The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus had an ambition to go to the “Indies”, but instead of going east, he desired to go west. However after he asked the Portuguese for permission and funding for his 1st voyage (main voyage), he was rejected so he moved to Spain. His voyage was finally approved by Queen Isabella II after defeating Moors (January 1492).  Later Columbus wrote “By prevailing over all obstacles and distractions, one may unfailingly arrive at his chosen goal or destination.” This means that not only is there hindrances in the voyage itself but also in the planning stages of the voyage.  

On the 3rd of August, 1492 he sailed with a fleet of 3 ships, Santa Maria, Pinta and Nina under Spain heading for Canary Islands. Here they stopped to repair Pinta’s rudder. Then sailed west, at a steady pace. They sighted birds and green seaweed as they sailed in the Sargasso Sea. The crew were complaining, when they had sailed for 3 weeks in one direction, as it was the longest anyone had ever sailed out of sight of land. On the night of October 11, they finally saw cliffs and trees ahead. They reached the land in the morning to discover it was an island. They went ashore and he named the island San Salvador (Holy Saviour) and declared it land under the Spanish crown. Friendly natives came out. Columbus gave the natives gifts of glass beads, red caps and hawks’ bells. In return the natives gave them cotton balls, spears and parrots. (This was not always the case) As Columbus thought that they had arrived on an island of the Indies, he called these natives “Indians”. They swam and rowed their canoes to greet them. They circumnavigated the island in search of gold. However they did not find gold so they collected flowers, leaves, bark and fruits to take back to be examined. “But in truth, should I meet with gold or spices in great quantity, I shall remain till I collect as much as possible, and for this purpose I am proceeding solely in quest of them.“ Columbus continued to sail among the Islands landing on Cuba which he believed was a part of China. They went looking for gold and took some natives aboard. They landed in Haiti, which they named Hispaniola. Here Santa Maria was shipwrecked and as a consequence abandoned. On January 16, 1493 they sailed back to Spain, leaving a garrison of 40 men to search for gold. When he returned to Spain, he confirmed his title of Admiral of the Ocean Sea and also given the title Viceroy of the Indies and ordered to organise a second voyage.

Not only did he organise a second voyage but he also commanded 2 more voyages after that. During the third voyage, 1498, he discovered the continent of South America which he called “Other World”. The purpose of the fourth voyage in 1502 was to discover a passage to the Indian Oceans between the Cuba and the “Other World”. He did not find a strait leading through to the Indian Ocean but he did learn that it lay on the other side of the mountains. All these voyages brought the Americas to the attention of Europe.

Christopher Columbus is a Renaissance figure. The majority of the people in Europe thought  the world was flat. This had been instilled by the church. However Columbus challenged this idea and proved it wrong. This was like many other Renaissance men of the time. For example Copernicus challenged the Church's idea that the earth was the centre of the universe. He proved that we revolved around the sun. However both these arguments were very dangerous. They both undermined the Church's authority. As the church's power grew less and less we see that there is more questioning. This replaces the former society of a non-questioning one. Columbus's voyage helps start this very important time.

On his first voyage he discovers a new land which is now America. However he is not the first to discover it. Eric the Red was a Viking who discovered this land nearly 500 years before Columbus. Native Americans arrived in America 15,00 to 25,000 years before Columbus.

Christopher Columbus has been given his fame in retrospect. Columbus is presented as the first American hero, his enthused voyage extravagated by tales of life-threatening storms, imminent mutiny and 11th hour salvation.  He has also done numerous bad things in his life, not many known of. James Muldoon's Berkshire Encyclopedia of World History states, "people once saw him as initiating the civilizing and Christianizing process in the Americas, but now people condemn him for initiating slavery and genocide." This tells us he that he was cruel to the natives. James W. Loewen, in Lies My Teacher Told Me, shows the contact that Columbus had regarding race relations as well as his influence over the transformation of the New World. Loewen says that Christopher Columbus established "two phenomena... the taking of land, wealth, and labor from the Indigenous people" which lead to " their near extermination and the transatlantic slave trade which created a social underclass".  Columbus and his followers hunted Indians for sport and profit, beating, raping, torturing, killing, and then using the Indian bodies as food for their hunting dogs. Within four years of Columbus' arrival on Hispaniola, his men had killed or exported one-third of the original Indian population of 300,000.

Columbus was wrong  all along however. He believed this was not a different continent to Indonesia when it truly was. He claimed he did something he did not do.

Columbus is claimed to prove that the world was round first. The Egyptian-Greek scientist Erastosthenes already had measured the circumference and diameter of the world in the third century B.C. Arab scientists had developed a whole discipline of geography and measurement, and in the tenth century A.D., Al Maqdisi described the earth with 360 degrees of longitude and 180 degrees of latitude. The Monastery of St. Catherine in the Sinai still has an icon - painted 500 years before Columbus - which shows Jesus ruling over a spherical earth. All of this was before Columbus however people claim he was the one who proved the church wrong first.

Still Columbus is considered a Renaissance Man.  This may be false however he did change the world by "proving" the world was round challenging the church while doing this.