2] He also speculated that the new continent might be the location of the biblical Garden of Eden. He then sailed to the islands of Chacachacare and Margarita. He sighted Tobago (which he named "Bella Forma") and Grenada (which he named "Concepción").

In poor health, Columbus returned to Hispaniola on 19 August, only to find that many of the Spanish settlers of the new colony were in rebellion against his rule, claiming that Columbus had misled them about the supposedly bountiful riches of the New World. A number of returning settlers and sailors lobbied against Columbus at the Spanish court, accusing him and his brothers of gross mismanagement. Colombus had some of his crew hanged for disobedience. He had an economic interest in the enslavement of the Hispaniola natives and for that reason was not eager to baptize them, which attracted criticism from some churchmen.^[60] An entry in his journal from September 1498 reads: "From here one might send, in the name of the Holy Trinity, as many slaves as could be sold..."

Columbus was eventually forced to make peace with the rebellious colonists on humiliating terms.^[61] In 1500, the Crown had him removed as governor, arrested, and transported in chains to Spain (see Governorship and arrest section below). He was eventually freed and allowed to return to the New World, but not as governor.

Fourth voyage[link]

Fourth voyage

Before leaving for his fourth voyage, Columbus wrote a letter to the Governors of the Bank of St. George, Genoa, dated at Seville, 2 April 1502.^[62] He wrote "Although my body is here my heart is always near you."^[63]

Columbus made a fourth voyage nominally in search of the Strait of Malacca to the Indian Ocean. Accompanied by his brother Bartolomeo and his 13-year-old son Fernando, he left Cadiz, (modern Spain), on 11 May 1502, with the ships Capitana, Gallega, Vizcaína and Santiago de Palos. He sailed to Arzila on the Moroccan coast to rescue Portuguese soldiers whom he had heard were under siege by the Moors. On 15 June they landed at Carbet on the island of Martinique (Martinica). A hurricane was brewing, so he continued on, hoping to find shelter on Hispaniola. He arrived at Santo Domingo on 29 June but was denied port, and the new governor refused to listen to his storm prediction. Instead, while Columbus's ships sheltered at the mouth of the Rio Jaina, the first Spanish treasure fleet sailed into the hurricane. Columbus's ships survived with only minor damage, while 29 of the 30 ships in the governor's fleet were lost to the 1 July storm. In addition to the ships, 500 lives (including that of the governor, Francisco de Bobadilla) and an immense cargo of gold were surrendered to the sea.

After a brief stop at Jamaica, Columbus sailed to Central America, arriving at Guanaja (Isla de Pinos) in the Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras on 30 July. Here Bartolomeo found native merchants and a large canoe, which was described as "long as a galley" and was filled with cargo. On 14 August he landed on the continental mainland at Puerto Castilla, near Trujillo, Honduras. He spent two months exploring the coasts of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, before arriving in Almirante Bay, Panama on 16 October.

On 5 December 1502, Columbus and his crew found themselves in a storm unlike any they had ever experienced. In his journal Columbus writes,

For nine days I was as one lost, without hope of life. Eyes never beheld the sea so angry, so high, so covered with foam. The wind not only prevented our progress, but offered no opportunity to run behind any headland for shelter; hence we were forced to keep out in this bloody ocean, seething like a pot on a hot fire. Never did the sky look more terrible; for one whole day and night it blazed like a furnace, and the lightning broke with such violence that each time I wondered if it had carried off my spars and sails; the flashes came with such fury and frightfulness that we all thought that the ship would be blasted. All this time the water never ceased to fall from the sky; I do not say it rained, for it was like another deluge. The men were so worn out that they longed for death to end their dreadful suffering.^[64]

Columbus awes the Jamaican natives by predicting the lunar eclipse of 1504.

In Panama, Columbus learned from the natives of gold and a strait to another ocean. After much exploration, in January 1503 he established a garrison at the mouth of the Río Belén. On 6 April one of the ships became stranded in the river. At the same time, the garrison was attacked and the other ships were damaged. Shipworms also damaged the ships in tropical waters.^[65]). Columbus left for Hispaniola on 16 April heading north. On 10 May 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 25 June 1503 they were beached in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica.

For a year Columbus and his men remained stranded on Jamaica. A Spaniard, Diego Méndez, and some natives paddled a canoe to get help from Hispaniola. The governor, Nicolás de Ovando y Cáceres, detested Columbus and obstructed all efforts to rescue him and his men. In the meantime Columbus, in a desperate effort to induce the natives to continue provisioning him and his hungry men, successfully won their favor by predicting a lunar eclipse for 29 February 1504, using the Ephemeris of the German astronomer Regiomontanus.^[66] Help finally arrived, no thanks to the governor, on 29 June 1504, and Columbus and his men arrived in Sanlúcar, Spain, on 7 November.

Governorship and arrest[link]

Under the terms of the Capitulations of Santa Fe, after his first voyage Columbus was appointed Viceroy and Governor of the Indies, which in practice entailed primarily the administration of the colonies in the island of Hispaniola, whose capital was established in Santo Domingo. By the end of his third voyage, Columbus was physically and mentally exhausted: his body was wracked by arthritis and his eyes by ophthalmia. In October 1499, he sent two ships to Spain, asking the Court of Spain to appoint a royal commissioner to help him govern. By then, accusations of tyranny and incompetence on the part of Columbus had also reached the Court.

The Court appointed Francisco de Bobadilla, a member of the Order of Calatrava, but not as the aide that Columbus had requested. Instead, Bobadilla was given complete control as governor from 1500 until his death in 1502. Arriving in Santo Domingo while Columbus was away, Bobadilla was immediately peppered with complaints about all three Columbus brothers: Christopher, Bartolomé, and Diego. Consuelo Varela, a Spanish historian, states: "Even those who loved him [Columbus] had to admit the atrocities that had taken place."^[67][68]

Columbus before the Queen, imagined^[69] by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze, 1843

As a result of these testimonies and without being allowed a word in his own defense, Columbus, upon his return, had manacles placed on his arms and chains on his feet and was cast into prison to await return to Spain. He was 48 years old.

On 1 October 1500, Columbus and his two brothers, likewise in chains, were sent back to Spain. Once in Cadiz, a grieving Columbus wrote to a friend at court:

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.^[70]

According to an uncatalogued document supposedly discovered very late in history purporting to be a record of Columbus's trial which contained the alleged testimony of 23 witnesses, Columbus regularly used barbaric acts of torture to govern Hispaniola.^[71]

Columbus and his brothers lingered in jail for six weeks before busy King Ferdinand ordered their release. Not long after, the king and queen summoned the Columbus brothers to the Alhambra palace in Granada. There the royal couple heard the brothers' pleas; 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. Henceforth Nicolás de Ovando y Cáceres was to be the new governor of the West Indies.

Later life[link]

Santa María, Columbus's flagship in first voyage, at his Valladolid house.^[72]

Tomb in Seville Cathedral. The remains are borne by kings of Castile, Leon, Aragon and Navarre.^[73]

While Columbus had always given the conversion of non-believers as one reason for his explorations, he grew increasingly religious in his later years. Probably with the assistance of his son Diego and his friend the Carthusian monk Gaspar Gorricio, Columbus produced two books during his later years: 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 passages from the Bible were used to place his achievements as an explorer in the context of Christian eschatology.^[11]

In his later years, Columbus demanded that the Spanish Crown give him 10% 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").

Death[link]

The death of Columbus. Lithograph by L. Prang & Co., 1893.

On 20 May 1506, aged probably 54, Columbus died in Valladolid, Spain.

Silver Caravel. Ashes of Christopher Columbus^[74]

Columbus's remains were first interred at Valladolid, then at the monastery of La Cartuja in Seville (southern Spain) by the will of his son Diego, who had been governor of Hispaniola. In 1542 the remains were transferred to Colonial Santo Domingo, in the present-day Dominican Republic. In 1795, 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 Spain, to the Cathedral of Seville,^[75] where they were placed on an elaborate catafalque.

However, a lead box bearing an inscription identifying "Don Christopher Columbus" and containing bone fragments and a bullet was discovered at Santo Domingo in 1877.

To lay to rest claims that the wrong relics had been moved to Havana and that Columbus's remains had been left buried in the cathedral at Santo Domingo, DNA samples of the corpse resting in Seville were taken in June 2003 (History Today August 2003) as well as other DNA samples from the remains of his sons Diego and Fernando Colón. Initial observations suggested that the bones did not appear to belong to somebody with the physique or age at death associated with Columbus.^[76] DNA extraction proved difficult; only short fragments of mitochondrial DNA could be isolated. The mtDNA fragments matched corresponding DNA from Columbus's brother, giving support that both individuals had shared the same mother.^[77][78] Such evidence, together with anthropologic and historic analyses led the researchers to conclude that the remains found in Seville belonged to Christopher Columbus.^[79] The authorities in Santo Domingo have never allowed the remains there to be exhumed, so it is unknown if any of those remains could be from Columbus's body as well.^[78][79] The location of the Dominican remains is in "The Colombus Lighthouse" (Faro a Colón), in Santo Domingo.

Historians have traditionally argued that Columbus remained convinced to the very end that his journeys had been along the east coast of Asia,^[80] but scholar Kirkpatrick Sale argues that a document in the Book of Privileges indicates Columbus knew he found a new continent.^[81] Furthermore, his journals from the third voyage call the "land of Paria" a "hitherto unknown" continent.^[82] On the other hand, his other writings continued to claim that he had reached Asia, such as a 1502 letter to Pope Alexander VI where he asserted that Cuba was the east coast of Asia.^[83] He also rationalized that the new continent of South America was the "Earthly Paradise" that was located "at the end of the Orient".^[82] Thus, it remains unclear what his true beliefs were.

Commemoration[link]

~ Christopher Columbus ~ U.S. Columbian Issue of 1893.

The World Columbian Exposition in Chicago, 1893, commemorated the 400th anniversary of the landing of Christopher Columbus in the Americas. Over 27 million people attended the exposition during its six-month duration.

The U.S. Postal Service participated in the celebration issuing the first US commemorative postage stamps, a series of 16 postage issues called the Columbian Issue depicting Columbus, Queen Isabella and others in the various stages of his several voyages. The issues range in value from the 1-cent to the 5-dollar denominations. Under Benjamin Harrison and his Postmaster General John Wanamaker the Columbian commemorative stamps were made available and were first issued at the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois, in 1893. Wanamaker originally introduced the idea of issuing the nation's first commemorative stamp to Harrison, the Congress and the U.S. Post Office. To demonstrate his confidence in the new Columbian commemorative issues Wanamaker purchased $10,000 worth of stamps with his own money. The Columbian Exposition lasted several months and, and over $40 million dollars in commemorative postage stamp had been sold.^[84] The 400th anniversary Columbian issues were very popular in the United States; more than a billion of the two-cent editions were printed.^{[citation needed]}

In 1982, a second Columbian issue was released that was identical to the first to commemorate the 500th anniversary. These issues were made from the original dies of which the first engraved issues of 1893 were produced. In 1992 along with the United States, Spain also issued an almost identical series of Columbian issues, (using 'Spain' instead of 'United States of America') celebrating the 500th anniversary of the voyages.^{[citation needed]}

Legacy[link]

Columbus Lighthouse (Faro a Colón), Santo Domingo^[85]

Although among non-Native Americans Christopher Columbus is traditionally considered the discoverer of America, Columbus was preceded by the various cultures and civilizations of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, as well as the Western world's Vikings at L'Anse aux Meadows. He is regarded more accurately as the person who brought the Americas to the forefront of Western attention. "Columbus's claim to fame isn't that he got there first," explains historian Martin Dugard, "it's that he stayed."^[86] The popular idea that he was first person to envision a rounded earth is false. The rounded shape of the earth had already been known since antiquity.

Replicas of Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria sailed from Spain to the Chicago Columbian Exposition.

Amerigo Vespucci's travel journals, published 1502-4, convinced Martin Waldseemüller that the discovered place was not India, as Columbus always believed, but a new continent, and in 1507, a year after Columbus's death, Waldseemüller published a world map calling the new continent America from Vespucci's Latinized name "Americus". According to Paul Lunde, "The preoccupation of European courts with the rise of the Ottoman Turks in the East partly explains their relative lack of interest in Columbus's discoveries in the West."^[87]

Columbus monument near the state capitol in Denver, Colorado^[88]

Historically, the British had downplayed Columbus and emphasized the role of the Venetian John Cabot as a pioneer explorer, but for the emerging United States, Cabot made for a poor national hero. Veneration of Columbus in America dates back to colonial times. The name Columbia for "America" first appeared in a 1738 weekly publication of the debates of the British Parliament.^[89] The use of Columbus as a founding figure of New World nations and the use of the word "Columbia", or simply the name "Columbus", spread rapidly after the American Revolution. Columbus's name was given to the federal capital of the United States (District of Columbia), the capital cities of two U.S. states (Ohio and South Carolina), and the Columbia River. Outside the United States the name was used in 1819 for the Gran Colombia, a precursor of the modern Republic of Colombia. Numerous cities, towns, counties, streets, and plazas (called Plaza Colón or Plaza de Colón throughout Latin America and Spain) have been named after him. A candidate for sainthood in the Catholic Church in 1866, celebration of Columbus's legacy perhaps reached a zenith in 1892 with the 400th anniversary of his first arrival in the Americas. Monuments to Columbus like the Columbian Exposition in Chicago and Columbus Circle in New York City were erected throughout the United States and Latin America extolling him.

House of Columbus, by Comas Quesada. A museum complex devoted to the Canarian-American history in Las Palmas.

In 1909, descendants of Columbus undertook to dismantle the Columbus family chapel in Spain and move it to Boalsburg near State College, Pennsylvania, where it may now be visited by the public.^[90] At the museum associated with the chapel, there are a number of Columbus relics worthy of note, including the armchair that the "Admiral of the Ocean Sea" used at his chart table.

More recent views of Columbus, particularly those of Native Americans, have tended to be much more critical.^[91][92][93] This is because the native Taino of Hispaniola, where Columbus began a rudimentary tribute system for gold and cotton, disappeared so rapidly after contact with the Spanish, due to overwork and especially, after 1519, when the first pandemic struck Hispaniola,^[94] due to European diseases.^[95] Some estimates indicate case fatality rates of 80–90% in Native American populations during smallpox epidemics.^[96] The native Taino people of the island were systematically enslaved via the encomienda system,^[97] which resembled a feudal system in Medieval Europe.^[98] The pre-Columbian population is estimated to have been perhaps 250,000–300,000. According to the historian Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdes by 1548, 56 years after Columbus landed, fewer than five hundred Taino were left on the island.^[99] In another hundred years, perhaps only a handful remained. However, some analyses of the question of Columbus's legacy for Native Americans do not clearly distinguish between the actions of Columbus himself, who died well before the first pandemic to hit Hispaniola or the height of the encomienda system, and those of later European governors and colonists on Hispaniola.

There is increasing modern scientific evidence that the first voyage also brought syphilis back from the New World.^[100] Many of the crew members who served on this voyage later joined the army of King Charles VIII in his invasion of Italy in 1495 resulting in the spreading of the disease across Europe and as many as 5 million deaths.^[101]

The anniversary of Columbus's 1492 landing in the Americas is usually observed as Columbus Day on 12 October in Spain and throughout the Americas, except Canada. In the United States it is observed annually on the second Monday in October.

The term "pre-Columbian" is usually used to refer to the peoples and cultures of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus and his European successors.

Physical appearance[link]

In The Virgin of the Navigators, 1531–36

Although an abundance of artwork involving Christopher Columbus exists, no authentic contemporary portrait has been found.^[102] James W. Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me, said that the various posthumous portraits have no historical value.^[103]

Sometime between 1505 and 1536, Alejo Fernández painted an altarpiece, The Virgin of the Navigators, that includes a depiction of Columbus. The painting was commissioned for a chapel in Seville's Casa de Contratación (House of Trade) and remains there to this day, as the earliest known painting about the discovery of the Americas.^[104][105]

At the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, 71 alleged portraits of Columbus were displayed; most did not match contemporary descriptions.^[106] These writings describe him as having reddish or blond hair, which turned to white early in his life, light colored eyes,^[107] as well as being a lighter-skinned person with too much sun exposure turning his face red. Accounts consistently describe Columbus as a large and physically strong man of some six feet or more in height, easily taller than the average European of his day.^[108]

The most iconic image of Columbus is a portrait by Sebastiano del Piombo, which has been reproduced in many textbooks. It agrees with descriptions of Columbus in that it shows a large man with auburn hair, but the painting dates from 1519 and cannot, therefore, have been painted from life. Furthermore, the inscription identifying the subject as Columbus was probably added later, and the face shown differs from other images, including that of the "Virgin of the Navigators."^[109]

Popular culture[link]

Isabella and Columbus by Larkin Mead under dome of California State Capitol^[110]

Columbus, an important historical figure, has been depicted in fiction, cinema and television, and in other media and entertainment, such as stage plays, music, cartoons and games.

In games

• Christopher Columbus appears as a Great Explorer in the 2008 strategy video game, Civilization Revolution.^[111]

In literature

• In 1889, American author Mark Twain based the time traveler's trick in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court on Columbus's successful prediction of a lunar eclipse during his fourth voyage to the New World.
• In 1941 the British author Rafael Sabatini published a novel Columbus, based on a screenplay he had written for a planned film. The story provided the inspiration for the 1949 film about Columbus.
• In 1958, the Italian playwright Dario Fo wrote a satirical play about Columbus titled Isabella, tre caravelle e un cacciaballe (Isabella, three tall ships and a con man). In 1997 Fo was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. The play was translated into English in 1988 by Ed Emery and is downloadable on the internet.^[112]
• In 1991, author Salman Rushdie published a fictional representation of Columbus in The New Yorker, "Christopher Columbus and Queen Isabella of Spain Consummate Their Relationship, Santa Fe, January, 1492".^[113]
• In Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus (1996) science fiction novelist Orson Scott Card focuses on Columbus's life and activities, but the novel's action also deals with a group of scientists from the future who travel back to the 15th century with the goal of changing the pattern of European contact with the Americas.
• British author Stephen Baxter includes Columbus's quest for royal sponsorship as a crucial historical event in his 2007 science fiction novel Navigator (ISBN 978-0-441-01559-7), the third entry in the author's Time's Tapestry Series.

In music

• Christopher Columbus is regularly referred to by singers and musical groups in the Rastafari movement as an example of a European oppressor. The detractors include Burning Spear (Christopher Columbus), Culture (Capture Rasta), and Peter Tosh (You Can't Blame The Youth, Here Comes The Judge).

On Screen

• Christopher Columbus is a 1949 film starring Fredric March as Columbus.
• The 1985 TV mini-series, Christopher Columbus, features Gabriel Byrne as Columbus.
• Columbus was portrayed by Gérard Depardieu in the 1992 film by Ridley Scott, 1492: Conquest of Paradise. Scott presented Columbus as a forward-thinking idealist, as opposed to the view that he was ruthless and responsible for the misfortune of Native Americans.
• Carry On Columbus is a 1992 comedy.
  

  

  Columbus by Mary Lawrence
• Christopher Columbus: The Discovery, is a 1992 biographical film by Alexander Salkind.
• The 42nd episode of The Sopranos, entitled "Christopher" (2002), addresses the controversies surrounding Columbus's legacy from the perspectives of numerous identity group members.

In sculpture

• Isabella and Columbus by Larkin Mead, 1874, California State Capitol, Sacramento, California
• Christopher Columbus, by Moses Jacob Ezekiel, Arrigo Park, Chicago. Illinois, 1891^[114]
• Drake Fountain, also known as the Columbus Monument by Richard Henry Park, Chicago, Illinois, 1892^[115]
• Christopher Columbus by Ferdinand von Miller the Younger, St. Louis, Missouri, 1884, This work is different from most in that it shows a bearded Columbus. It is believed to be the first bronze statue of Columbus in the United States.^[116]
• Colossal Columbus statue by Mary Lawrence, 1893, at the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, Illinois,^[117]
• Columbus by Paul Wayland Bartlett ca. 1895 Library of Congress, Washington D.C.^[118]
• Christopher Columbus Memorial by Pietro Piai 1904, Pueblo, Colorado. "Colorado was the first state to make Columbus Day a legal holiday in 1905 and this is reportedly the first monument to Columbus erected in the United States."^[119]
• Christopher Columbus, by Augusto Rivalta, Detroit, Michigan, 1910,^[120]
• Columbus Fountain, by Lorado Taft, 1912, Washington D.C.
• Christopher Columbus, by Virgil Rainer, Chicago, Illinois,^[121] 1924^[122]
• Christopher Columbus by Charles Brioschi, assisted by Leo Lentelli, St. Paul, Minnesota, 1931^[123]
• Christopher Columbus by Charles Brioschi, Grant Park (Chicago), 1933^[124]
• Christopher Columbus, by Frank Vittor, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, 1958^[125]
• Christopher Columbus Monument by David W. Oswald, Columbus, Wisconsin, 1988^[126]

In space

• Asteroid 327 Columbia is named in his honour.

References[link]

Footnotes[link]