10-10-2022, 10:00 PM
Christopher Columbus and His Dream
http://www.catholictradition.org/Traditi...m#COLUMBUS
A man's religious beliefs sets the seal of his heart, forms his character, and directs his every action. In short, a man's religion and the devotion it inspires is the history of his story and the story behind the story of history. "Christopher Columbus had a mystic belief that God intended him to sail the Atlantic Ocean in order to spread Christianity. He said his prayers several times daily. Columbus wrote what he called a Book of Prophecies, which is a compilation of passages Columbus selected from the Bible which he believed were pertinent to his mission of discovery. ... Columbus's own writings prove that he believed that God revealed His plan for the world in the Bible, the infallible Word of God. Columbus believed that he was obeying the mission God staked out for his life when he set sail west across the Atlantic Ocean." [5] The year was 1451 and a son had just been born to the Colombos of Genoa, Italy. The boy, who was the eldest of five children, was Baptized with the name of Christobal [Christopher]. Although his father was a successful weaver---the internet fabric framing the table is a scan of a genuine linen weave from Genoa---Christopher set to sea at the age of 22, taking part in several expeditions, some to the East Indies. His education had not been thorough and he was almost illiterate going by today's standards for most of his youth; however, he was bright and taught himself to read and write, especially Spanish, which he found easier than the dialect of Genoa, along with Latin, because maps and geography were in Latin. Columbus is the Latin form of Colombo. From youth Christopher helped his father at the loom while dreaming of a life at sail. It is thought that because Genoa is a port city that the young Columbus would have had some experience on the ships in the harbor. In 1476, he almost lost his life on a convoy, from Genoa to England on the ship, Bechalla. The ship was attacked off the coast of Portugal and Columbus was wounded; the ship was lost. As it sank, he took hold of a long oar and used it as a raft to reach shore. He ended up Ireland after some land travel and back to Portugal, in Lisbon, the following year. His brother Bartholomew had opened a shop that sold charts and nautical instruments there. By then the Portuguese had explored the Azores, colonized the Madeiras and had reached almost to the African equator. The Portuguese were expert seamen and had invented a special type of sailing vessel, called the caravel, designed to gain ground against the wind rather than merely moving with it. These visionary explorers and seamen knew of China and the Orient and hoped to sail there by going around Africa in order to avoid the costly caravans that made spices and other goods very expensive. Columbus thought that it was possible to go west, not east, to reach the same destination. [6] It is a myth that in Columbus' day it was thought that the world was flat. Actually, long before 1492, experienced cartographers and sailors knew that it was anything but. The lie that people of the 15th century believed that the earth was flat was popularized by 19th century atheists in order to use science in their war against religion. [5b] What these men lacked was an accurate method of calculation and a shorter sea lane to the East. One of the these learned men was an associate of Columbus, a Florentine named Paolo Toscanelli, who believed that Japan was 3,000 nautical miles west of Lisbon. A nautical mile is based on the circumference of the equator and is equal to one minute of the arc of the circumference. Columbus' first plan was to sail to the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa and then to Japan. He had mastered more than two languages, but he was not a mathematician and his calculations did not impress those who could back an expedition. Meanwhile he held the rank of captain and had married a Portuguese woman, Felipa de Perestrello. They lived in the Madeiras. She bore him their only son, Diego and died shortly after. It was now 1480. Five years later Columbus went to Spain to offer his services to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. He took his young son with him. About five miles from Palos was a friary called La Rabída which had a school for young boys. Columbus left Diego there with the friars, one of whom was Father Juan Perez, who became a friend of the navigator and recommended him to the Queen. The King and Queen had were fully engaged staving off the advance of the war-mongering Moors, but Isabella liked the Italian and put him in the service of the court, even though she did not think his calculations for reaching Japan realistic. But by 1492, they had managed to evict the Moors from Granada, the last stronghold of the Islamic invaders, and could now turn their attention to exploration. Some of her advisors were against the employment of Captain Columbus for this endeavor. Her treasurer, Louis de Santangel was not among them and he told her to take him up on his offer. Eager, she offered to sell her jewels to finance the ships and supplies but Louis was able to retrieve the $14,000 needed from the coffers, a small price to pay for the new world. Columbus made more than one voyage to the American continent. The first one had three wooden vessels, the Santa María, the Pinta, and Niña. The first was manned by a crew of 39 while the other two had 26 and 22 seamen. The only instrument for measuring the distance of the sun was a crude kind of quadrant that was only accurate if the sea was calm. They did have good compasses, however. The tiny fleet sailed from Palos [Cape de Palos today] on August 3, 1492, just before Columbus birthday, which is thought to have been between August 25 and the end of October. The date "Columbus selected for departure reflected his profound Catholic faith and that of his crew. August 2, 1492 was the fiesta of Our Lady of Angels, patroness of the Franciscan monastery of La Rabída whose friars had supported Columbus and called for the realization of his dream from the beginning; and protector of the people of Palos, from which his ships would depart, when they were in danger at sea (as Pope Eugenius IV had proclaimed 55 years before). It was a day of thanksgiving for Our Lady's favors, and like all Spanish fiestas, a day of special celebration. Columbus scheduled his departure on the morrow of the fiesta, so that his men could join in thanksgiving and prayer with their families and relatives on the feast-day especially dear to them and to their people." [4] The last land sighted was Ferro, in the Canary chain, September 9. From there Columbus, the "Admiral of the Ocean Sea" set the course due west. [6] "Before Columbus' time all European voyages had followed coastlines, or crossed open seas to lands previously known or at least sighted by storm-driven ships. Only Columbus set off directly across a broad, unknown sea with no specific knowledge of how far it extended or what lay on the other side. ... But Columbus undertook his voyage with more evidence that he could complete it than his unfounded assumptions about the size of the world and the distance to Asia. For most of his professional life as a seaman he had ranged the eastern Atlantic, from West Africa to Iceland, in particular spending much time on Portugal's Atlantic islands. He had picked up reliable reports of strange vegetation and carved, hand-worked objects drifting in from the west, even of two bodies of men who were neither whites nor blacks. He had studied the wind patterns of the Atlantic, noting that from the Canary Islands off the Atlantic coast of North Africa the winds (now called trades) mostly blow from east to west, while further north, on the coast of Portugal and northern Spain and France, the winds (now called prevailing westerlies) blow just as steadily from west to east. Therefore he could sail west with the trades and home with the westerlies, with the winds fair both ways. No other man of his time had thought of that. "The vegetation and the carved objects and the bodies could not have floated all the way from Asia to Europe if they were as far apart as the experts claimed who believed the world to be larger than Columbus had calculated. He was sure---and he was right---that there was land to the west within reach of the sailing ships fifteenth-century Europe had. He was convinced that God had chosen him to reach that land, hidden from the Western world for ages, which the Roman philosopher Seneca had once prophesied would be revealed. His discovery would bring the Catholic Faith, to which he was devoted, to the people who lived in that land. "It is for the boldness of his conception and his magnificent courage in laying his life on the line to carry it out that Christopher Columbus is most rightly honored. It was these qualities that Queen Isabella of Spain recognized in him, that caused her to override the cautious advice of counselors doubtful that such an unprecedented enterprise could succeed. Isabella knew nothing of navigation and little of world geography, but she was a superb judge of men and women. It was to Columbus the man and to Columbus the devoted Catholic that she gave her support. She believed in him---believed that he could achieve the goal to which he was so passionately committed." [4] Most of that first voyage was relatively calm and easy as the winds were favorable. The only problem was from some of the crew who grew afraid the further and further they sailed without sighting land. They had been before the mast for three weeks, the longest known time that anyone had ever sailed in the same direction out of sight from land and Columbus struggled to overcome their trepidation. He told the men that he "had sailed to go to the Indies and would continue until he found them, with the Lord's help." "Adelante! Adelante!" [Sail on! Sail on!] It was now October 10 and they agreed to continue for three more days, then return if land was not found. Just two days later, the island that Columbus named after our Savior, San Salvador, was sighted at two in the morning. Before noon Columbus had disembarked at Fernandez Bay and claimed the land for Spain. He still thought he was near the East Indies or Japan. There were men who came to greet them in all felicity, the Arawak, whom he named Indians because of his mistaken notion. And this is how the Amerinds became to be known as Indians and the islands he found, the West Indies. the little fleet remained there for until late in the month when it entered Cuba on October 28. Thinking this was China he and the men explored several of the harbors, from Punta Brava to Cape Maisi; Captain Columbus sent men up to Holguín because he though that this must be Peking. he had a letter in his possession from the King and Queen for the Emperor. Instead the men found the natives smoking cigars---the first an European had seen of tobacco. From Cape Maisi the ships crossed the Windward Passage, a strait in the Caribbean Sea, between the islands of Cuba and Hispaniola. He named the new island Hispaniola, "little Spain" because the climate and trees reminded him of Spain. [6] "Columbus was entranced by the beauty and promise of the lands he had found, but greatly disappointed to find no gold anywhere but on Hispaniola, and only a little there. It is easy for us, with universally accepted paper money and a computerized banking system, to mock or scorn the Spanish search for gold. But gold was then the essence of wealth, the only universally acceptable medium of exchange, both for governments and individuals, throughout Europe and the Middle East. To pay for Columbus' expeditions it was necessary to find gold, for it would be many years before a profitable transatlantic trade in any other commodity could be developed---even apart from his greater hopes for giving his adopted country of Spain a large return on the investment made in him and his project. "Exploring these totally unknown coasts---it is worth taking a moment to attempt seriously to imagine the risks of taking a sailing ship along a coast where no large ship has ever gone before, where there are no buoys, no lighthouses, and no charts---Columbus and his men became so exhausted that on Christmas Eve of 1492, no one was left awake on Santa Maria but one sleepy cabin boy. With him at the wheel where he was never supposed to have been, the ship ran aground, and could not be freed. Columbus had to abandon her, and leave most of her crew behind in a fort made from her timbers." [4] After a storm-tossed passage with much prayer, the ragged fleet arrived at Palos, from whence they had set sail. Our Captain made for Barcelona where the King and Queen were staying. He had no gold to bring, but a sort of treasure in its own way, strange new plants of a medicinal nature, seeds, gourds, cotton and fruit and even some birds. [3] Queen Isabella was not as disappointed as one would think. She was delighted to hear about the new world he had found. Most thought that he would retire after his discovery. But God had another destiny in store for Columbus who wanted to bring the Catholic Faith to the Indies. This pleased Isabella who was known for her pious faith and zeal for the Church. So in 1493, he set sail once again but with a larger fleet. [1] The cadre of seventeen ships carrying colonists, priests, officials, gentlemen of the court, and horses, left Cadiz on September 25, 1493 and reached the new world in just three weeks. His flagship was still named after Our Lady, this time bearing the title Mariagalante, the name he gave to an island in the West Indies. Columbus established the first colony of Santo Domingo and became the governor of the island. "When he had first arrived at Hispaniola he found that the men from wrecked Santa Maria whom he had left behind had broken discipline, attacked the Indians, and been massacred. Though later investigation established with reasonable clarity that the Spaniards were to blame, at the time---in view of the continuing difficulty of communication---no one could be sure, and many blamed the Indians. Columbus---by royal grant governor of all the lands he found---established a new and larger colony, and a fort in the gold-producing region of Hispaniola, selecting Pedro Margarit to command its garrison. "Soon Columbus left for more exploration, without waiting to see how his men would behave on the island or even making it clear just how much authority his brother Bartholomew, who was put in command of the colony, had over it and especially over Margarit and his garrison of the distant fort in the gold-producing region. It was the first example of the unfortunate but hardly surprising fact that this great explorer much preferred being at sea to being ashore, that his immense talents did not include a capability for administration. Furthermore, he tended to be disliked by many Spanish because he was a foreigner, an Italian. "Exploring Cuba almost to its western tip and then beating his way slowly back against the trade winds, Columbus was absent from his new colony for no less than five months, which proved more than time enough for disaster. Pedro Margarit ravaged the countryside around his fort, extorting gold, food, and women. Bartholomew Columbus tried to stop him, but Margarit claimed he had independent authority from his brother. When Margarit had collected a considerable amount of gold he simply seized three of Columbus' ships and sailed back to Spain in them. When Columbus finally returned from his five months' voyage, he was prostrated by a severe fever; after recovering from that, he was crippled for weeks with arthritis. "Unable to control the Spaniards on the island, Columbus blamed the Indians for his troubles and the very small production of gold. In January 1495 he seized over a thousand Indians to make them slaves. There can be no excuse for this, but it is very important to remember that it was contrary to Spanish law and vigorously countermanded by Queen Isabella as soon as she found out about it. She declared firmly that no one had authorized her Admiral to treat 'her subjects' in this manner, released the Indian captives who had been brought to Spain, and made clear her unalterable opposition to enslavement of the Indians. She then sent a former member of her household named Juan Aguado to investigate what Columbus was doing as governor of Hispaniola and report back to her. "Before Aguado could reach Hispaniola, full-scale war with its Indians had broken out because of Columbus' seizure of the slaves. The Spaniards easily won all military engagements with the Indians, demanded from them a tribute in gold too much for them to collect, and ravaged their lands and pursued them into the mountains when they did not collect it. Aguado's arrival forced Columbus to stop all of this, and he returned to Spain in June 1496. "On Hispaniola, Columbus eventually agreed to grant each Spaniard a substantial tract of cultivated land with a number of Indians to till it. This was the origin of the repartimiento or encomienda system, formalized into law on Hispaniola in 1503, which Bartholomew de Las Casas, the "apostle to the Indians," spent his life fighting, and which Isabella's grandson, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, was to struggle desperately and with only limited success to eliminate. If not quite slavery, the repartimiento system was certainly serfdom, imposed upon a people who had no custom or tradition of regular hard work on the land and would often die quickly if forced to do it. "However, by no means all or even most of the Indians lived and worked as encomenderos. Others worked in the mines, and although sometimes this was forced labor, a substantial number worked voluntarily there for pay. Others fled to the mountains where they long remained entirely free of the Spanish government. Many Indian women entered Spanish households, not only as servants and mistresses but as wives. The oft-denounced oppression existed, but so did good treatment and opportunity. "Finally deciding that Columbus was simply not competent to govern a colony, Isabella relieved him of that duty and sent Francisco de Bobadilla to replace him. Bobadilla arrived in Hispaniola in August 1500, put Columbus under arrest, seized his papers and property, and sent him back to Spain in chains. When he arrived, Isabella had the chains removed at once; but she did not reinstate Columbus as governor, even when Bobadilla also began to abuse the Indians. A third governor, Nicholas de Ovando, was sent out in 1501 with orders to force Bobadilla to restore the property he had taken from Columbus. "In 1502 Columbus sailed on his fourth and last voyage. After surviving a hurricane with all four of his ships that sunk every ship but one of the returning flotilla carrying Bobadilla and his ill-gotten gains, Columbus reached the Central American mainland at Honduras, where he landed and took formal possession of this previously unknown coast for Spain. Through September he beat southward along the coasts of what are now Nicaragua and Costa Rica, hoping to find a strait which would be a sea approach to civilized Asia. All during the fall and on into the winter he explored the coasts of Panama, where the American continent is in fact at its narrowest---though it does not appear Columbus knew that---in the hope of finding the desired strait. "He carried on until Easter of 1503, when his ships were so riddled by holes made by the teredo or shipworm (previously unknown to European mariners) that he had to beach them on Jamaica. By the time he was finally rescued and returned to Spain, the great Queen Isabella was dying. "Ten days after her death Columbus wrote to his son Diego: The most important thing is to commend lovingly and with much devotion the soul of the Queen our lady, to God. Her life was always Catholic and holy, and prompt in all things in His holy service. Because of this we should believe that she is in holy glory, and beyond the cares of this harsh and weary world. "Columbus knew how much he owed Queen Isabella, and repaid her with these words of appreciation and devotion even as he knew that his own work was finished and his life nearly so. He died two years later, in near-poverty and already almost forgotten by the court. "From this record it should be clear that, despite occasional lashing out at the Indians, Columbus was never their systematic oppressor, but simply unable to control the Spaniards on land who were supposed to be under his command. If he had only been willing to confine himself to what he did so superlatively well---sailing and exploring---few if any could have traduced his memory. But because he insisted on remaining governor of the lands he had discovered, his reputation was blackened by the atrocities that occurred during the period when he still had final responsibility for their governance. But it is Columbus the discoverer and explorer whom we truly celebrate and honor, not Columbus the civil governor. His personal influence on the ultimate fate of the Indians of the Caribbean was slight; in no significant way did he change what their history would have been without him, once the discovery was made. "Within thirty to forty years the Indians of the Caribbean islands had disappeared as a distinct population, the greater part of them dying from diseases brought first by the white men, then by the black slaves they began to introduce [this had nothing to do with Columbus]. There were not nearly as many Caribbean natives as the Indians' champion Las Casas believed; modern researchers estimate a population of about 100,000 for Hispaniola when Columbus arrived, and substantially less than that for Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica. The great population decline did not begin until 1508, after Columbus' death. Smallpox and malaria, the most deadly plagues in the history of Europe except for the Black Death, along with yellow fever from Africa, were the principal killers. In the state of medical knowledge of that time, there was no help for this mortality and no escape from it. The mingling of the peoples of the Old and New World, never before brought into contact with one another, carried this heavy and unavoidable price. "Ultimately the American Indians as well as the Europeans benefited from Columbus' great discovery. An interracial culture developed in much of Latin America, notably in Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela. Human sacrifice and cannibalism were ended, and the Indians were almost all converted to Christianity. Large-scale evangelization began with the arrival of a group of Franciscans in Hispaniola in 1500 and continued steadily from then on. Though many Indians were long held in a state of virtual serfdom and some were forced contrary to law to work against their will for long periods of time in gold and silver mines, none were enslaved after the first colonial generation. Spanish law never recognized Indian slavery. And, back in Spain, a prolonged debate at the highest levels of Church and state finally convinced the highest authorities of both---the bishops and the King---Emperor Charles V---that the Indians had souls equal before God to the souls of white men, and rights equal before the law to the rights of any Spaniard." [4]
http://www.catholictradition.org/Traditi...m#COLUMBUS
A man's religious beliefs sets the seal of his heart, forms his character, and directs his every action. In short, a man's religion and the devotion it inspires is the history of his story and the story behind the story of history. "Christopher Columbus had a mystic belief that God intended him to sail the Atlantic Ocean in order to spread Christianity. He said his prayers several times daily. Columbus wrote what he called a Book of Prophecies, which is a compilation of passages Columbus selected from the Bible which he believed were pertinent to his mission of discovery. ... Columbus's own writings prove that he believed that God revealed His plan for the world in the Bible, the infallible Word of God. Columbus believed that he was obeying the mission God staked out for his life when he set sail west across the Atlantic Ocean." [5] The year was 1451 and a son had just been born to the Colombos of Genoa, Italy. The boy, who was the eldest of five children, was Baptized with the name of Christobal [Christopher]. Although his father was a successful weaver---the internet fabric framing the table is a scan of a genuine linen weave from Genoa---Christopher set to sea at the age of 22, taking part in several expeditions, some to the East Indies. His education had not been thorough and he was almost illiterate going by today's standards for most of his youth; however, he was bright and taught himself to read and write, especially Spanish, which he found easier than the dialect of Genoa, along with Latin, because maps and geography were in Latin. Columbus is the Latin form of Colombo. From youth Christopher helped his father at the loom while dreaming of a life at sail. It is thought that because Genoa is a port city that the young Columbus would have had some experience on the ships in the harbor. In 1476, he almost lost his life on a convoy, from Genoa to England on the ship, Bechalla. The ship was attacked off the coast of Portugal and Columbus was wounded; the ship was lost. As it sank, he took hold of a long oar and used it as a raft to reach shore. He ended up Ireland after some land travel and back to Portugal, in Lisbon, the following year. His brother Bartholomew had opened a shop that sold charts and nautical instruments there. By then the Portuguese had explored the Azores, colonized the Madeiras and had reached almost to the African equator. The Portuguese were expert seamen and had invented a special type of sailing vessel, called the caravel, designed to gain ground against the wind rather than merely moving with it. These visionary explorers and seamen knew of China and the Orient and hoped to sail there by going around Africa in order to avoid the costly caravans that made spices and other goods very expensive. Columbus thought that it was possible to go west, not east, to reach the same destination. [6] It is a myth that in Columbus' day it was thought that the world was flat. Actually, long before 1492, experienced cartographers and sailors knew that it was anything but. The lie that people of the 15th century believed that the earth was flat was popularized by 19th century atheists in order to use science in their war against religion. [5b] What these men lacked was an accurate method of calculation and a shorter sea lane to the East. One of the these learned men was an associate of Columbus, a Florentine named Paolo Toscanelli, who believed that Japan was 3,000 nautical miles west of Lisbon. A nautical mile is based on the circumference of the equator and is equal to one minute of the arc of the circumference. Columbus' first plan was to sail to the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa and then to Japan. He had mastered more than two languages, but he was not a mathematician and his calculations did not impress those who could back an expedition. Meanwhile he held the rank of captain and had married a Portuguese woman, Felipa de Perestrello. They lived in the Madeiras. She bore him their only son, Diego and died shortly after. It was now 1480. Five years later Columbus went to Spain to offer his services to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. He took his young son with him. About five miles from Palos was a friary called La Rabída which had a school for young boys. Columbus left Diego there with the friars, one of whom was Father Juan Perez, who became a friend of the navigator and recommended him to the Queen. The King and Queen had were fully engaged staving off the advance of the war-mongering Moors, but Isabella liked the Italian and put him in the service of the court, even though she did not think his calculations for reaching Japan realistic. But by 1492, they had managed to evict the Moors from Granada, the last stronghold of the Islamic invaders, and could now turn their attention to exploration. Some of her advisors were against the employment of Captain Columbus for this endeavor. Her treasurer, Louis de Santangel was not among them and he told her to take him up on his offer. Eager, she offered to sell her jewels to finance the ships and supplies but Louis was able to retrieve the $14,000 needed from the coffers, a small price to pay for the new world. Columbus made more than one voyage to the American continent. The first one had three wooden vessels, the Santa María, the Pinta, and Niña. The first was manned by a crew of 39 while the other two had 26 and 22 seamen. The only instrument for measuring the distance of the sun was a crude kind of quadrant that was only accurate if the sea was calm. They did have good compasses, however. The tiny fleet sailed from Palos [Cape de Palos today] on August 3, 1492, just before Columbus birthday, which is thought to have been between August 25 and the end of October. The date "Columbus selected for departure reflected his profound Catholic faith and that of his crew. August 2, 1492 was the fiesta of Our Lady of Angels, patroness of the Franciscan monastery of La Rabída whose friars had supported Columbus and called for the realization of his dream from the beginning; and protector of the people of Palos, from which his ships would depart, when they were in danger at sea (as Pope Eugenius IV had proclaimed 55 years before). It was a day of thanksgiving for Our Lady's favors, and like all Spanish fiestas, a day of special celebration. Columbus scheduled his departure on the morrow of the fiesta, so that his men could join in thanksgiving and prayer with their families and relatives on the feast-day especially dear to them and to their people." [4] The last land sighted was Ferro, in the Canary chain, September 9. From there Columbus, the "Admiral of the Ocean Sea" set the course due west. [6] "Before Columbus' time all European voyages had followed coastlines, or crossed open seas to lands previously known or at least sighted by storm-driven ships. Only Columbus set off directly across a broad, unknown sea with no specific knowledge of how far it extended or what lay on the other side. ... But Columbus undertook his voyage with more evidence that he could complete it than his unfounded assumptions about the size of the world and the distance to Asia. For most of his professional life as a seaman he had ranged the eastern Atlantic, from West Africa to Iceland, in particular spending much time on Portugal's Atlantic islands. He had picked up reliable reports of strange vegetation and carved, hand-worked objects drifting in from the west, even of two bodies of men who were neither whites nor blacks. He had studied the wind patterns of the Atlantic, noting that from the Canary Islands off the Atlantic coast of North Africa the winds (now called trades) mostly blow from east to west, while further north, on the coast of Portugal and northern Spain and France, the winds (now called prevailing westerlies) blow just as steadily from west to east. Therefore he could sail west with the trades and home with the westerlies, with the winds fair both ways. No other man of his time had thought of that. "The vegetation and the carved objects and the bodies could not have floated all the way from Asia to Europe if they were as far apart as the experts claimed who believed the world to be larger than Columbus had calculated. He was sure---and he was right---that there was land to the west within reach of the sailing ships fifteenth-century Europe had. He was convinced that God had chosen him to reach that land, hidden from the Western world for ages, which the Roman philosopher Seneca had once prophesied would be revealed. His discovery would bring the Catholic Faith, to which he was devoted, to the people who lived in that land. "It is for the boldness of his conception and his magnificent courage in laying his life on the line to carry it out that Christopher Columbus is most rightly honored. It was these qualities that Queen Isabella of Spain recognized in him, that caused her to override the cautious advice of counselors doubtful that such an unprecedented enterprise could succeed. Isabella knew nothing of navigation and little of world geography, but she was a superb judge of men and women. It was to Columbus the man and to Columbus the devoted Catholic that she gave her support. She believed in him---believed that he could achieve the goal to which he was so passionately committed." [4] Most of that first voyage was relatively calm and easy as the winds were favorable. The only problem was from some of the crew who grew afraid the further and further they sailed without sighting land. They had been before the mast for three weeks, the longest known time that anyone had ever sailed in the same direction out of sight from land and Columbus struggled to overcome their trepidation. He told the men that he "had sailed to go to the Indies and would continue until he found them, with the Lord's help." "Adelante! Adelante!" [Sail on! Sail on!] It was now October 10 and they agreed to continue for three more days, then return if land was not found. Just two days later, the island that Columbus named after our Savior, San Salvador, was sighted at two in the morning. Before noon Columbus had disembarked at Fernandez Bay and claimed the land for Spain. He still thought he was near the East Indies or Japan. There were men who came to greet them in all felicity, the Arawak, whom he named Indians because of his mistaken notion. And this is how the Amerinds became to be known as Indians and the islands he found, the West Indies. the little fleet remained there for until late in the month when it entered Cuba on October 28. Thinking this was China he and the men explored several of the harbors, from Punta Brava to Cape Maisi; Captain Columbus sent men up to Holguín because he though that this must be Peking. he had a letter in his possession from the King and Queen for the Emperor. Instead the men found the natives smoking cigars---the first an European had seen of tobacco. From Cape Maisi the ships crossed the Windward Passage, a strait in the Caribbean Sea, between the islands of Cuba and Hispaniola. He named the new island Hispaniola, "little Spain" because the climate and trees reminded him of Spain. [6] "Columbus was entranced by the beauty and promise of the lands he had found, but greatly disappointed to find no gold anywhere but on Hispaniola, and only a little there. It is easy for us, with universally accepted paper money and a computerized banking system, to mock or scorn the Spanish search for gold. But gold was then the essence of wealth, the only universally acceptable medium of exchange, both for governments and individuals, throughout Europe and the Middle East. To pay for Columbus' expeditions it was necessary to find gold, for it would be many years before a profitable transatlantic trade in any other commodity could be developed---even apart from his greater hopes for giving his adopted country of Spain a large return on the investment made in him and his project. "Exploring these totally unknown coasts---it is worth taking a moment to attempt seriously to imagine the risks of taking a sailing ship along a coast where no large ship has ever gone before, where there are no buoys, no lighthouses, and no charts---Columbus and his men became so exhausted that on Christmas Eve of 1492, no one was left awake on Santa Maria but one sleepy cabin boy. With him at the wheel where he was never supposed to have been, the ship ran aground, and could not be freed. Columbus had to abandon her, and leave most of her crew behind in a fort made from her timbers." [4] After a storm-tossed passage with much prayer, the ragged fleet arrived at Palos, from whence they had set sail. Our Captain made for Barcelona where the King and Queen were staying. He had no gold to bring, but a sort of treasure in its own way, strange new plants of a medicinal nature, seeds, gourds, cotton and fruit and even some birds. [3] Queen Isabella was not as disappointed as one would think. She was delighted to hear about the new world he had found. Most thought that he would retire after his discovery. But God had another destiny in store for Columbus who wanted to bring the Catholic Faith to the Indies. This pleased Isabella who was known for her pious faith and zeal for the Church. So in 1493, he set sail once again but with a larger fleet. [1] The cadre of seventeen ships carrying colonists, priests, officials, gentlemen of the court, and horses, left Cadiz on September 25, 1493 and reached the new world in just three weeks. His flagship was still named after Our Lady, this time bearing the title Mariagalante, the name he gave to an island in the West Indies. Columbus established the first colony of Santo Domingo and became the governor of the island. "When he had first arrived at Hispaniola he found that the men from wrecked Santa Maria whom he had left behind had broken discipline, attacked the Indians, and been massacred. Though later investigation established with reasonable clarity that the Spaniards were to blame, at the time---in view of the continuing difficulty of communication---no one could be sure, and many blamed the Indians. Columbus---by royal grant governor of all the lands he found---established a new and larger colony, and a fort in the gold-producing region of Hispaniola, selecting Pedro Margarit to command its garrison. "Soon Columbus left for more exploration, without waiting to see how his men would behave on the island or even making it clear just how much authority his brother Bartholomew, who was put in command of the colony, had over it and especially over Margarit and his garrison of the distant fort in the gold-producing region. It was the first example of the unfortunate but hardly surprising fact that this great explorer much preferred being at sea to being ashore, that his immense talents did not include a capability for administration. Furthermore, he tended to be disliked by many Spanish because he was a foreigner, an Italian. "Exploring Cuba almost to its western tip and then beating his way slowly back against the trade winds, Columbus was absent from his new colony for no less than five months, which proved more than time enough for disaster. Pedro Margarit ravaged the countryside around his fort, extorting gold, food, and women. Bartholomew Columbus tried to stop him, but Margarit claimed he had independent authority from his brother. When Margarit had collected a considerable amount of gold he simply seized three of Columbus' ships and sailed back to Spain in them. When Columbus finally returned from his five months' voyage, he was prostrated by a severe fever; after recovering from that, he was crippled for weeks with arthritis. "Unable to control the Spaniards on the island, Columbus blamed the Indians for his troubles and the very small production of gold. In January 1495 he seized over a thousand Indians to make them slaves. There can be no excuse for this, but it is very important to remember that it was contrary to Spanish law and vigorously countermanded by Queen Isabella as soon as she found out about it. She declared firmly that no one had authorized her Admiral to treat 'her subjects' in this manner, released the Indian captives who had been brought to Spain, and made clear her unalterable opposition to enslavement of the Indians. She then sent a former member of her household named Juan Aguado to investigate what Columbus was doing as governor of Hispaniola and report back to her. "Before Aguado could reach Hispaniola, full-scale war with its Indians had broken out because of Columbus' seizure of the slaves. The Spaniards easily won all military engagements with the Indians, demanded from them a tribute in gold too much for them to collect, and ravaged their lands and pursued them into the mountains when they did not collect it. Aguado's arrival forced Columbus to stop all of this, and he returned to Spain in June 1496. "On Hispaniola, Columbus eventually agreed to grant each Spaniard a substantial tract of cultivated land with a number of Indians to till it. This was the origin of the repartimiento or encomienda system, formalized into law on Hispaniola in 1503, which Bartholomew de Las Casas, the "apostle to the Indians," spent his life fighting, and which Isabella's grandson, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, was to struggle desperately and with only limited success to eliminate. If not quite slavery, the repartimiento system was certainly serfdom, imposed upon a people who had no custom or tradition of regular hard work on the land and would often die quickly if forced to do it. "However, by no means all or even most of the Indians lived and worked as encomenderos. Others worked in the mines, and although sometimes this was forced labor, a substantial number worked voluntarily there for pay. Others fled to the mountains where they long remained entirely free of the Spanish government. Many Indian women entered Spanish households, not only as servants and mistresses but as wives. The oft-denounced oppression existed, but so did good treatment and opportunity. "Finally deciding that Columbus was simply not competent to govern a colony, Isabella relieved him of that duty and sent Francisco de Bobadilla to replace him. Bobadilla arrived in Hispaniola in August 1500, put Columbus under arrest, seized his papers and property, and sent him back to Spain in chains. When he arrived, Isabella had the chains removed at once; but she did not reinstate Columbus as governor, even when Bobadilla also began to abuse the Indians. A third governor, Nicholas de Ovando, was sent out in 1501 with orders to force Bobadilla to restore the property he had taken from Columbus. "In 1502 Columbus sailed on his fourth and last voyage. After surviving a hurricane with all four of his ships that sunk every ship but one of the returning flotilla carrying Bobadilla and his ill-gotten gains, Columbus reached the Central American mainland at Honduras, where he landed and took formal possession of this previously unknown coast for Spain. Through September he beat southward along the coasts of what are now Nicaragua and Costa Rica, hoping to find a strait which would be a sea approach to civilized Asia. All during the fall and on into the winter he explored the coasts of Panama, where the American continent is in fact at its narrowest---though it does not appear Columbus knew that---in the hope of finding the desired strait. "He carried on until Easter of 1503, when his ships were so riddled by holes made by the teredo or shipworm (previously unknown to European mariners) that he had to beach them on Jamaica. By the time he was finally rescued and returned to Spain, the great Queen Isabella was dying. "Ten days after her death Columbus wrote to his son Diego: The most important thing is to commend lovingly and with much devotion the soul of the Queen our lady, to God. Her life was always Catholic and holy, and prompt in all things in His holy service. Because of this we should believe that she is in holy glory, and beyond the cares of this harsh and weary world. "Columbus knew how much he owed Queen Isabella, and repaid her with these words of appreciation and devotion even as he knew that his own work was finished and his life nearly so. He died two years later, in near-poverty and already almost forgotten by the court. "From this record it should be clear that, despite occasional lashing out at the Indians, Columbus was never their systematic oppressor, but simply unable to control the Spaniards on land who were supposed to be under his command. If he had only been willing to confine himself to what he did so superlatively well---sailing and exploring---few if any could have traduced his memory. But because he insisted on remaining governor of the lands he had discovered, his reputation was blackened by the atrocities that occurred during the period when he still had final responsibility for their governance. But it is Columbus the discoverer and explorer whom we truly celebrate and honor, not Columbus the civil governor. His personal influence on the ultimate fate of the Indians of the Caribbean was slight; in no significant way did he change what their history would have been without him, once the discovery was made. "Within thirty to forty years the Indians of the Caribbean islands had disappeared as a distinct population, the greater part of them dying from diseases brought first by the white men, then by the black slaves they began to introduce [this had nothing to do with Columbus]. There were not nearly as many Caribbean natives as the Indians' champion Las Casas believed; modern researchers estimate a population of about 100,000 for Hispaniola when Columbus arrived, and substantially less than that for Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica. The great population decline did not begin until 1508, after Columbus' death. Smallpox and malaria, the most deadly plagues in the history of Europe except for the Black Death, along with yellow fever from Africa, were the principal killers. In the state of medical knowledge of that time, there was no help for this mortality and no escape from it. The mingling of the peoples of the Old and New World, never before brought into contact with one another, carried this heavy and unavoidable price. "Ultimately the American Indians as well as the Europeans benefited from Columbus' great discovery. An interracial culture developed in much of Latin America, notably in Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela. Human sacrifice and cannibalism were ended, and the Indians were almost all converted to Christianity. Large-scale evangelization began with the arrival of a group of Franciscans in Hispaniola in 1500 and continued steadily from then on. Though many Indians were long held in a state of virtual serfdom and some were forced contrary to law to work against their will for long periods of time in gold and silver mines, none were enslaved after the first colonial generation. Spanish law never recognized Indian slavery. And, back in Spain, a prolonged debate at the highest levels of Church and state finally convinced the highest authorities of both---the bishops and the King---Emperor Charles V---that the Indians had souls equal before God to the souls of white men, and rights equal before the law to the rights of any Spaniard." [4]