Christopher Columbus – Visionary or Delusionist?

1. Introduction

2. “Christopher Columbus – Visionary or Delusionist?”, I’ll try to show how this

remarkable man was driven by a dream, and how he changed our world for

ever. I’ll try and dispel the myth that he was a man of mystery, and show that his

story and actions can be understood within the context of the era in which he

lived.

We will start by examining the background to the many voyages of discovery that

were planned and undertaken in the fifteenth century, as city-states like Genoa,

where Columbus was born in 1451, were in decline and giving way to nation-states.

We’ll then look at the formative years of Columbus, who received a good education,

and went to sea on trading voyages from an early age. We’ll see how he felt forced

To leave Genoa, and was quite literally washed ashore in Portugal.

Here he began to develop his dream of sailing westwards across the Atlantic to Asia.

He shipped out on voyages from Lisbon into the north Atlantic,

and mixed this practical experience with the travellers’ tales that he read so avidly.

Columbus came to the conclusion that his dream was achievable, and that fame and

fortune would be his if only he could get backing for an expedition.

However, each time that he approached a potential backer with his plans, he was

rebuffed, often with laughter. After years of rejection and humiliation, Columbus

finally got the backing that he needed so in 1492, he set sail with three small ships,

and some very reluctant sailors, on the first of his voyages. He made landfall in the

West Indies, thinking all the time that he was near China or Japan.

He failed to find evidence of the civilisation he was looking for, but took back some

gold nuggets, artefacts, animals and people to show to his patrons.

His second voyage was launched in 1493 very quickly after his return, with the

objective of colonising the lands he had claimed for Spain. This was the longest of

his voyages, as he was away for nearly three years.

Ferdinand and Isabella backed him for a third time, and in 1498 he set sail again,

this time becoming the first European to set foot on the mainland of the Americas.

This voyage ended in humiliation, when he was forced to return to Spain as a virtual

prisoner.

He managed to get royal backing for one last desperate voyage, in 1502, which he

believed would ultimately prove him right, and demonstrate that he had indeed found

the western sea route to Asia. As we know, he was mistaken in his belief, and he

returned to Spain in 1504 a broken man.

His final months were spent in Valladolid, where he died in 1506, still convinced that

his voyages had been to the gates of China, Japan and India, and nothing could

shake this belief.

He was buried in Valladolid, but in death, as in life, Columbus continued to be a

wanderer, his remains being carried on further trans-Atlantic and inter-island

voyages.

3. Background to the voyages

We will start by examining the background to the many voyages of discovery that

were planned and undertaken in the fifteenth century, as city-states like Genoa,

where Columbus was born, were in decline and giving way to emerging nation-

states, like Portugal. There was intense economic competition between these states

to gain access to and control the supply of expensive commodities like spices into

Europe. Many of these commodities came from the far east of Asia, and followed

tortuous and dangerous land routes passing through many hands (all of whom

expected to make a profit) until they reached the great entrepots of the

Mediterranean, like Venice and Genoa. The need to find faster, more secure and

direct routes drove exploration, for example by the Portuguese, whose vessels sailed

down the west coast of Africa, rounded the Cape of Good Hope into the Indian

Ocean, and discovered the wind circulation in the Atlantic.

Another pressure to explore came as a result of the dominance of everyday life in

Europe at this time by the Catholic Church, particularly its dogma on fasting days

and fish days. This, coupled with population growth and the depletion of fish stocks

in European waters, pushed fishermen ever further out into the Atlantic to seek out

new fishing grounds, and to develop new preserving methods. It is known that the

Bristol fishing fleet discovered the Grand Banks for cod, which made fortunes for

their owners and that city.

They kept the location of this very quiet for obvious commercial reasons, as they

knew that they were on to a good thing, and understandably wanted to keep it to

themselves. However, they fished just off the North American coast successfully for

many years, and it seems inconceivable that they never laid eyes on the continent.

There is a school of historical thought that suggests that not only did these Bristol

fishermen know of the existence of the North American landmass, but that they

probably landed to replenish their water and food stocks, and may even have gone

ashore to escape bad weather conditions at sea. One historian has gone so far as to

suggest that they may even have over-wintered there, and built temporary

settlements where they preserved their catch before the long return voyage. It has to

be said that no evidence of any settlement has yet been discovered by

archaeologists, but then it took many years work several centuries after the event to

find what were indisputably the traces of the ill-fated Spanish expedition sent from

Cuba to occupy Florida (and they’d even left a written record of what they’d built and

where).

A negative pressure to keep people from looking for the western route to East Asia

came from the scientific and engineering knowledge of the day. It wasn’t that anyone

seriously believed that the world was flat, and that you might sail over the edge!

Since the Hellenistic civilisations of the 3rd century BC, scholars had known that the

world was a globe, and they’d calculated its size with remarkable accuracy.

However, when you applied this knowledge to sailing to the west, you came across a

stumbling block. No-one (except perhaps a few Bristol fishermen, and they were

keeping quiet!) had any idea that a continent, America, blocked the way.

And if you worked out the distances and thus the sailing times to Asia, attempting to

get there by the western route was just not on. It would take months, and the best

ships and crews of the day could only manage about a month at sea, before they ran

out of water and food, and needed to put into land for repairs. And if you built bigger

ships, so that you could carry more supplies, well you needed more sailors to man

them, so you could still only reckon on a month’s voyage. That’s why the Portuguese

persevered with the coastal route around Africa to India and the East Indies, and of

course, they got there, making their nation rich and powerful out of all proportion to

its physical size and population in the process.

4. The formative years of Christopher Columbus

This then was the world into which Christopher Columbus was born, in Genoa in

1451. Genoa at the time was still an important city-state, having grown rich on its

maritime trade. It had a population of about 75,000, which to put things into

perspective, made it as big as London, Paris or Venice. We don’t know beyond

doubt his date or place of birth, which has led to some writers describing him as a

man of mystery. But then, at that time, unless you were born into the higher reaches

of the aristocracy, exactly where and when you were born was an irrelevance. The

nearest you got to working out your date of birth was probably from your Christian

name, as many good Catholic families named their children after the nearest

propitious saint’s day!

Born in this place and time, it would be superfluous to state that Columbus was a

Catholic. However, he was unusually pious, observing all the teachings of the

church, and with an unshakeable belief that God had chosen him to perform his will.

Which perhaps sheds some light on his obsession – if God had chosen him to find

the western sea route to Asia, mere geographic facts were irrelevant!

We know that his family was reasonably well-off, as his father was a member of the

prestigious wool weavers’ guild (as well as a tavern keeper and politician). His

privileged Genovese upbringing explains his exploitative treatment of the native

peoples that he encountered. Genoa was a society in which the ownership of African

and Arabic slaves was commonplace, and their treatment was harsh. Columbus

would have grown up seeing these people as inferior beings, and he probably

viewed the native Americans in the same way.

He received a good education, even learning Latin, and would probably have lived

out his life in the city consolidating his family’s position, had not Genoa’s fortunes

plummeted and civil war intervened. The Portuguese had opened the sea route to

the Far East, and so Lisbon became the centre for trade in spice and gems. Then

Constantinople fell, cutting another of Genoa’s trade arteries. In the difficult time that

followed, the two ruling factions in the city turned on each other in a bloody conflict.

Columbus’s family were on the losing side, and to escape retribution and to further

his fortunes, he left Genoa.

He had been to sea from an early age, sailing throughout the Mediterranean as far

afield as Greece and Spain on trading voyages, and so he joined the crew of a

Genovese merchantman sailing in convoy with others to Lisbon, England and

Flanders. Barely had the flotilla cleared the Straits of Gibraltar when it was attacked

by privateers, and Columbus’s ship was sunk. He swam six miles to the shore,

where he was found and treated kindly by the Portuguese, who looked after him until

he felt strong enough to make the overland trip to Lisbon, where he found support

amongst the Genovese community.

5. The development of the dream and the increasingly desperate search for

backing

From Lisbon, he sailed again - to Ireland, Iceland and beyond. On these voyages he

heard seaman’s tales about strange people and boats that they had encountered in

the far waters of the northwest Atlantic, and he drank in the same taverns as the

sailors of Bristol, and listened to their yarns about their fishing grounds. His journal

contains entries about meeting the Bristolians, and also about encounters with

people in strange boats far out in the Atlantic.

Columbus was joined in Lisbon by his younger brother, Bartholomew, who had also

left Genoa to seek his fortune. Bartholomew had already become an experienced

trader in books and maps, and he set up a business in Lisbon, with his older brother

Christopher as his partner. This gave Columbus access to printed material to add

substance to his dream of sailing westwards across the Atlantic to Asia. The flames

of his ambitious plans were fanned by the deeply Catholic, almost mystical beliefs

that he had held from boyhood. He had decided that God had saved him from the

privateers and the sea to fulfil his destiny as the discoverer of new worlds and the

bringer of Christianity to their heathen inhabitants. He continued to read, avidly,

travelogues like that of Marco Polo, and consult maps. He was however, very

selective in drawing inferences from them. Most maps of the time were woefully

inaccurate, some showing the world as much smaller than it really was. Columbus

based his planning on these, because using the more accurate versions showed that

you couldn’t simply sail west to Asia in the timescales that he envisaged. He

convinced himself that his expedition to Asia was viable, that that his ambitions for

fame as a great navigator and for wealth would be satisfied if only he could get

financial support for it.

As he was becoming increasingly fixated on what he saw as his God-given mission,

Columbus met and married a Portuguese woman, Felipa Moniz. This was indeed a

fortunate union for Columbus, as his bride’s family were members of the Portuguese

nobility, and offered him a route to the king’s ear. Furthermore, Felipa’s late father

had been one of Henry the Navigator’s admirals, and had explored the islands of the

southern Atlantic for his king, leaving many journals and maps of his voyages which

Columbus was given.

Columbus managed to get an audience with the king, John II, and presented his

plans, and his demands. These demands were many and large, virtually confirming

him as king of any lands that he might discover for Portugal.

Although he was a skilful and intuitive sailor, he was no negotiator or politician, and

his confidence in his plan and his abilities made him appear to be offering the King

an opportunity to become the junior partner in his (Columbus’s) enterprise. The King

had summoned his scientific council to hear Columbus, and their advice was that his

plans were “sheer vanity”. The King however did not turn down Columbus out of

hand. He asked him to wait for his decision, and then secretly despatched a caravel

along the route that Columbus had proposed. When this limped home to Lisbon, and

the exhausted crew reported that there was no chance of finding Asia by the western

route, the King dismissed Columbus.

Columbus was devastated – he had invested eight years of his life in trying to

persuade the Portuguese, the most daring explorers of the day, to back him, and he

had failed. He was now approaching forty, and he knew that time was running short

for him to be physically able to carry through his big expedition. He despatched his

brother Bartholomew to try to interest Henry VII of England and Charles VIII of

France. Both attempts failed. Columbus himself left Portugal and tried his luck in

Spain, but failed to convince Ferdinand and Isabella, who at that time were still

heavily engaged in the reconquest, which was grinding on slowly. In desperation,

Columbus even went back to his home city, Genoa, but met with the same rejection.

Depressed and humiliated Columbus returned to Spain, where he might well have

abandoned his dreams, but encouraged by a priest who had the ear of Isabella’s

confessor, he made one last attempt to get the backing he needed. By immense

good fortune, the time was now right! Ferdinand and Isabella has just completed the

capture of the final Muslim stronghold, Granada, and were looking for some means

of extending their Catholic empire. They reasoned that they wouldn’t risk much, as

the ships he wanted could be obtained by levy, and if his expedition simply

disappeared into the sunset, the crown would not be poorer. They were prepared to

grant him the demands that he made for titles, etc. on the basis that these could be

withdrawn later if they became onerous (and as we’ll see, they were!)

6. The first voyage – exploration

Columbus had finally got the royal backing that he needed so he left for Palos,

carrying with him the documents for the levy of the ships he had requested. Palos

had been chosen as it owed a debt to the crown, which would be discharged by

providing the ships, and its sailors were experienced in long voyages out to the

Atlantic islands. The royal proclamation was read out to the assembled townsfolk,

who thus learned that they had a date with history – they would provide the ships

and the crews for what to most of them must have seemed like a fantastic adventure

or a death sentence. Columbus wasn’t really able to choose his ships, but had to

accept what was people were prepared to let him have, which is how he came by the

Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. But getting the ships was the easy part – he

had to find about 90 sailors to crew them. And who in their right mind was going to

sign up with this mad foreigner whom nobody knew? Here Columbus had a stroke of

luck, as Martin Pinzon, an experienced deep-sea captain from an influential local

family, signed up and encouraged others (including from his own family) to do so.

He used his influence and contacts to procure the supplies that the expedition would

require, and provided Columbus with the experience of leading a ship’s crew into

unknown waters. Don’t forget that for all of Columbus’s sea-going experience and

undoubted navigational ability, he had never in his life captained a ship!

On August 3rd 1492 the three ships set sail from Palos, on the first leg of their

voyage, which would take them to La Gomera in the Canaries. Here they took on

board supplies, and then on September 6th set off into the unknown. The voyage did

not start well, because the wind dropped and they were becalmed for three days in

sight of the island! When the wind returned, they made their way westwards, leaving

all civilisation as they knew it behind them. At first morale was high, especially as

Columbus made exaggerated estimates of their progress. Then after a fortnight or

so, some disquiet set in – remember that a sailing ship of the day had a maximum

range of about a month, so you were really going out on a limb now. If you didn’t find

the promised landfall, you were a goner. Columbus tried to keep up his crews’ spirits,

by spotting what he claimed was floating vegetation or land birds, but a month into

the voyage things were getting sticky!

After what must have seemed like an interminable time to the crews of the three

ships, on the 33rd day of their voyage they sighted land, probably one of the easterly

islands in the Bahamas. Historians and oceanographers have argued ever since

about the precise location, but it doesn’t really matter. As the exultant sailors

gathered on deck, they caught sight of people on land – the first recorded encounter

between European and American societies. The native people were amazed and

bemused by their visitors, as they’d never seen ships of the size of the fleet, with

billowing sails. They were curious, and Columbus put them at their ease by offering

trinkets, and in return they offered food, gold ornaments and (what were to the

Europeans) exotic fruits and animals. Columbus was more than a little disappointed

by their apparently unsophisticated manner, believing as he did that he had reached

the outer limits of Japan or China.

He continued on his westerly route, finding and naming other small islands, until he

reached the eastern coast of Cuba. This he reasoned must be the mainland of Asia,

and the islands he had just left behind were on the periphery of that continent. Again

his hopes of finding a sophisticated society were dashed, as moving along the coast

he saw many native settlements, and had encounters with several groups, but all at

a far lower level of development than he expected. He kept a detailed log of his

progress, in which he recorded the habit of drying the leaves of a certain plant,

shredding it, rolling the shreds within another leaf, setting fire to it and then inhaling

the smoke! Despite what you might have been told, it was not Sir Walter Raleigh

who brought tobacco smoking to European attention!

Columbus’s log at this time was a strange mixture of acutely observed and minutely

detailed fact, and disguised and coded fiction. He adopted this tactic for two reasons.

In the first place, he had sold the idea to Ferdinand and Isabella on the basis of

immense riches for Spain, which were not revealing themselves. He did not want his

patrons to withdraw their support for his enterprise. Secondly, he was concerned that

a rival might steal his log, and use it to plan an expedition that would take away

some of his fame and riches.

Moving eastwards along the coast of Cuba, he came to the strait we now call the

Windward Passage. This confirmed to him that Cuba was not the main Asian

landmass, but he crossed the strait hoping to reach it. Of course he didn’t but he did

make landfall on a beautiful large island which he named La Isla Espanola, in honour

of his backers. He was impressed by the fertility of the island, and by the friendliness

of the inhabitants, but disappointed yet again by their unsophistication and the

absence of large quantities of gold and gems.

He anchored his fleet in a bay on the northern coast, and was building friendly

relations with the local inhabitants, when the only major accident of the first

expedition occurred. On Christmas Day, the Santa Maria dragged her anchor, and

ran aground. Helped by the natives, the crew salvaged all that they could from the

vessel, but Columbus realised that it would be impossible to repair it for a return

journey. He knew that the Nina and the Pinta would be unable to make the voyage

home with the Santa Maria’s crew as well, but with a flash of brilliance, made the

very best of a bad job.

He reasoned that if he had to leave some men behind, he could easily persuade

Ferdinand and Isabella to finance a rescue mission, on which he would surely

discover the Asian mainland. So he asked for volunteers to stay, and some 40 opted

to do so. They built a fort from the timbers of the Santa Maria, and were left with

weapons, food and seed.

Columbus left this first Spanish settlement in the Americas, called La Navidad, on

January 8th in the Nina and the Pinta, promising to return within a year. Before setting

off into the Atlantic, they called in at a native settlement along the coast, where on

January12th, there was the first recorded violence and bloodshed between

Europeans and Americans. An event that would become sadly all too frequent over

the next centuries.

Columbus had taken with him some natives, together with examples of native

animals and birds, plus what little gold he had been able to find, to show to

Ferdinand and Isabella. As luck would have it, the winds carried him in a northerly

direction, until he caught the prevailing south-westerly airstream, which carried him

back across the Atlantic. The return voyage was not without incident, as a storm

blew up, which separated the two ships, but both arrived back in Palos on the same

tide, a remarkable feat of seamanship and navigation.

7. The second voyage – colonisation

You could in reality only call Columbus’s first voyage a qualified success, in terms of

what he had claimed that he would discover. However, he had returned safely, with

some evidence of the riches of America, and the Catholic monarchs were extremely

impressed. They heaped honours and titles on him, and provided the funds to mount

a second much larger expedition as soon as possible. This expedition was to take a

significant number of colonists, so that all the discovered territories could be properly

claimed and settled for Spain, and a number of clerics, to bring about the conversion

of the heathen. This time Columbus was able to choose carefully his ships (17 in all)

and there was no shortage of volunteers either as sailors or colonists (over 1,000).

The impressive fleet left Cadiz on September25th 1493, and as before, headed to

the Canaries where it restocked from La Gomera, before striking out into the

unknown.

This crossing was favoured by consistent winds, and arrived in the Caribbean in only

20 days, without incident. The winds had taken them to a landfall much further south

than his first voyage, and they found themselves at the southern confluence of the

Caribbean and the Atlantic, in an archipelago we now call the Leeward Islands. Not

finding any sites suitable for founding colonial towns, Columbus carried out his usual

practice of capturing some natives and persuading them to guide him to better

locations. In this manner the fleet went north to what is now Puerto Rico, and then on

to La Isla Espanola, where it arrived at the settlement of La Navidad on

November25th.

Here Columbus was shocked to find the fort and buildings completely ruined, and no

sign of life or of any of the volunteers who had remained behind from the first

voyage. With the help of the local native chieftain, Columbus tried to piece together

what had happened, and reluctantly came to the conclusion that fierce rivalries for

gold nuggets and women amongst the Spaniards had caused them to fight each

other and so become easy prey for other hostile natives. A search of the surrounding

area discovered a few decomposing corpses and the remains of some artefacts that

had been taken ashore form the Santa Maria. A sad end to Europe’s first settlement

in the Americas, but one that came to be repeated.

Determined to avoid the reasons for the downfall of this first colony, Columbus

looked for an alternative site, and found one which he called La Isabella in honour of

the Queen. He chose the site carefully, as he envisaged this settlement growing into

a magnificent city, the seat of government of all the Spanish possessions in the

Americas, and probably capital of the realm he intended to construct for himself and

his descendants.

He drove the colonists to construct a strong fort to protect their settlement, but sadly

most of them had not come to do any physical labour, and they rebelled against the

regime he imposed. The climate was not conducive to hard manual work, sickness

was endemic, and trapping and enslaving natives proved ever more difficult. A group

of colonists rebelled against Columbus’s regime, and departed to found their own

settlement. Columbus himself led an abortive expedition into the interior to find the

gold nuggets that the natives had told him about, hoping that the promise of riches

would cause the colonists to redouble their efforts. He was beginning to realise that

landing and taking possession of a land in the name of Spain was the easy part –

creating a self-sufficient colony was much more difficult. He decided that rotating his

colonists was a good idea, so he sent the greater part of his fleet back to Spain with

many of the exhausted or sick.

His plan was that the fleet would then return with fresh recruits, and the work would

advance more quickly. He also wanted to show the Catholic monarchs the gold that

he had found, and gain their support in any future conflict with the disaffected

colonists. Then to add to his problems, the friendly natives on whom the Spanish had

come to rely as allies began to abandon their settlements and move away.

Columbus sent a punitive expedition, to demonstrate the power of the Spaniards, but

its leader was unable to distinguish between friendly and unfriendly natives, and

killed both indiscriminately, which pushed the friendly into the unfriendly camp.

Columbus’s lack of abilities as an administrator or leader were becoming obvious to

all but him and his immediate circle.

Wanting to get out of this worsening situation, Columbus appointed a committee to

supervise the completion of La Isabella whilst he got on with the serious business of

reaching the mainland of Asia. He sailed across the Windward Straits to run along

the southern coast of Cuba, slowly exploring the bays and inlets, pausing to evaluate

sites for forts and trading stations, and sending parties inland to look for gold and

precious stones. He was convinced that he was approaching the Malay Peninsula,

fancifully noting similarities between what he saw and descriptions in a traveller’s

tale that he had once read. In a state of puzzlement, he continued to Jamaica, from

where he returned to his home port in the Caribbean, La Isabella.

Here he found an unwelcome communication from his patrons, asking for more

precise and detailed information about their new realms than he had been sending.

He had been deliberately imprecise, because he could not admit to them that his

initial descriptions of an earthly paradise had been hopelessly inflated.

To preserve his reputation, and prevent his patrons carrying out their threat to recall

him, Columbus had one last throw of the dice to deliver treasure frim the Americas.

He ordered as many natives as possible to be rounded up, and shipped to Spain to

be sold as slaves.

Many of these poor innocent wretches died on route, and most of those who

survived to be sold in Sevilla died within a few months of arriving. And thus

Columbus’s plan to establish a slave-trade with Spain self-destructed. Enraged by

the abduction of their people, the natives were massing against La Isabella.

Columbus was suffering both physically (probably from rheumatoid arthritis) and

mentally (descriptions of his behaviour indicate a mental breakdown) at this time.

However, he recovered sufficiently to take to the field with what Spanish forces he

had, plus those of the remaining friendly natives and inflict a major defeat on the

besiegers.

This might have saved the day for Columbus, but many of the colonists had been

conspiring against him, and complaints about him to high officials at court had

already reached the Catholic monarchs. These reached such a volume that

Ferdinand and Isabella commissioned an investigation into his conduct as governor

and viceroy, led by Juan Aguado, a member of the Queen’s household. He was

despatched to La Isabella with sweeping powers. Columbus greeted him

courteously, but realised that his only hope of survival lay in returning to Spain and

putting his version of events to the monarchs in person.

He set sail in March 1496, in a sad little fleet of only two ships, compared with the 17

in which he had made the westerly crossing. However, both ships were dangerously

overcrowded, as so many of the originally enthusiastic colonists wished to return to

Spain. They found only light winds to propel them on their way, and had to resort to

food rationing in order to survive, but thanks to Columbus’s skill as an intuitive

navigator, they made Cadiz safely. Thus ended the longest of his voyages, as he

was away for nearly three years, but which achieved little. His proud settlement of La

Isabella was soon abandoned, its position identified by just a few stones.

8. The third voyage – humiliation

Columbus caught up with the peripatetic court in Burgos, and presented Ferdinand

and Isabella with the spoils of his second voyage. They decided to back him for a

third time, but were in no hurry to expend money on his expedition so it was two

years before he was ready to sail again. Because the returning colonists had painted

such a bleak picture of life across the ocean, volunteers were hard to find, so the

state resorted to giving a free pardon to any convicted felon who would sign up for

the enterprise. By such means, in May 1498 the fleet was ready, and left Sevilla for

the Atlantic crossing.

The Portuguese claim to these newly discovered lands was being pressed urgently,

so Columbus had been instructed to explore to the south of the Antilles, where he

had arrived on the second voyage, in an attempt to circumvent the Papal Bull. As

before, Columbus headed first to the Canaries, then south to the Cape Verde Isles,

then due west across the Atlantic. He made landfall on Trinidad, to the relief of all on

board, as they were down to their last cask of water. They were able to refill their

casks here, and barter for food with natives, before sailing westwards across the

Gulf of Paria.

They landed on its northern shore, at a small bay which thus became the first place

on the mainland of the American continent where it can be positively stated that

Europeans landed. Columbus explored the gulf, and then headed westwards along

the coast of what is now Venezuela. He was astonished by the changes in level of

the water, and the constantly varying directions of the currents. He did not realise

that he was navigating across the delta of the Orinoco, one of the world’s greatest

rivers, far larger and with a flow beyond anything he had ever experienced. His mind

gradually came to the realisation that he had stumbled across a new continent, but

he kept putting his discoveries into the context of the erroneous maps and

travelogues that he had read, and thought he was sailing along the coast of Asia!

Columbus set sail for La Espanola, where he had left his brothers and a committee

to keep the peace. Sadly, things had gone from bad to worse, and a virtual civil war

existed between different factions of the colonists. As before, some had sent letters

home, accusing the Columbus family of poor, self-serving, governance of the

monarch’s new realms. The monarchs responded by despatching one of their trusted

advisers, Francisco de Bobadilla, to sort things out. Immediately on landing,

Bobadilla commenced his investigation, and heard many testimonies against

Columbus, many fanciful and some outright lies. However, he had Columbus put in

chains and set onto the next ship that could be made ready to sail for Spain, where

he was to undergo a formal trial.

So despite setting foot on the American mainland and discovering what was to

become one of the most lucrative pearl fisheries of all time, Columbus’s third voyage

ended abruptly in humiliation, returning to Spain not in triumph but as a prisoner.

9. The fourth voyage – desperation

Columbus had not been permitted to bring any gold or gems back with him, so he

had to rely on charity to live until he was summoned to appear before the Catholic

monarchs, in Granada. They listened to his pleas, and effectively dropped the

charges against him, although they refused his request to be restored to his

governorship of the Americas and the titles that went with it. This was not surprising,

as he had shown himself as inept at governing and exploiting the lands as he had

been so expert at finding them!

Columbus and his constant entreaties now became a bit of an embarrassment, as

the Catholic monarchs were deeply involved in European power politics. However,

Columbus kept on petitioning, declaring that he now knew the way through the

western Caribbean to India. Possibly because it was a way of silencing him, in March

1502 they authorised the fourth voyage. Anxious to get going, and aware that at 51

he didn’t have much more time for exploring, Columbus set sail from Sevilla in a

small fleet of four ships. Heading via the Canaries as usual, he made the crossing to.

Martinique in 21 days. There he rested, and headed to La Espanola. He was refused

permission to anchor in the harbour, but found moorings nearby at which his ships

rode out a hurricane, which devastated a Spanish-bound fleet which had just left.

Columbus headed west across the Caribbean, until he reached the coastline of

Central America. For months he cruised this coast,

along what is now called Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama,

investigating every likely inlet to find what he was convinced must be there, the

channel through to the Indian Ocean and Asia.

At one point, anchored within sight of what is now the point of entry from the Atlantic

to the Panama Canal, he was told by natives that if he journeyed inland across the

mountains he would find another great ocean. If he had followed this advice, he

would have beaten Balboa to the Pacific. But he didn’t, because he was obsessed by

his mistaken belief that a sea-channel to Asia existed, and that he would find it!

Such was his increasing desperation he began to lose track of reality, and failed to

ensure adequate careening and maintenance of his ships. Some became

unseaworthy and had to be abandoned, and their crews packed into those still

capable of sailing.

Even these had to be beached on their voyage back to La Espanola, and when it

was realised that they could not be made seaworthy, things looked black. However,

two volunteers took Indian dugouts to get help, a desperate journey of several

hundred miles, including one leg of over one hundred miles of open water between

islands.

Against all the odds, the volunteers reached La Espanola, and a rescue mission

arrived some eight months later. By this time there were fewer castaways to rescue -

there had been a mutiny which ended in bloodshed and death. The survivors were

taken to La Espanola, where most decided that they’d had enough of sailing, and

certainly don’t want another Atlantic crossing, so only some 20 made the trip home

to Sanlucar De Barrameda with Columbus. He arrived in Spain a broken man, both

physically and mentally.

10. His final years, death and burial

In 1504, Isabella died, and she of the two monarchs had always been the more

sympathetic to Columbus. He continually petitioned Ferdinand for the restoration of

his titles, rights and privileges, but seldom received an answer. He finally got the

chance to put his case personally to Ferdinand at Segovia in 1505. Sadly, he

stubbornly insisted that he should have all the entitlements and honours that had first

been promised to him, instead of the sinecure of castle and lands in Castile that

Ferdinand offered to resolve the issue. In ever-failing health, Columbus painfully

followed the court as it moved on from Segovia to Salamanca and then Valladolid,

getting no better offer from the King.

His final months were spent in Valladolid, where he died in May 1506, crippled with

arthritis and malaria, and worn out by his exertions. He went to his death still

believing that his voyages had been to the gates of China, Japan and India, and

nothing could shake this belief. It was said of him that he had discovered everything,

but learned nothing.

He was buried in Valladolid, but in death, as in life, Columbus continued to be a

wanderer. After three years in peace, his remains were taken to a monastery near

Sevilla, and re-interred. However, in 1536, he was again moved – across the Atlantic

to La Espanola, where he was buried for a third time in the cathedral. Much later,

Spain ceded the island to France, so Columbus was moved again, to Havana in

Cuba. After the Spanish-American War of 1898, he was moved yet again, back to

Sevilla, although these last two moves have been disputed!

11. His legacy – the post-Columbian exchange

Columbus initiated the greatest cultural and eco-system collision that our planet has

yet seen, when he introduced the European and American civilisations to one

another. For we Europeans, he allowed us to indulge in tobacco and chocolate, as

well as potatoes, tomatoes and a host of other exotic fruit and vegetables. For the

Americans, he ushered in an era of impoverishment and enslavement, and many

indigenous tribes and their cultures simply disappeared under the onslaught.

Whether vision or delusion, his dream of a westerly sea route to Asia changed the

world for all of us.

Geoff Hutt