Columbus began working at
sea early on, and made his first considerable voyage, to
the Aegean island of Chios, in 1475. A year later, he
survived a shipwreck off Cape St. Vincent and swam
ashore, after which he moved to Lisbon, Portugal, where
his brother Bartholomew was living. Both brothers worked
as chartmakers, but Columbus already nurtured dreams of
making his fortune at sea. In 1477, he sailed to England
and Ireland, and possibly Iceland, with the Portuguese
marine, and he also bought sugar in Madeira for a
Genoese firm.
In 1479, Columbus married Felipa
Perestello e Moniz, from an impoverished noble
Portuguese family. Their son, Diego, was born in 1480.
Felipa died in 1485, and Columbus later began a
relationship with Beatriz Enríquez de Harana of Cordoba,
with whom he had a second son, Ferdinand. (Columbus and
Beatriz never married, but he provided for her in his
will and legitimized Ferdinand, in accordance with
Castilian law.
By the
mid-1480s, Columbus had become focused on his plans of
discovery, chief among them the desire to discover a
westward route to Asia. In 1484, he had asked King John
II of Portugal to back his voyage west, but had been
refused. The next year, he went to Spain with his young
son, Diego, to seek the aid of Queen Isabella of Castile
and her husband, King Ferdinand of Aragon. Though the
Spanish monarchs at first rejected Columbus, they gave
him a small annuity to live on, and he remained hopeful
of convincing them. In January of 1492, after being
twice rebuffed, Columbus obtained the support of
Ferdinand and Isabella. The favorable response came
directly after the fall of Granada, the last Moorish
stronghold in Spain, which led Spanish Christians to
believe they were close to eliminating the spread of
Islam in southern Europe and beyond. Christian
missionary zeal, as well as the desire to increase
Spanish prominence in Europe over that of Portugal and
the desire for gold and conquest, were the primary
driving forces behind Columbus’ historic voyage.
On August 3, 1492, the fleet of
three ships—the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María—set
forth from Palos, on the Tinto River in southern Spain.
After spending nearly a month in the Canary Islands, off
the mainland of northwest Africa, the ships continued
west, following the parallel of Gomera. According to
records of the voyage, weather remained fair throughout.
The first sighting of land came at dawn on October 12.
(Though Columbus claimed that he himself, on the Niña,
was the first to see land, later evidence showed that
the sighting was made from the Pinta.) The place of the
first Caribbean landfall was most likely modern San
Salvador, or Watling Island, in the Bahamas.
Map of "The New
World," from Münster's edition of Ptolemy,
1540
Thinking he had reached the East
Indies, Columbus referred to the native inhabitants of
the island as “Indians,” a term that was ultimately
applied to all indigenous peoples of the New World. The
three ships sailed among other Bahama islands and landed
at Cuba, which Columbus convinced himself was the
mainland of great Cathay (China). There was little gold
there, and his exploration continued by sea to Ayti
(Haiti) on December 6, which Columbus renamed La Isla
Española, or Hispaniola. He seems to have thought
Hispaniola was Cipango (Japan); in any case, the land
was rich with gold and other natural resources, and
allowed Columbus to return to Spain in the spring of
1493 with riches enough to convince his sovereigns of
his success.
After a difficult journey back to
Europe, Columbus paid a visit to King John II of
Portugal, which prompted suspicion that he had
collaborated with Spain’s enemy. He subsequently
appeared before Isabella and Ferdinand in Barcelona,
displaying gold, exotic birds, herbs and spices, and
even human captives that he had brought from the New
World. The sovereigns were easily persuaded to fund a
second voyage—this time, at least 17 ships and 1,300 men
set sail from Cádiz on September 25, 1493. En route to
Hispaniola and Navidad, the settlement he had founded
there, Columbus and his fleet entered the West Indies
near Dominica (which he named) and proceeded past
Guadeloupe and other Lesser Antilles before reaching
Borinquén (modern Puerto Rico).
Upon reaching Navidad, Columbus
found the settlement destroyed and the Spanish settlers
dead, victims of strong native resistance against their
colonial tactics. After building more fortified
settlements, including one named La Isabela, in honor of
the queen, Columbus declared himself governor of
Hispaniola, intending it to become a trading post for
European settlers to conduct business with the rich
Oriental empires he expected to find. After searching
the Cuban coastline and Jamaica for gold, Columbus had
decided that Hispaniola was the richest source of gold
and other spoils.
In February 1494, 12 ships returned
to Spain from La Isabela, commanded by Columbus’
associate, Antonio de Torres. Two more of his
subordinates, Alonso de Ojeda and Pedro Margarit, led a
campaign of violence against the native inhabitants of
Hispaniola, in revenge for the murder of their comrades
at Navidad. They killed and captured many natives,
taking them as slaves, seemingly with the full knowledge
and approval of Columbus. Throughout the next two years,
the Spaniards continued their resolute conquest and
colonization of Hispaniola.
On March 10, 1496, Columbus set sail
for Spain, leaving his two brothers, Bartholomew and
Diego, in charge of Hispaniola. When he reached Cádiz,
he found Spain at war with France and his benefactors
even more eager to acquire gold and other riches from
the New World. In command of six ships, three with
explorers and three with provisions for settlement on
Hispaniola, Columbus set sail for a third westward
crossing on May 30, 1498. The first land sighting was at
Trinidad, which Columbus named in honor of the Holy
Trinity.
When the expedition arrived back at
Hispaniola, he found it in disarray, with a revolt
mounting against his brothers led by the alcalde (mayor)
of La Isabela, Francisco Roldán. The chiefs of the
indigenous tribes in Hispaniola, as well as a number of
Spaniards, were incensed by Bartholomew Columbus’
reorganization of the gold production process, which
favored certain Spaniards over others and exploited the
native labor force. As Columbus tried to restore order,
sometimes resorting to hangings, Roldán and his fellow
opposition leaders sent so many letters of complaint
against Columbus and his brothers back to Castile that
the rulers sent the Spanish chief justice, Francisco de
Bobadilla, to Hispaniola. Bobadilla took Columbus and
his brothers into his custody and sent all three men
back to Spain in shackles.
Ferdinand and Isabella later ordered
Columbus’ release, and he appeared before them at
Granada in December 1500. The monarchs allowed that
Columbus was a superior mariner and navigator, but
questioned his abilities to govern. Another man was
appointed governor of Hispaniola, and Columbus was given
support and permission to begin a fourth expedition. As
he prepared for the voyage, which would be his last,
Columbus revealed in his writings an even stronger
mystical vision of himself as the bearer of Christianity
into worlds unknown, a vision that had contrasted
sharply with the realities of conquest and colonization
in Hispaniola.
He set sail from Cádiz on May 9,
1502, with four ships, arriving at Santo Domingo on
Hispaniola on June 29. Continuing on down past Jamaica,
the southern shore of Cuba, Honduras, and the Mosquito
Coast of Nicaragua, Columbus showed navigation skill in
a voyage as difficult as his first crossing of the
Atlantic. He was searching for the strait to India, but
obviously did not find it, and was eventually forced to
turn back. En route to Hispaniola, however, his ships
were unable to make the distance and had to be beached
on the coast of Jamaica in June of 1503. Columbus and
his crew spent a year in Jamaica before returning to
Spain on a ship sent from Hispaniola on November 7,
1504. Upon arriving there, Columbus learned that Queen
Isabella, long his most sympathetic supporter, was on
her deathbed. She died on November 26, 1504.
By the end of his final voyage,
Columbus’ health had deteriorated; he was suffering from
arthritis as well as the aftereffects of a bout with
malaria. With a small portion of the gold brought from
Hispaniola, Columbus was able to live relatively
comfortably in Seville for the last year of his life. He
was emotionally diminished, however, and felt that the
Spanish monarchs had failed to live up to their side of
the agreement and provide him with New World property
and gold, especially after Isabella’s death. Columbus
followed the court of King Ferdinand from Segovia to
Salamanca to Vallodid seeking redress, but was rejected.
He died in Vallodid on May 20, 1506. His remains were
later moved to the Cathedral of Santo Domingo in
Hispaniola, where they were laid with those of his son
Diego. They were returned to Spain in 1899 and interred
in Seville Cathedral.
The debate over Columbus’ character
and legacy has continued into the twenty-first century,
revived in 1992 with the celebration of the
quincentenary of his first voyage to the New World.
Though the United States celebrates a national holiday
in his honor (on the Monday closest to October 12, the
date of the first landfall in 1492), much more attention
has been paid in recent years to the Spanish explorers’
treatment of the Native American peoples, and the word
“discovery” has been replaced by “encounter” when used
to describe Columbus’ achievements in regard to the
Americas. Columbus went to his grave believing he had
reached the shores of Cathay, and that he was a divine
missionary, ordained by God to spread Christianity into
the New World. In modern society, many have made
Columbus out to be a villain and a symbol for all that
is exploitative and predatory about the colonization of
the Americas by Europe. The true Columbus, it is
certain, lies somewhere in the middle.
© 2000 A&E Television Networks.
All rights reserved.
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Have a Happy Columbus
Day!
Joanne
~
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~
Joanne L. Gardiner, Broker, e-PRO
Realtor
Advantage Realty
Advantage Mortgage
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3205 Whipple Road - Union City,
California 94587
(510)
429-4800
San Francisco Bay
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Columbus Day - October 12th -
1492 
"Columbus Day honors Christopher Columbus' first
voyage to America in 1492. Columbus Day became a legal
federal holiday in the United States in 1971. It is
celebrated on the second Monday in October. Before 1971,
a number of states celebrated Columbus Day on October
12. Cities and organizations sponsor parades and
banquets on Columbus Day. 
Columbus, Christopher
~
1451-1506
