Christopher Columbus

Despite the uncertainty, textbooks in the United States use this image so uniformly that it has become the face of Columbus in popular culture. Some scholars and anti-Roman Catholic polemicists argue that its influence subtly continues in Christian thought, through Augustine of Hippo, who converted to Christianity from Manichaeism, and whose writings continue to be enormously influential among Catholic theologians. The image at the beginning of this article (and which is shown again to the right for the reader's convenience) dates from close to Columbus's time, but historians do not know whether the artist painted it from personal knowledge of his appearance. It appears that the popularity of Manichaeism slowly declined after 10th century in Central Asia. They depict him variously with long or short hair, heavy or thin, bearded or cleanshaven, stern or at ease. The envoy of Song Dynasty by the name of Wang visited Manichaean temples in Gaochang. Over the years historians have presented many images that reconstruct his appearance from written descriptions. Chinese documents record that the Uighur Manichaean clerics came to China to pay tribute to the imperial court in 934.

Nobody has ever found an authentic contemporary portrait of Columbus. The Arabian historian An-Nadim informs us that the Uighur Khan did his best to project Manichaeism in the Central Asian kingdom (of Saman). Since there is no evidence that any previous trans-Atlantic voyages transported slaves for sale, he was the first known European to transport slaves eastward across the Atlantic, and so is seen by some as the founder of the Atlantic slave trade in which millions of Africans were transported westward across the Atlantic for sale as slaves in the atrocity of the Middle Passage. However, there was no denying the historical fact that the Uighurs were worshippers of Mani. Columbus is also viewed as a villain by some African-Americans because of his transporting of Native Americans to Europe for sale as slaves. During the early 10th century Uighur emerged a very powerful empire under the influence of Buddhism with some Manichaean shrines converted into Buddhist temples. classrooms. These documents prove that Sogdia was a very important centre of Manichaeism during the early mediaeval period and it was perhaps the Sogdian merchants who brought the religion to Central Asia and China.

The view of Columbus as a villain received mass exposure in the United States when an episode of the TV show "The Sopranos" included a shot of A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn and demonstrated a common reaction to critical pedagogy in U.S. Middle Persian, Parthian and Sogdian script. (For more, see Columbus Day.) The genocide and atrocious acts committed by the Spanish against the natives (the Tainos in particular) are well documented in terrifying detail by Bartolomé de Las Casas in his letters and book A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies. See Native American Genocide for more details. The Manichaean manuscripts found in Turfan were written in three different Iranian scripts, viz. They did this because they found Columbus guilty of 'imperialist genocide'. A Manichaean tp)tmn of the 8th century from Turfan written in Middle Persian mentions that most of the Khan's kinsmen were devoted to Manichaean faith. On October 12, 2004, supporters of Chávez destroyed a 100-year old statue of Columbus in Caracas. Some fragments of a Manichaean book written in Turkish mention that in 803 the Khan of Uighur Kingdom went to Turfan and sent three Manichaean Magistrates to pay respects to a senior Manichaean cleric in Mobei.

It was in this spirit that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez signed, in October, 2002, a decree changing the name of Venezuela's "Columbus Day" to "The Day of Indigenous Resistance" in honor of the nation's indigenous groups. And as Mani claimed to be the successor to prophets like Jesus and other prophets whose teachings he said were locally corrupted (or corrupted by his followers), so too did Muhammad later claim to be the successor to prophets whose teachings he said were locally corrupted. Official celebrations of the 500th anniversary of Columbus's first voyage in 1992 were muted, and demonstrators protested marking the anniversary at all. Muhammad said that his prophethood was revealed to him by an angel as Mani had claimed about himself. Much criticism focuses on the continuing positive Columbus myths and celebrations (such as Columbus Day) and their effects on American thought towards present-day Native Americans. The title was later applied to Muhammad, founder of the Islamic religion who may have extracted this knowledge about himself from the New Testament and claimed, falsely for non Muslims, to be the last of prophets. The modern vilification of Columbus is seen by his supporters and by many scholars as being politically motivated and non-historical. Mani declared himself, and was also referred to, as the Paraclete: a Biblical title, meaning "helper", which the Orthodox tradition understood as referring to God in the person of the Holy Spirit.

These groups point to Columbus as one of their own to show that Mediterranean Catholics could and did make great contributions to the USA. Mani was eager to describe himself as a "disciple of Jesus Christ", but the orthodox church rejected him as a heretic. In the United States, the admiration of Columbus was particularly embraced by some members of the Italian American, Hispanic, and Catholic communities. As a result they preserved many apocryphal Christian works, such as the Acts of Thomas, that would have been lost otherwise. Columbus's defiance of convention in sailing west to get to the far east was hailed as a model of "American"-style can-do inventiveness. It is theorized that the Manichees made every effort to include all known religious traditions. This tale was used to show that Columbus was enlightened and forward looking. After failing to win the favor of the next generation, and being disapproved of by the Zoroastrian clergy, Mani is reported to have died in prison awaiting execution by the Persian Emperor Bahram I, while alternate accounts have it that he was either flayed to death or beheaded.

The myth that Columbus thought the world round while his contemporaries believed in a flat earth was often repeated. The transmigration of souls became a Manichaean belief, and the quadripartite structure of the Manichaean community, divided between male and female monks (the "elect") and lay follower (the "hearers") who supported them, appears to be based on that of the Buddhist sangha" (Richard Foltz, "Religions of the Silk Road"). Monuments to Columbus (including the Columbian Exposition in Chicago) were erected throughout the United States and Latin America, extolling him as a hero. On that occasion various Buddhist influences seem to have permeated Manichaeism: "Buddhist influences were significant in the formation of Mani's religious thought. Hero worship of Columbus perhaps reached its zenith around 1892, the 400th anniversary of his first arrival in the Americas. He is related to have sailed to the Indus valley area of India in 240 or 241 AD, and to have converted a Buddhist King, the Turan Shah of India. Bush, June 8, 1989). Mani's first excursion was to the Kushan Empire in northwestern India (several religious painting in Bamiyan are attributed to him), where he is believed to have lived and taught for some time.

W. Although less in adherents than Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism won the support of high ranking political figures and with the aid of the Persian Empire, Mani would initiate missionary excursions. He "set an example for us all by showing what monumental feats can be accomplished through perseverance and faith" (George H. Mani also followed the holy books Puran and Kural. He has often been hailed as a man of heroism and bravery, and also of faith: he sailed westward into mostly unknown waters, and his unique scheme is often viewed as ingenious. During this period, the large existing religious groups, most notably Christianity and Zoroastrianism, were competing for stronger political and social power. Traditionally, Columbus is viewed as a man of heroic stature by the European-descended population of the New World. According to biographical accounts preserved in the 10th-century encyclopedia, the Fihrist of Ibn al-Nadim, and by al-Biruni, during his youth, Mani received a revelation from a spirit whom he would later call the Twin, who taught him the divine truths of the religion.

The casting of Columbus as a figure of "good" or of "evil" often depends on people's perspectives as to whether the arrival of Europeans to the New World and the introduction of Christianity or the Roman Catholic faith is seen as positive or negative. Mani, being influenced by Mandaeanism, began preaching at a young age. The mythology of Columbus has cast him as an archetype for both good and for evil. After forty years of travel he returned with his retinue to Persia and converted Peroz, King Shapur's brother to his teaching. Christopher Columbus has had a cultural significance beyond his actual achievements and actions as an individual; he also became a symbol, a figure of legend. with many disciples to carry out evangelism. Furthermore, the disinternment of his brother's body shows him to be a different age, by nearly a decade, than the "Bartolome Colombo" of the Genoese family. He travelled far and wide including Turkistan , India, Iran etc.

Fighting against Ferdinand and being illegitimate were two excellent reasons for keeping his origins obscure. It is said that communications of a supernatural character came to him. This same theory suggests he was the illegitimate son of a prominent Catalan sea-faring family, which had served as mercenaries in a sea battle against Castilian forces. Mani was an exceptionally gifted child and he inherited his father's mystic temperament. Also, that he married a Portuguese noblewoman is presented as evidence that his origin was of nobility rather than the Italian merchant class, since it was unheard of during his time for nobility to marry outside their class. In the 4th- century Manichaean Coptic papyri, Mani was identified with the Paraclete-Holy Ghost and he was regarded as the new Jesus. According to historian Charles Merrill, analysis of his handwriting indicates that it is typical of someone who was a native Catalan, and Columbus's phonetic mistakes in Castilian are "most likely" those of a Catalan. During his lifetime, Mani’s first missionaries were active in Persia, Palestine, Syria and Egypt.

He also kept his journal in Latin, and a "secret" journal in Greek. Mani presented himself as a saviour, the apostle of Jesus Christ’. Latin, on the other hand, was the language of scholarship, and here Columbus excelled. It combines a hagiographic account of Mani's career and spiritual development with information about Mani’s religious teachings and contains fragments of his Living (or Great) Gospel and his Letter to Edessa. Pidal doubts that Columbus could ever tell Portuguese and Spanish apart, which is why he did not make the effort to learn them properly. Then in 1969 in Upper Egypt a Greek parchment codex of ca AD 400, was discovered, which is now designated Codex Manichaicus Coloniensis (because it is conserved at the University of Cologne). But Pidal does not accept the hypothesis of a Galician origin for Columbus by noting that where Portuguese and Galician diverged, Columbus always used the Portuguese form. Until the later 20th century, the life and philosophy of Mani was pieced together largely from remarks by his detractors and from late productions.

Pidal and many others detect a lot of Portuguese in his Spanish, where he mixes, for example, falar and hablar. Neo-Manichaeism is a modern revivalist movement not considered directly connected to the ancient faith but is sympathetic to the teachings of Mani. The first testimony of his use of Spanish is from the 1480s. During his lifetime, Mani’s earliest missionaries were active in Persia, Palestine and Syria and in Egypt. This same Spanish is used by poets like Fernán Silveira and Joan Manuel. He later claimed to be the Paraclete promised in the New Testament, The Last Prophet and Seal of the Prophets, finalizing a succession of men guided by God, which included figures such as Seth, Noah, Abraham, Shem, Nikotheos, Enoch, Zoroaster, Hermes, Plato, Buddha, and Jesus. He suggests that Columbus learned Spanish in Portugal through its use in Portugal as or "adopted language of culture" from 1450. After receiving a revelation in his mid-twenties that came from his Syzygos— the accompanying heavenly Twin— he came to a belief that salvation is possible through education, self-denial, vegetarianism, fasting, and chastity.

In his letters he refers to himself frequently, if cryptically, as a "foreigner." Ramón Menéndez Pidal studied the language of Columbus in 1942, suggesting that while still in Genoa, Columbus learned notions of Portugalized Spanish from travelers, who used a sort of commercial Latin or lingua franca (latín ginobisco for Spaniards). Mani first encountered religion in his early youth while living with a Jewish ascetic group known as the Elkasites. Bartolomé de las Casas in his Historia de las Indias explained that Columbus did not know Castilian well and that he was not born in Castile. Mani's father, Pattig, was from Hamadan and his mother, Maryam, was of the family of the Kamsaragan, who claimed kinship with the Parthian royal house, the Arsacids. Phillips and Phillips point out that five hundred years ago, the Latinate languages had not distanced themselves to the degree they have today. Mani was of Persian (Iranian) parentage. There is also a note in non-Genoese Italian in his own Book of Prophesies exhibiting, according to historian August Kling, "characteristics of northern Italian humanism in its calligraphy, syntax, and spelling." Columbus took great care and pride in writing this form of Italian. Although the original writings of the founding prophet Mani have been lost, significant portions remain preserved in Coptic manuscripts from Egypt and in later writings of fully-developed Manichaeism in China.

However, many people become "tongue-tied" when using what is to them an intimate childhood language. Mani (in Persian مانی), born in western Persia (approximately 210-276 A.D.), was a religious preacher and the founder of Manichaeism, an ancient gnostic religion that was once prolific but now considered extinct. Genoese Italian was not a written language in the 15th century, but one would expect a better transliteration into this dialect from a native speaker. However, it displays both Castilian and Portuguese influences. There is a small handwritten Genoese gloss in an Italian edition of the History of Plinius that he read in his second voyage to America.

Although Genoese documents have been found about a weaver named Colombo, it has also been noted that, in the preserved documents, Columbus wrote almost exclusively in Castilian, and that he used the language, with Portuguese phonetics, even when writing personal notes to himself, to his brother, Italian friends, and to the Bank of Genoa. It is certain that Columbus taught himself to read and write after arriving in Portugal, learned cutting-edge navigational and trading skills from the Portuguese, was commissioned by Castile, received financial backing from Genoese bankers, and was informed, in his own words, by "wise people, ecclesiastics and laymen, Latins and Greeks, Jews and Moors and with many others of other sects." He was, in other words, a man of the Mediterranean. However, the actual phrase, "Non confundar in aeternam" (in Latin), is perhaps more accurately translated "Let me never be confounded," and is contained in several Psalms. It has even been suggested that the epitaph on his tomb, translated as "Let me not be confused forever," is a veiled hint left by Columbus that his identity was other than he publicly stated during his life.

There is a village named Pirgi in the island of Khios where to this day many of its inhabitants carry the surname "Colombus.". The island of Khios was under the Genoese rule (1346 - 1566 AD), for the period of his life, and therefore it was part of the Republic of Genoa. He also referred to himself as "Columbus de Terra Rubra"(Columbus of the Red Earth), Khios was known for its red soil in the south of the island where the mastic trees that the Genoese traded grow. The main point of this theory is that Columbus never said he was from Genoa but from the Republic of Genoa, and that he kept his journal in Latin and Greek instead of the Italian of Genoa.

It is also speculated that Columbus may have come from the island of Khios (or Chios) in Greece. In sum, he was a "secret agent". The corollary of the above is that he was (i) knowingly diverting the Castilian kings from their target – India and (ii) had all the reasons to hide his identity and origin, as Portugal was the biggest rival of Spain (Castille) in its sea ventures. Since he never signed his name conventionally, the pseudonymus theory is reinforced, his name meaning in Latin "Bearer of Christ" (Christo ferens) "and of the Holy Spirit" (Columbus, dove in Latin), a reference to the Order of Christ which succeeded the Templars in Portugal and initiated the age of exploration.

This is based on interpretation of some facts and documents of his life (as above), but mostly on an analysis of his signature under the Jewish Kabbalah, where he described his family and origin (by Macarenhas Barreto: "Fernandus Ensifer Copiae Pacis Juliae illaqueatus Isabella Sciarra Camara Mea Soboles Cubae.", or "Ferdinand who holds the sword of power of Beja (Pax Julia in Latin), coupled with Isabel Sciarra Camara, are my generation from Cuba"). The Portuguese-origin thesis has him using Colom as a pseudonym. In accordance with this theory, he named the island of Cuba after the Portuguese town Cuba in Alentejo — the town where he, according to Portuguese historians, had been born under the name of Salvador Fernandes Zarco (SFZ), son of Fernando, Duke of Beja, and Isabel Sciarra — and grandson of Cecília Colonna. Documents found in the Alentejo region of Portugal suggest he may have been born there.

A few others also claim that Columbus was actually Catalan (Colom). Because the often subversive elements of the island gave its inhabitants a bad reputation, he would have masked his exact heritage. Another theory is that he was from the island of Corsica, which at the time was part of the Genoese republic. However, not only was his mysticism profoundly Catholic, recent disinterment of his son retrieved his Y chromosome (which is passed completely unchanged from father to son) has ruled out Jewish ancestry, at least in the male line.

In Spain, even converted Jews were much mistrusted; it was suggested that many conversos were still practicing Judaism in secret. Others had said that he was a converso (Spanish Jew converted to Christianity). Some Basque historians have claimed that he was Basque. One hypothesis is that Columbus served under the French caper Guillaume Casenove Coulon and took his surname, but later tried to hide his piracy.

In New York City, rival statues of Columbus were underwritten by the Hispanic and the Italian communities, and honourable positions had to be found for each, at Columbus Circle and in Central Park. The issue of Columbus's 'nationality' became an issue after the rise of nationalism; the issue was scarcely raised until the time of the quadricentenary celebrations in 1892 (see Columbian exposition), when Columbus's Genoese origins became a point of pride for some Italian Americans. It has been suggested that this might have been because he was hiding something—an event in his origin or history that he deliberately kept a secret. Very little is really known about Columbus before the mid-1470s.

Although in the popular culture he is generally assumed to be Italian (Genoese), his actual background is clouded in mystery. Serious doubts have been expressed regarding Columbus's national origin. He was canonized by the antipope Gregory XVII, leader of the breakaway Palmarian Catholic Church. To lay to rest claims that the wrong relics were moved to Havana and that Columbus is still buried in the cathedral of Santo Domingo, DNA samples were taken in June 2003 (History Today August 2003).

However, a lead box bearing an inscription identifying "Don Christopher Columbus' and containing fragments of bone and a bullet was discovered at Santo Domingo in 1877. After the war of 1898, Cuba became independent and Columbus's remains were moved back to the cathedral of Seville, where they were given a pompous cataflaque. In 1795 the French took over, and the corpse was removed to Havana. Even after his death, his travels continued: first interred in Valladolid and then at the monastery of La Cartja in Seville, by the will of his son Diego, who had been governor of Hispaniola, the remains were transferred to Santo Domingo in 1542.

Following his death, the body of Columbus underwent excarnation - the flesh was removed so that only his bones remained. He was still convinced that his journeys had been along the East Coast of Asia. On May 20, 1506, Columbus died in Valladolid, fairly wealthy due to the gold his men had accumulated in Hispaniola. His family later sued for part of the profits from trade with America, but ultimately lost some fifty years later.

Because he had been relieved of his duties as governor, the crown felt not bound by these contracts and his demands were rejected. In his later years Columbus demanded that the Spanish Crown give him 10% of all profits made in the new lands, pursuant to earlier agreements. He claimed to hear divine voices, lobbied for a new crusade to capture Jerusalem, often wore Franciscan habit, and described his explorations to the "paradise" as part of God's plan which would soon result in the Last Judgement and the end of the world. While Columbus had always given the conversion of non-believers as one reason for his explorations, he grew increasingly religious in his later years.

Grudging help finally arrived on June 29, 1504, and Columbus and his men arrived in Sanlúcar, Spain, on November 7. In the meantime Columbus, in a desperate effort to induce the natives to continue provisioning him and his hungry men, successfully intimidated the natives by correctly predicting a lunar eclipse, using the Ephemeris of the German astronomer Regiomontanus. Two Spaniards, with native paddlers, were sent by canoe to get help from Hispaniola. Columbus and his men were stranded on Jamaica for a year.

Anne's Bay, Jamaica, on June 25, 1503. Unable to travel any farther, the ships were beached in St. Columbus left for Hispaniola on April 16, but sustained more damage in a storm off the coast of Cuba. At the same time, the garrison was attacked, and the other ships were damaged.

On April 6, one of the ships became stranded in the river. After much exploration, he established a garrison at the mouth of Rio Belen in January 1503. In Panama, Columbus learned from the natives of gold and a strait to another ocean. Columbus spent two months exploring the coasts of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, before arriving in Almirante Bay, Panama on October 16.

On August 14, Columbus landed on the American mainland at Puerto Castilla, near Trujillo, Honduras. Here Bartholomew found native merchants and a large canoe, which was described as "long as a galley" and was filled with cargo. 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 July 30. Instead, the ships anchored at the mouth of the Jaina River.

Columbus arrived at Santo Domingo on June 29, but was denied port. A hurricane was brewing, so Columbus continued on, hoping to find shelter on Hispaniola. On June 15, they landed at Carbet on the island of Martinique (Martinica). Accompanied by his brother Bartolomeo and his thirteen-year old son Fernando, Columbus left Cádiz, Spain on May 11, 1502.

Nevertheless, Columbus made a fourth voyage, nominally in search of the Strait of Malacca to the Indian Ocean. As an added insult, the Portuguese had won the race to the Indies: Vasco da Gama returned in September 1499 from a trip to India, having sailed east around Africa. Although he regained his freedom, he did not regain his prestige and lost his governorship. Columbus refused to have his shackles removed on the trip to Spain, during which he wrote a long and pleading letter to the Spanish monarchs.

The king and queen sent the royal administrator Francisco de Bobadilla in 1500, who upon arrival (August 23) detained Columbus and his brothers and had them shipped home. A number of returned settlers and friars lobbied against Columbus at the Spanish court, accusing him of mismanagement. He had some of his crew hanged for disobeying him. Columbus repeatedly had to deal with rebellious settlers and Indians.

Columbus returned to Hispaniola on August 19 to find that many of the Spanish settlers of the new colony were discontent, having been misled by Columbus about the supposedly bountiful riches of the new world. Initially, he described the new lands as belonging to a previously unknown new continent, but later he retreated to his position that they belonged to Asia. He also sailed to the islands of Chacachcare and Margarita Island and sighted and named Tobago (Bella Forma) and Grenada (Concepcion). He explored the mainland of South America, including the Orinoco River.

From August 4 through August 12, he explored the Gulf of Paria which separates Trinidad from Venezuela. After stopping in the Canary Islands and Cape Verde, Columbus landed on the south coast of the island of Trinidad on July 31. He was accompanied by the young Bartolome de Las Casas, who would later provide partial transcripts of Columbus's logs. On May 30, 1498, Columbus left with six ships from Sanlúcar, Spain for his third trip to the New World.

In his letters to the Spanish king and queen, Columbus would repeatedly suggest slavery as a way to profit from the new colonies, but these suggestions were all rejected: the monarchs preferred to view the natives as future members of Christendom. One of the primary reasons for this was the fact that natives became infected with various diseases carried by the Europeans. Despite such extreme measures, Columbus did not manage to obtain much gold. Those who failed to reach their quota would have their hands chopped off.

To further this goal, he imposed a system on the natives in Cicao on Haiti, whereby all those above fourteen years of age had to find a certain quota of gold, which would be signified by a token placed around their necks. The main objective of Columbus's journey had been gold. Rounding up the slaves resulted in the first major battle between the Spanish and the Indians in the new world. The remaining 400, who Columbus had no use for, were let go and fled into the hills, making, according to Columbus, prospects for their future capture dim.

Some of the 1600 were kept as slaves for Columbus's men, and Columbus recorded using slaves for sex in his journal. After legal proceedings, the survivors were released and ordered to be shipped back home. 550 slaves were shipped back to Spain; two hundred died en route, probably of disease, and of the remainder half were ill when they arrived. Although his petition was refused by the Crown, in February, 1495 Columbus took 1600 Arawak as slaves.

However, during his second voyage he sent a letter to the monarchs proposing to enslave some of the native peoples, specifically the Caribs, on the grounds of their aggressiveness. Before he left on his second voyage he had been directed by Ferdinand and Isabella to maintain friendly, even loving relations with the natives. He explored the south coast of Cuba, which he believed to be a peninsula rather than an island, and several nearby islands including the Isle of Youth (La Evangelista) before returning to Hispaniola on August 20. He left Hispaniola on April 24, 1494 and arrived at Cuba (which he named Juana) on April 30 and Jamaica on May 5.

He spent some time exploring the interior of the island for gold and did find some, establishing a small fort in the interior. He established a new settlement at Isabella, on the north coast of Hispaniola where gold had first been found but it was a poor location and the settlement was short-lived. On November 22, he returned to Hispaniola, where he found his colonists had fallen into dispute with Indians in the interior and had been killed. Columbus continued to the Greater Antilles and landed at Puerto Rico (San Juan Bautista) on November 19, 1493 .

Columbus also sighted the island chain of the Virgin Islands, (which he named Santa Ursula y las Once Mil Virgines), and named the islands of Virgin Gorda, Tortola, and Peter Island (San Pedro). The exact course of his voyage through the Lesser Antilles is debated, but it seems likely that Columbus turned north, sighting and naming several islands including Montserrat (Santa Maria de Monstserrate), Antigua (Santa Maria la Antigua), Redonda (Santa Maria la Redonda), Nevis (Santa María de las Nieve or San Martin), Saint Kitts (San Jorge), Sint Eustatius (Santa Anastasia), Saba (San Cristobal), and Saint Martin or Saint Croix (Santa Cruz). After sailing past Les Saintes (Todos los Santos), Columbus arrived at Guadaloupe (Santa Maria de Guadalupe), which he explored from November 4 through November 10. On the same day he landed at Marie-Galante (which he named Santa Maria la Galante).

On November 3, 1493, Columbus sighted a rugged island which he named Dominica. On October 13 the ships left the Canary Islands, following a more southerly course than on the first voyage. Columbus left from Cádiz, Spain for his second voyage (1493-1496) on September 24, 1493, with 17 ships carrying supplies and about 1200 men to assist in the subjugation of the Taíno and the colonization of the region. The word ají is still used in South American Spanish for chili peppers.

In his log he wrote "there is also plenty of ají, which is their pepper, which is more valuable than [black] pepper, and all the people eat nothing else, it being very wholesome" (Turner, 2004, P11). Naturally, he did not bring any of the coveted Indian spices, such as the exceedingly expensive black pepper, ginger or cloves. He displayed several kidnapped natives and what gold he'd found to the court, as well as the previously unknown tobacco plant, the pineapple fruit, the turkey and the sailor's first love, the hammock. He was received as a hero in Spain, and this was his moment in the sun.

He didn't reach Spain until March 15, when the story of his journey was in its third printing. Word of his finding new lands rapidly spread throughout Europe. The relations between Portugal and Castile were poor at the time, and he was held up, but finally released. (Astoundingly, both the Niña and the Pinta were spared.) Some have speculated that landing in Portugal was intentional.

He had no choice but to land his ship in Portugal, where he was told a fleet of 100 caravels had been lost. He wrestled his ship against the wind and ran into one of the worst storms of the century. On January 4, 1493 he set sail for home, not yet understanding the elliptical nature of the trade winds that had brought him west. Columbus founded the settlement La Navidad and left 39 men.

He was received by the native cacique Guacanagari, who gave him permission to leave some of his men behind. (The vast interior of the North and South American mainlands would of course be largely mapped with the leadership of native guides and interpreters.) Here the Santa Maria ran aground and had to be abandoned. He believed the peaks of Cuba to be the Himalayas, which gives one a sense of just how lost he was and how long it took the peoples of the world to map the Earth. On this first voyage, Columbus also explored the northeast coast of Cuba (landed on October 28) and the northern coast of Hispaniola, by December 5.

No blood was shed on this first voyage; he believed conversion to Christianity would be achieved through love, not force. They are very gentle and do not know what evil is; nor do they kill others, nor steal; and they are without weapons.". "These people have no religious beliefs, nor are they idolaters. He wrote with such awe of the friendly innocence and beauty of these Indians that he inadvertently created the enduring myth of the Noble Savage.

The Native Americans he encountered, the Taíno or Arawak, were peaceful and friendly. Columbus called the island he reached San Salvador, although the natives called it Guanahani. Land was sighted at 2 AM on October 12 by a sailor aboard Pinta named Rodrigo de Triana. A comparison of dates and migratory patterns leads to the conclusion that the birds were Eskimo curlews and American golden plover.

After 29 days out of sight of land, on 7 October 1492 as recorded in the ship's log, the crew spotted shore birds flying west and changed direction to make their landfall. Although the actual situation is unclear, most likely the sailors' resentments merely amounted to complaints or suggestions. A legend is that the crew grew so homesick and fearful that they threatened to hurl Columbus overboard and sail back to Spain. He first sailed to the Canary Islands, fortunately owned by Castile, where he reprovisioned and made repairs, and on September 6 started the five week voyage across the ocean.

The ships were property of Juan de la Cosa and the Pinzón brothers (Martin and Vicente Yáñez), but the monarchs forced the Palos inhabitants to contribute to the expedition. The year 1492, on the evening of August 3, Columbus left from Palos with three ships, the Santa Maria, Niña and Pinta. The terms were absurd, but his own son later wrote that the monarchs really didn't expect him to return. Columbus was to be made Admiral of the Ocean Sea and granted an inheritable governorship to the new territories he would reach, as well as a portion of all profits.

Financially broke from the Granada campaign, the monarchs left it to the royal treasurer to shift funds among various royal accounts on behalf of the enterprise. About half of the financing was to come from private Italian investors, which Columbus had already lined up. Isabella sent a royal guard to fetch him and Ferdinand later rightfully claimed credit for being "the principal cause why those islands were discovered.". Isabella finally turned Columbus down on the advice of her "think tank" and he was leaving town in despair when Ferdinand lost his patience.

Ferdinand and Isabella had just conquered Granada, the last Muslim stronghold on the Iberian peninsula, and they received Columbus in Córdoba (in the monarchs' Alcázar or castle). After seven years of lobbying at the Spanish court, where he was kept on a salary to prevent him from taking his ideas elsewhere, he was finally successful in 1492. He tried to get backing from the monarchs of Aragon and Castile, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, who, by marrying, had united the largest kingdoms of Spain and were ruling them together. It is probable that he made the same outrageous demands for himself in Portugal that he later made in Spain, where he went next.

The king's experts believed that the route would be longer than Columbus thought (the actual distance is even longer than the Portuguese believed), and denied Columbus's request. Columbus first presented his plan to the court of Portugal in 1485. They were right and Columbus was wrong; unless he had unexpectedly encountered a previously uncharted continent in mid-travel, he and his crew would have perished from lack of food and water. In fact, the distance is about 10,600 nautical miles (19,600 km), and most European sailors and navigators concluded that the Indies were too far away to make his plan worth considering.

Columbus calculated that the distance from the Canary Islands to Japan was 2,400 nautical miles (about 4,444 km). The true circumference of the earth is about 40,000 km (24,900 statute miles of 5,280 feet each), whereas the circumference of Columbus's earth was the equivalent of at most 19,000 modern statute miles (or 30,600 km). Finally, Columbus read maps as if the distances were calculated in Roman miles (1524 meters or 5,000 feet) rather than nautical miles (1853.99 meters or 6,082.66 feet at the equator). Moreover, Columbus believed that one degree actually covered less space on the earth's surface than commonly believed.

Columbus accepted the calculations of Pierre d'Ailly, that the land-mass occupied 225 degrees, leaving only 135 degrees of water. Most scholars accepted Ptolemy's claim that the terrestrial landmass (for Europeans of the time, Eurasia and Africa) occupied 180 degrees of the terrestrial sphere, leaving 180 degrees of water. The problem was that the experts did not agree with his estimates of the distance to the Indies. The fact that the Earth is round was evident to most people of Columbus's time, especially other sailors and navigators (Eratosthenes (276-194 BC) had in fact accurately calculated the circumference of the Earth).

This myth can be traced to Washington Irving's novel The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1828). It is sometimes claimed that the reason Columbus had a hard time receiving support for this plan was that Europeans believed that the Earth was flat. By the 1480s, he had developed a plan to travel to the Indies (then roughly meaning all of south and east Asia) by sailing west across the Ocean Sea (the Atlantic Ocean) instead. Columbus had another idea.

In response to Muslim hegemony on land, Portugal sought an eastward sea route to the Indies, and promoted the establishment of trading posts and later colonies along the coast of Africa. Christian Europe, long allowed safe passage to India and China (sources of valued trade goods such as silk and spices) under the hegemony of the Mongol Empire (Pax Mongolica, or "Mongol peace"), was now, after the fragmentation of that empire, under a complete economic blockade by Muslim states. Both boys served as pages to Prince Juan, son of Ferdinand and Isabella, and each later contributed, with fabulous success, to the rehabilitation of their father's reputation. The two had a son, Ferdinand in 1488.

They never married, but Columbus left Beatriz a rich woman and directed Diego to treat her as his own mother. She was living with a cousin in the weaving industry of Córdoba. Columbus later found a lifelong partner in Spain, an orphan named Beatriz Enriquez. Felipa died in January of 1485.

Columbus and Felipa had a son, Diego Colón in 1480. As part of his dowry, the mariner received all of Perestello's charts of the winds and currents of the Portuguese possessions of the Atlantic. Felipa's father, Bartolomeu Perestrelo, had partaken in finding the Madeira Islands and owned one of them (Porto Santo Island), but died when Felipa was a baby, leaving his second wife a wealthy widow. Columbus married Felipa Perestrello Moniz, a daughter from a noble Portuguese family with some Italian ancestry, in 1479.

He sailed to Madeira in 1478 to purchase sugar, and along the coasts of West Africa between 1482 and 1485, reaching the Portuguese trade post of Elmina Castle in the Gulf of Guinea coast. He became a merchant sailor with the Portuguese fleet, and sailed to Iceland via Ireland in 1477. At times, the brothers worked together as draftsmen and book collectors. Columbus's brother Bartolomeo worked as a mapmaker in Lisbon.

Portugal had become a center for maritime activity with ships sailing for England, Ireland, Iceland, Madeira, the Azores, and Africa. By 1477, Columbus was living in Lisbon. Columbus's ship was burned and he swam six miles to shore. Vincent, Portugal.

The fleet came under attack by French privateers off the Cape of St. A 1476, commercial expedition gave Columbus his first opportunity to sail into the Atlantic Ocean. It is believed that this is where he recruited some of his sailors. He spent a year on a ship bound towards Khios (an island in the Aegean Sea) and, after a brief visit home, spent a year in Khios.

In 1474, Columbus joined a ship of the Spinola Financiers, who were Genoese patrons of his father. Christopher received almost no formal education; a voracious reader, he was largely self-taught. During this period he studied cartography with his brother Bartolomeo. In 1470, the family moved to Savona, where Christopher worked for his father in wool processing.

Christopher had three younger brothers, Bartolomeo, Giovanni Pellegrino, and Giacomo, and a sister, Bianchinetta. His father was Domenico Colombo, a woollens merchant, and his mother was Susanna Fontanarossa, the daughter of a woollens merchant. Columbus was born between August 26 and October 31 in the year 1451, in the Italian port city of Genoa. (See Columbus's National Origin.) The account that has traditionally been supported by most historians is as follows:.

There are various versions of Columbus's origins and life before 1476. . While regarded by some as an excellent navigator, he was seen by many contemporaries as a poor administrator and was stripped of his governorship in 1500. Columbus claimed governorship of the new territories (by prior agreement with the Spanish monarchs) and made several more journeys across the Atlantic.

Columbus' signature reads Xpo ferens ("Bearing Christ"). The Latin roots of his name can be translated "Christ-bearer, Dove". Columbus is a Latinized form of his surname. His name in Italian is Cristoforo Colombo, in Spanish is Cristóbal Colón, in Catalan it is Cristòfor Colom and in Portuguese Cristóvão Colombo.

It has generally been accepted that he was Genovese, although doubts have persistently been voiced regarding this. Italian Americans hail Columbus as an icon of their heritage. Others honour him for the massive boost his explorations gave to Western expansion and culture. Some – including many Native Americans – view him as responsible, directly or indirectly, for the deaths of tens, if not hundreds, of millions of indigenous peoples, exploitation of the Americas by Europe, and slavery in the West Indies.

Columbus remains a controversial figure. Unlike the voyage of the Icelanders, Columbus's voyages led to a relatively quick, general and lasting recognition of the existence of the New World by the Old World, the Columbian Exchange of species (both those harmful to humans, such as viruses, bacteria, and parasites, and beneficial to humans, such as tomatoes, potatoes, maize, and horses), and the first large-scale colonization of the Americas by Europeans. He never reached the present-day United States where "Columbus Day" (12 October, the anniversary of Columbus' landing in the Bahamas) is celebrated as a holiday. Columbus landed in the Bahamas and later explored much of the Caribbean, including the isles of Juana (Cuba) and Espanola (Hispaniola), as well as the coasts of Central and South America.

This is likely due to the invention of the printing press. However, there is one thing that sets off Columbus' first voyage from all of these: less than two decades later, the existence of America was known to the general public throughout Europe. Giovanni Caboto (better known as John Cabot) was first to reach the American mainland (which Columbus did not reach until his third voyage). There are also many theories of expeditions to the Americas by a variety of peoples throughout time; see Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact, one of the most consistent is the exploration (before 1472) of two, led by João Vaz Corte-Real to Terra Verde (today's Newfoundland).

Many historians today acknowledge the fact that 'Leifur Eiríksson' had travelled to North America from Iceland in the 11th century and set up a short-lived colony at L'Anse aux Meadows. Columbus was not the first European to reach the continent. The main debate was over whether a ship could circumnavigate the planet without running out of food or getting stuck in windless regions. Educated people in Columbus's time agreed that the earth was round; anyone familiar with seafaring certainly knew it, since the roundness of the earth forms the basis of celestial navigation.

The widespread notion that Columbus encountered opposition based on the idea that the earth was flat is a literary myth created by Washington Irving. He believed that the earth was a relatively small sphere, and argued that a ship could reach the Far East via a westward course. He was an explorer and trader who crossed the Atlantic Ocean and reached the Americas on October 12th 1492 under the flag of Castilian Spain. Christopher Columbus (1451¹ – 20 May 1506) (Cristòfor Colom in Catalan, Cristoforo Colombo in Italian, Cristóbal Colón in Spanish, Cristóvão Colombo in Portuguese) was most probably Genoese, although some historians claim he could have been born in other places, from the Crown of Aragó to the Kingdoms of Galicia or Portugal among others.