Christopher Columbus: The Man Who Found the Americas

How a Genoese Italian explorer discovered the New World.

Posthumous portrait by Sebastiano del Piombo, 1519

Christopher Columbus’ discovery of the New World was one of the most pivotal moments in human history. For the first time, it connected Europe with the Americas. It was the beginning of a cultural and technological exchange that would transform the trajectory of American civilization for the next half millennium. 

Search for the Orient

Columbus was born in 1451 in the maritime republic of Genoa, located in Italy. Genoese explorers were well-recognized for their bold voyages across the Mediterranean, as far out as the British Isles. Genoa had established a vast trade network across the known world, but had not reached the Far East. Europeans were fascinated by the medieval tales of Marco Polo’s adventures in China, which told of Oriental opulence and luxurious splendor. Europe coveted Chinese silk, gold, and spices. Europe’s land route to Asia, known as the East Indies, had been recently cut off by the Islamic conquest of Constantinople, which choked off trade with the Far East. The desire to find a new trade route to Asia became the life’s mission of Christopher Columbus. 

Columbus came from a lower middle class family, the firstborn of five children. His father hopped from job to job, working as a weaver and a tavern keeper. Working with his father, young Christopher learned how to make wine, run his tavern, and weave wool. But he fell in love with the seas, and the 14-year-old Columbus set his sights on a career as a merchant.

Portugese Empire

At the age of 25, Columbus was shipwrecked off the coast of Portugal by a pirate attack. He managed to swim about six miles to safety. There, almost by mere chance, Christopher found himself among Europe’s leaders of ocean exploration. Portugal boasted of the best sailors and navigators in the continent during the 1470s and 1480s. Instead of sticking along the coasts, Portuguese explorers were experimenting with new ways of navigating the high seas. They studied wind patterns, including those of the Atlantic. With these Portuguese contemporaries, Columbus began sailing to Iceland, Britain, and Africa. No ships ventured too far west, because the Atlantic was still poorly understood at the time. It was nicknamed the Sea of Darkness. 

Columbus married the daughter of a Portuguese nobleman. Through his wife, he gained access to the ground-breaking geography of Paolo Toscanelli, who argued that the unknown Atlantic was the secret to quickly reach China. He was not aware of the existence of a Pacific Ocean. He saw Atlantic as the key to finding his desired trade route with the Orient. He began to carefully study the cartography of the Ancients. Contrary to popular myth, Columbus was well-aware that the Earth was round. This had been known for centuries. 

Although the Vikings had reached the Americas long before Columbus, the significance of their discovery was not even remotely understood. Most educated Europeans regarded those settlements as isolated islands. They did not understand that the Americas represented a whole new continent, hitherto unsettled by the Europeans. Geographers of the 1480s correctly understood that Asia was very far from the West. But Toscanelli opined that Asia was much closer than previously thought. Inspired by Toscanelli, Columbus decided to embark on an ambitious voyage to find the Indies. He obsessively sought out funding for his expedition. He took his idea to Portugal’s King John. Although the sneaky monarchy laughed off Columbus’ ideas, John sent his own ships westward. It was thwarted by storms. 

The Spanish Crown

Columbus then appealed to the Kingdom of Spain in 1485. His wife had died by this time, and his son Diego had been entrusted to the care of a monastery. Columbus was convinced that his mission was God’s calling. He was emboldened by his sense of divine providence. 

Once in Spain, it took a year for Christopher to gain his first audience with King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in 1486. At the time, the Spanish court was too busy to consider Columbus’ proposal. The Catholic monarchy was too busy fighting religious wars against the Moorish Muslims, who were expelled from Spain after seven centuries of Islamic domination. 

To encourage Columbus, the Queen gave him a small allowance to wait. In the meantime, Christopher became involved with another woman, a Spanish farmer’s daughter. He had a second son out of wedlock. Columbus earned his living by selling books. He continued to pester the Spanish Crown for another seven years. “I plow on no matter how the winds might shake me,” he boldly declared. 

Columbus was seen as ignorant by the learned Spanish court. Royal astronomers and cosmographers laughed off his ideas. They insisted that the Earth’s size had already been known with accuracy for years. But Christopher continued to challenge their orthodoxy. To him, the Earth was 20,000 miles around, not 25,000 miles. Through the sheer force of personality, Columbus managed to override these objections and gain an audience with the Spanish Crown. This was especially impressive, because he did not speak Spanish well. 

The Moors were subdued by the Spanish in 1492. Now, the Queen and King were ready to hear the Italian explorer’s proposal. The Crown was very interested in the idea, because it offered a way of outcompeting the Portuguese Empire. Portugal enjoyed lots of gold and tropical products, including slaves. This made the Portuguese very rich. The Spanish wanted in on the action. 

Columbus was enchanted by the promise of riches from the East Indies, and glory for the Spanish Crown. He also entertained the possibility of converting the foreign peoples to Christianity. He made many demands on his Spanish patrons. He wanted to become the Admiral of the Ocean Sea. He expected to automatically become the Viceroy of all new lands. He also required ten percent of all riches gained from the expedition. The Crown was outraged, but they eventually acquiesced. 

Finding the New World

Columbus prepared to sail into the Atlantic with 90 men aboard three ships. These were the Santa Maria, the Nina, and the Pinta. Each one was less than 80 feet long. These ships were so ship, that the men had to sleep in shifts. Because it was a scouting voyage, no military reinforcements were sent alongside it. 

On August 3, 1492, Columbus set sail from the Spanish port of Palos. Christopher and his men had no idea what to expect. There were superstitious tales of sea monsters and boiling seas. Columbus imagined that, at the end of the Earth, were a race of hybrid animal-humans. But he remained supremely confident, assuring his men that they would find China and Japan in a safe voyage. 

Days turned into weeks and months, with no sign of land. The seamen became increasingly frightened. But Columbus refused to abandoned the mission. “The men refuse to go on. Their murmurs were in vain. My determination is unshakable,” Columbus wrote on October 10. The bold Genoese explorer continually promised wealth, fame, and land to his men. Just a couple days later, they spotted land for the first time. It was an island in the Bahamas. To the tune of holy hymns, Columbus and his men stepped foot on the New World for the first time. They put a flag in the land, and proclaimed the land in the name of Spanish King Ferdinand. 

Initially, Columbus believed he had landed in China. What he found instead were the Native Americans who, as he described them, were “naked as their mothers’ bore them.” He had expected wealthy costumes, and buildings of gold. What he found instead greatly disappointed him. 

The Indians themselves were equally amazed. They saw the large ships, the clothing, dogs, and horses. It was unlike anything they had seen before. “They believe I am descended from heaven,” Columbus wrote in March of 1493. “They bring us food and drink with extraordinary goodwill.” Columbus and his Spaniards were baffled by the Indians’ lack of technological sophistication. They lacked iron, and were able to defend themselves well in war. This left the Indians very easy to conquer. 

Gold and glory

Once Columbus landed in the Caribbean, he was pleased to find Indians willing to trade gold for bells and beads. The Indians did not see gold as especially valuable. Columbus took note of the benevolence and generosity of the Indians. 

Columbus now had to find solid proof of the riches of this new land. He looked for gold and spices. He took along some of the Indians aboard to lead him to the gold mines of China and Japan. His search took him to the island that he called Hispaniola, in what is now Haiti and the Dominican Republic. There, the Santa Maria hit a reef and sank. The Indians came to his rescue. 

Seeing the warm relations of the Native people, Columbus decided to set up a permanent settlement. With only two ships left, Columbus dispatched 39 of his men behind in Hispaniola. They would continue the search for gold, with the help of the Indians. The Spanish crew enjoyed themselves with the Indian women, and helped themselves to Indian goods. However, this was based on a misunderstanding. The Indians gave their wives and their goods, but they expected the Spanish to return them. This is the origin of the colloquialism “Indian giver.” 

Columbus arrived home triumphant in March of 1493. He displayed his treasures and the Indians he brought home with him. The Spanish looked on with amazement. Columbus arrived at the royal court in Barcelona, where he reported his findings to the Crown. He became an instant sensation. Immediately, the Spanish Crown tasked Columbus with another voyage, this time to colonize the New World. Many other Europeans began their own voyages, motivated in part by Columbus’ exaggerated claims about the riches of the Indies. 

Blood and slavery

Columbus’ second fleet departed in September of 1493. He was anxious to return back to Hispaniola, hoping to find gold and spices. But what he found instead was a killing field of murderous savagery. In Columbus’ absence, tensions grew between the Spanish and Indians. The Indians came to resent the Spanish for obnoxiously helping themselves to food, gold, and even their women. This led the furious Indians to massacre the unwelcome visitors. 

Sadly, this atmosphere of hostility and warfare would characterize the future of Spanish relations with the indigenous people of the New World. The Indians became a conquered people, forced into servility and slavery. Every Indian above the age of 14 was forced to mine for gold, all for Spain’s benefit. Daily quotas were imposed, but those vastly outnumbered the gold reserves of the New World. 

Christopher Columbus’ legacy is much debated today, because of his atrocities against the Native peoples. However, he was not an exceptionally cruel person compared to his contemporaries. The slave trade existed in medieval Europe, and was customary in Europe’s society. It was not unusual, therefore, for Columbus and his marauding conquerors to reduce the Indians to servitude. 

Meanwhile, as more Spanish colonizers poured onto the shores of Hispaniola, they were gravely disappointed. Food was in short supply. Disease abounded on all sides. The Spanish had unintentionally brought along measles and smallpox, while the Indians gave them syphilis. The new colonists were horrified by what they saw, and quickly returned home. 

As the situation deteriorated, so too did Columbus’ reputation back in Spain. He was seen as a liar. To manage his public image, Columbus forced his men to swear, under threat of having their tongues cut out, to tell the Spanish they had been in Asia. Regardless, it was not enough to stop the mutinies. Depressed, a defeated Columbus returned to Spain in early 1496. 

Third voyage

Columbus had been a failure. He did not find a route to Asia. He failed to find the Indian Ocean. He came into brutal conflict with the Indians and, despite the torments and atrocities he perpetrated against them, was unable to extract the gold he so desired. 

Even with all those failures, the Spanish Crown commissioned yet another voyage by Columbus. This time, it took two years to raise up a fleet. Christopher was regarded as a raving lunatic. There were hardly any volunteers, forcing the Crown to release prisoners for the role. His unsavory crew included ten convicted murders.

This time, Columbus voyaged further south. For the first time, he hit continental America, in modern-day Venezuela. He believed he had stumbled upon the Garden of Eden. It persuaded him that the Earth was actually pear-shaped, with this new land at its apex. Despite falling in love with the earthly paradise, Columbus had to return to Hispaniola to check on his brother, who was in charge of the colony there. The European settlers were in full rebellion against the Columbus family. Christopher had ordered that all the treasures belonged to the Crown. But the settlers seized all the gold and slaves they could pillage. So Columbus ordered several hangings. But the anarchy continued. 

In 1500, the Spanish court sent a royal officer named Francisco Bobadilla to investigate. He was greeted by the grisly sight of settlers hanging from trees. Horrified to see an Italian ordering the execution of Spanish citizens, he ordered Columbus be brought back to Spain in chains. “If I had stolen India and given it to the Moors, Spain could not have shown me greater enmity,” Columbus bitterly complained  in November of 1500. 

Columbus was at his lowest point. He suffered from arthritis, bouts of blindness, and gout. He felt deserted by God. Although Queen Isabella freed Columbus, he was clearly out of favor by that point. He retreated from public life, and wrote about his divine destiny from a monastery. Writing to Pope Pius II, Columbus urged the Roman Pontiff that European Christendom needed to convince the heathens of the New World in order to accelerate the Second Coming. 

Final voyage

Now past the age of 50, Columbus still pushed for a fourth voyage. He promised to find China, this time beyond the continental paradise he had found on the third voyage. Reluctantly, the Spanish Crown agreed to a fourth and final trip in 1502. He received four ships in poor condition. The Crown hoped this annoying lunatic would just disappear. 

Columbus’ rotting ships barely managed to traverse the Atlantic. When he finally reached Hispaniola, it was hurricane season. Sea mammals stayed close to the surface. He knew there was impending trouble. So Columbus asked the governor to dock, but was refused entry. “Even Job himself would have been ready to die of despair in my situation,” Christopher wrote in July of 1502. At that same time, a Spanish fleet under Bobadilla was about to leave Hispaniola for Spain. Columbus warned them not to sail, but they ignored him. Bobadilla and his men were killed in the subsequent storm. 

After the storm passed, Columbus’ ships sailed on to Central America, still looking for a route to mainland Asia. The ships barely made it to Jamaica, before breaking down entirely. Columbus and his men were stranded. They had to depend on the Natives for food. The benevolent Indians provided sustenance for several months. But even their generosity had limits. 

As his hungry crew grew mutinous, Columbus turned to charlatanry, a craft he had all but perfected by this point. Knowing that a lunar eclipse was coming, he demanded that the Indians feed him, or else he would take away the moon. Convinced that Columbus possessed supernatural powers, the Indians were tricked into supplying their Spanish associates. With the help of some Indians, Columbus canoed to Hispaniola over 100 miles away, but he was turned away by Spanish colonial officials. 

A failed man

After twelve months, Columbus finally received a rescue ship. In September of 1504, he sailed to Spain for the last time, this time as a passenger. “I can never think of Hispaniola without tears,” he wrote sadly in his logs. By that point, Columbus was in decrepit physical shape. He was out of his mind, and suffered hallucinations. He rambled incoherently, and fell in and out of consciousness. Within months of Columbus’ return to Spain, Queen Isabella died. That was his lone supporter. King Ferdinand gave Columbus some gold, but refused to grant any honorary titles. 

Columbus, who had spent his entire life feeling himself in God’s favor, could not make sense of his fate. He had been utterly humiliated and disgraced. He was especially bitter about how the Spanish monarchy had neglected and even persecuted him. He requested that he be buried with the very chains that he was forced into following his third voyage. He regarded himself as a martyr and a victim of injustice. 

Few mourned Columbus’ death in the town of Valladolid on May 20, 1506. He was aged 55. Christopher received little public credit for his monumental achievements, the significance of which he himself did not fully realize. Most of the credit went to Amerigo Vespucci, who traveled westward years after Columbus. Printers used the name to christen the New World as “America.” Over time, historians would later realize that it was Columbus, not Amerigo, that deserved the real credit. 

Legacy

Today, the merits of the world’s most famous explorer continue to be passionately debated. In recent years, his legacy has undergone scrutiny and reassessment, particularly his harsh treatment of the Native Americans, as well as the colonial conquests of Africa and Asia that were made by possible by his voyages. 

Was he a bold explorer who expanded the frontiers of human civilization, in a precocious anticipation of globalized connection? Or he was a bloodthirsty tyrant that subjugated the innocent Indians through the colonial arsenal of cross and sword? 

Whatever one’s opinions of his legacy, none can deny the enormous legacy and colossal influence that the Genoese explorer left behind. Both the positives and negatives of that legacy are commemorated by Americans each year on Columbus Day the second Monday of October. 

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