Christopher Columbus
Alias
Italian: Cristoforo Colombo
Catalan: Cristofor Colom
Spanish: Cristóbal Colón
Portuguese: Cristóvão Colombo
Latin: Christophorus Columbus
Genoa: Christoffa Corombo
Born: before October 31, 1451
Place of birth: Genoa, Italy
Died: 20-Mei - 1506
Location of death: Valladolid, Spain
Cause of death: unspecified
Remains: Buried, Cathedral of Seville, Seville, Spain
Gender: Male
Religion: Roman Catholic
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight Occupation: Explorer
Nationality: Italy
Executive Summary: Rediscovering the New World
Father: Domenico Colombo (weaver and wool merchant)
Mother: Suzanna Fontanarossa
Brothers: Bartolomeo (young)
Brothers: Giovanni Pellegrino (young)
Brothers: Giacomo (young)
Sister: Bianchinetta
Wife: Perestello e Filipa Moniz (m. 1479, d January -1485 after childbirth)
Children: Diego Colon (b. 1480)
Girlfriend: Beatriz Enriquez (after death Filipa)
Children: Ferdinand (born 1488, with Enriquez)
Christopher Columbus was born in Genoa (located in Italy at this time) in 1451 to Domenico Colombo, middle-class wool weaver, and Susanna Fontanarossa. Although little is known about his childhood, it was clear that he was educated as he is able to speak several languages as an adult and have sufficient knowledge of classical literature. In addition, he studied the works of Ptolemy and Marinus to name a few.
Columbus first took to the sea when he was 14 years old and continued throughout his youth. During the 1470s, he went on many trips trading that took him to the Aegean Sea, Northern Europe, and possibly Iceland. In 1479, he met his brother Bartolomeo, cartographer, in Lisbon. He then married Filipa Moniz Perestrello and in 1480, his son Diego was born.
The family lives in Lisbon until 1485, when Columbus' wife Filipa died. From there, Columbus and Diego moved to Spain where he began trying to get a grant to explore the western trade route. He believes that because the Earth is round, a ship could reach the Far East and set up trade routes in Asia by sailing west.
For years, Columbus proposed his plan to the kings of Portugal and Spain, but he refused each time. Finally, after the Moors were expelled from Spain in 1492, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella to reconsider his request. Columbus promised to bring back gold, spices, and silk from Asia, the spread of Christianity, and explore China. He then asked to be the governor of the land and the sea admiral found.
Men and Myths
After five centuries, Columbus remains a mysterious and controversial figure who has been variously described as one of the greatest mariners in history, a visionary genius, a mystic, a national hero, the administrator fails, a naive entrepreneur, and a ruthless and greedy imperialist.
Columbus company to find a western route to Asia grew out of practical experience that long maritime career and varied, and of considerable reading in geographical and theological literature. He settled for a time in Portugal, where he tried unsuccessfully to get support for the project, before moving to Spain. After much difficulty, through a combination of luck and persuasiveness, he gained the support of the Catholic kings, Isabel and Fernando.
Widely published report of his voyage of 1492 made Columbus famous throughout Europe and secured for him the title of Admiral Ocean Sea and further royal patronage. Columbus, who never left the belief that he had reached Asia, led three expeditions to the Caribbean. But intrigue and his own administrative failings brought disappointment and political obscurity to his final years.
Agreement with the Spanish crown
After continued lobbying at the Spanish court and two years of negotiations, he finally succeeded 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 his confession, and he was leaving town by mule despair, when Ferdinand intervened. Isabella then sent the royal guard to fetch him and Ferdinand later claimed credit for being "the principal cause why the islands are found".
Approximately half of the funding will come from private Italian investors, which Columbus had already lined up. Financially broke after the Granada campaign, the authorities left it to the royal treasurer to shift funds among various royal accounts on behalf of the company. Columbus was to be made "Admiral of the Seas" and would receive a portion of all profits. The term was unusually generous, but as his son Diego later wrote, rulers do not really expect him to come back.
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 Ocean Sea and appointed Viceroy and Governor of all the new land that can be claimed for Spain. He has the right to nominate three persons, from whom the authorities would choose one, for any office in the new lands. He will be entitled to 10% of all revenues from the new lands in perpetuity. In addition, he will also have the option of buying one-eighth interest in any commercial venture with the new lands and receive one-eighth of the profits.
Columbus was later arrested in 1500 and was dismissed from his position. He and his sons, Diego and Fernando, and then did a long series of court cases against the Castilian crown, known as colombinos pleitos, stating that the King had illegally reneged on its contractual obligations to Columbus and his heirs. Columbus family had some success in their first litigation, as a judgment of 1511 confirmed Diego position as Viceroy, but reduced his powers. Litigation Diego back in 1512, which lasted until 1536, and further disputes continued until 1790.
Governor and arrest
Under terms of the Capitulations of Santa Fe, after the first voyage Columbus was appointed Viceroy and Governor of the Indies, which in practice entailed primarily the administration of the colony on the island of Hispaniola, whose capital was established in Santo Domingo. At the end of his third voyage, Columbus physically and mentally exhausted: his body 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. At that time, accusations of tyranny and incompetence on the part of Columbus also reached the Court.
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 went, Bobadilla immediately met 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 happened."
Based on this testimony and without being given the opportunity to offer a defense, Columbus, upon his return, chained and imprisoned to await return to Spain.
On 1 October 1500, Columbus and his two brothers, also in chains, were sent back to Spain. Once in Cadiz, a grieving Columbus wrote to a friend at court:
Now seventeen years since I came to serve the prince with Enterprise Indies. They made me pass eight of them in discussion, and ultimately rejected as something of a joke. But I persist in it ... 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. By the time 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 allegations made by civilians who rebelled and wanted to take possession of the land ... I beg your graces, with the zeal of faithful Christians in whom they have confidence Highness, to read all my papers, and to consider how I, who come from far to serve these princes ... now at the end of the day I have vandalized my honor and my property without cause, wherein is not justice or mercy.
A report recently discovered by Francisco de Bobadilla alleges that Columbus regularly used barbaric acts of torture to govern Hispaniola. Bobadilla, who has replaced Columbus as governor of the Indies at the time of the report, has been asked by Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand to investigate allegations of brutality made against Columbus.The 48-page report, found in 2006 in the state archives in the Spanish city of Valladolid, contains testimonies of 23 people, including enemies and supporters of Columbus, about Columbus and his brothers treatment 'colonial subjects during the reign of seven years.
According to the report, Columbus convicted a man convicted of stealing corn had his nose and ears cut off and then sell him into slavery. The testimony is recorded in the statement of claim that his brother Bartolomé Columbus survived the "defend the family" when both ordered a woman paraded naked through the streets and then cut out her tongue to show that Columbus was of lowly birth.
"The government Columbus' characterized by a form of tyranny," Consuelo Varela, a Spanish historian who has seen the document, told reporters.
Other testimony from the accused periods Columbus systematic brutality against indigenous forced labor and engineering programs that reduce their population from millions to thousands in a little more than a decade. Priest Bartolomé de las Casas, the son of Pedro de las Casas priest who accompanied Columbus on his second voyage, Columbus described the treatment of 'the natives in his History of the Indies:
Endless testimonies ... proves mild temperament of the natives and the Pacific ... But our job is to annoy, destroy, kill, dismember and destroy, small wonder, then, if they tried to kill one of us now and then ... Admiral (Columbus), it is true, blind as those who came after him, and he is very anxious to please the King that he committed irreparable crimes against India.
Under governor and subsequently Columbus, Hispaniola were enslaved natives were forced to work hard under brutal conditions in the mining camps and farming. According to Las Casas, up to one-third of male slaves died during any mining operation six to eight months. Mine are miles and miles away from the farm, and the people were enslaved and women only see each other every eight to ten months. This separation, along with grueling conditions, taking its toll on the natives:
So the husband and wife together only once every eight or ten months and when they met they were so exhausted and depressed on both sides. . . they cease to proliferate. As for the newly born, they died early because their mothers, overworked and hungry, had no milk to nurse them, and for this reason, while I was in Cuba, 7000 children died in three months. Some mothers even drowned their babies from sheer desperation .... In this way, husbands died in the mines, wives died at work, and children died from lack of milk. . . and in a short time this land which was so great, so powerful and fertile ... is uninhabited .... My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I tremble as I write .... "
De las Casas notes in the amount of striking genocide that took place under Columbus and Spain, wrote that when he first came to Hispaniola in 1508, "there are 60,000 people living on this island, including India, so that from 1494 to 1508, more than three million people have died from war, slavery, and the mines. Who in future generations will believe this? I myself write as a knowledgeable eyewitness can hardly believe it .... "
Columbus and his brothers lingered in jail for six weeks before busy King Ferdinand ordered their release. Not long after that, the king and queen summoned Columbus brothers to the Alhambra palace in Granada. There the royal couple heard the brothers request '; restored freedom and wealth, and, after much persuasion, agreed to fund Columbus fourth trip. But the door was closed Columbus role as governor. Furthermore Nicolás de Ovando y Cáceres was to be the new governor of the West Indies.
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