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Christopher Columbus (; : Cristoforo Colombo; Spanish: Cristóbal Colón; : Cristóv?o Colombo; born between 31 October 1450 and 30 October 1451, ; died 20 May 1506, ) was an
explorer, navigator, colonizer and citizen of the . Under the auspices of the
of , he completed
across the Atlantic Ocean. Those voyages, and his efforts to establish permanent settlements on the island of , initiated the
In the context of emerging Western
through the establishment of
and colonies, Columbus' proposal to reach the
by sailing westward eventually received the support of the Spanish Crown, which saw in it a chance to enter the
with Asia through a new westward route. During his first voyage in 1492, instead of arriving at Japan as he had intended, Columbus reached the , landing on an island in the
that he named "San Salvador". Over the course of three more voyages, Columbus visited the
and , as well as the
and , claiming all of it for the .
Though Columbus may not have been the first European explorer to reach the Americas (having probably been preceded by the
expedition led by
in the 11th century), his voyages led to the first lasting European contact with the Americas, inaugurating a period of European exploration, conquest, and colonization that lasted for several centuries. These voyages had, therefore, an enormous impact in the historical development of the modern Western world. Columbus spearheaded the
and has been accused by several historians of initiating the
of the Hispaniola natives. Columbus himself saw his accomplishments primarily in the light of .
Never admitting that he had reached a continent previously unknown to Europeans rather than the East
he had set out for, Columbus called the inhabitants of the lands he visited indios (Spanish for "Indians"). Columbus' strained relationship with the Spanish crown and its appointed colonial administrators in America led to his arrest and dismissal as governor of the settlements on the island of
in 1500 and later to protracted litigation over the benefits which Columbus and his heirs claimed were owed to them by the crown.
For more details on Columbus's birthplace and family background, see .
Christopher Columbus at the gates of the
with his son Diego, by
The name Christopher Columbus is the
Christophorus Columbus. His name in Italian is Cristoforo Colombo, and in Spanish, it is Cristóbal Colón. Columbus was born before 31 October 1451 in the territory of the
(now part of modern Italy), though the exact location remains disputed. His father was , a middle-class wool weaver who worked both in
and who also owned a cheese stand at which young Christopher worked as a helper. Christopher's mother was . Bartolomeo, Giovanni Pellegrino, and Giacomo were his brothers. Bartolomeo worked in a
workshop in
for at least part of his adulthood. He also had a sister named Bianchinetta.
Columbus never wrote in his native language, which is presumed to have been a
(his name would translate in the 16th-century Genoese language as Christoffa Corombo pron. IPA: ). In one of his writings, Columbus claims to have gone to sea at the age of 10. In 1470, the Columbus family moved to Savona, where Domenico took over a tavern. In the same year, Columbus was on a Genoese ship hired in the service of
to support his attempt to conquer the . Some modern historians have argued that Columbus was not from Genoa, but instead, from the
or from . These competing hypotheses have generally been discounted by mainstream scholars.
Columbus' handwritten notes in Latin, on the margins of his copy of
In 1473, Columbus began his apprenticeship as business agent for the important Centurione, Di Negro and
families of Genoa. Later, he allegedly made a trip to , an
island then ruled by Genoa. In May 1476, he took part in an armed convoy sent by Genoa to carry a valuable cargo to northern Europe. He docked in , England and , Ireland. In 1477, he was possibly in . In the autumn of 1477, Columbus sailed on a Portuguese ship from Galway to Lisbon, where he found his brother Bartolomeo, and they continued trading for the Centurione family. Columbus based himself in Lisbon from 1477 to 1485. He married , daughter of the
governor and Portuguese nobleman of
In 1479 or 1480, his son
was born. Between 1482 and 1485, Columbus traded along the coasts of West Africa, reaching the Portuguese trading post of
at the Guinea coast. Some records report that Filipa died in 1485. It is also speculated that Columbus may have simply left his first wife. In either case, Columbus left Portugal for Castile in 1485, where he found a mistress in 1487, a 20-year-old orphan named .
Ambitious, Columbus eventually learned Latin, Portuguese, and Castilian, and read widely about astronomy, geography, and history, including the works of , Cardinal 's Imago Mundi, the travels of
and Sir , 's , and 's Historia Rerum Ubique Gestarum. According to historian ,
Columbus was not a scholarly man. Yet he studied these books, made hundreds of marginal notations in them and came out with ideas about the world that were characteristically simple and strong and sometimes wrong, ...
Throughout his life, Columbus also showed a keen interest in the Bible and in , and would often quote biblical texts in his letters and logs. For example, part of the argument that he submitted to the Spanish
when he sought their support for his proposed expedition to reach the Indies by sailing west was based on his reading of the
(see , which Columbus took to mean that the Earth is made of six parts of land to one of water). Towards the end of his life, Columbus produced a , in which his career as an explorer is interpreted in the light of
"Columbus map", drawn c. 1490 in the
workshop of Bartolomeo and Christopher Columbus
Under the 's hegemony over Asia (the , or Mongol peace), Europeans had long enjoyed a safe land passage, the
to India (the , a far larger region than modern India) and China, which were sources of valuable goods such as spices and silk. With the
in 1453, the land route to Asia became much more difficult and dangerous. Portuguese navigators tried to find a sea way to Asia.
In 1470 the Florentine astronomer
suggested to King
that sailing west would be a quicker way to reach the ,
than the route round Africa. Afonso rejected his proposal. Portuguese explorers, under the leadership of King , then developed a passage to Asia by sailing around Africa. Major progress in this quest was achieved in 1488, when
reached the , in what is now South Africa. Meanwhile, in the 1480s, the Columbus brothers had picked up Toscanelli's suggestion and proposed a plan to reach the Indies (then construed roughly as all of south and east Asia) by sailing west across the "Ocean Sea", i. e., the . However, Dias's discovery had shifted the interests of Portuguese seafaring to the southeast passage, which complicated Columbus's proposals significantly.
's 1828 biography of Columbus popularized the idea that Columbus had difficulty obtaining support for his plan because many Catholic theologians insisted that the . In fact,
at least since the time of , who lived in the 4th century BC and whose works were widely studied and revered in .
The sphericity of the Earth is also accounted for in the work of , on which
was largely based. Christian writers whose works clearly reflect the conviction that the Earth is spherical include Saint
the Venerable in his Reckoning of Time, written around AD 723. In Columbus' time, the techniques of , which use the position of the sun and the stars in the sky, together with the understanding that the Earth is a sphere, had long been in use by astronomers and were beginning to be implemented by mariners.
As far back as the 3rd century BC,
had correctly computed the circumference of the Earth by using simple geometry and studying the shadows cast by objects at two different locations:
and Syene (modern-day ). Eratosthenes's results were confirmed by a comparison of stellar observations at Alexandria and , carried out by
in the 1st century BC. These measurements were widely known among scholars, but confusion about the old-fashioned units of distance in which they were expressed had led, in Columbus's day, to some debate about the exact size of the Earth.
Toscanelli's notions of the geography of the Atlantic Ocean, which directly influenced Columbus' plans
From d'Ailly's Imago Mundi Columbus learned of 's estimate that a degree of
(or a degree of
along the equator) spanned 56 2/3
miles, but did not realize that this was expressed in the
rather than the shorter
with which he was familiar (1,480 m). He therefore estimated the circumference of the Earth to be about 30,200 km, whereas the correct value is 40,000 km (25,000 mi).
Furthermore, most scholars accepted 's estimate that
spanned 180° , rather than the actual 130° (to the Chinese mainland) or 150° (to Japan at the latitude of Spain). Columbus, for his part, believed the even higher estimate of , which put the longitudinal span of the Eurasian landmass at 225°, leaving only 135° of water. He also believed that Japan (which he called "Cipangu", following ) was much larger, farther to the east from China ("Cathay"), and closer to the equator than it is, and that there were inhabited islands even farther to the east than Japan, including the mythical , which he thought might lie not much farther to the west than the . In this, he was influenced by the ideas of Florentine astronomer , who corresponded with Columbus before his death in 1482 and who also defended the feasibility of a westward route to Asia.
Columbus therefore estimated the distance from the
to Japan to be about 3,000 Italian miles (3,700 km, or 2,300 statute miles). The true figure is now known to be vastly larger: about 12,500 km. No ship in the 15th century could have carried enough food and fresh water for such a long voyage, and the dangers involved in navigating through the uncharted ocean would have been formidable. Most European navigators reasonably concluded that a westward voyage from Europe to Asia was unfeasible. The , however, having completed
in the , were eager to obtain a competitive edge over other European countries in the quest for trade with the Indies. Columbus's project, though far-fetched, held the promise of such an advantage.
Though Columbus was wrong about the number of degrees of longitude that separated Europe from the Far East and about the distance that each degree represented, he did possess valuable knowledge about the , which would prove to be the key to his successful navigation of the Atlantic Ocean. During his first voyage in 1492, the brisk trade winds from the east, commonly called "", propelled Columbus' fleet for five weeks, from the
to . The precise first land sighting and landing point was . To return to Spain against this prevailing wind would have required several months of an arduous sailing technique, called , during which food and drinkable water would probably have been exhausted.
Instead, Columbus returned home by following the curving trade winds northeastward to the middle latitudes of the North Atlantic, where he was able to catch the "" that blow eastward to the coast of Western Europe. There, in turn, the winds curve southward towards the Iberian Peninsula.
It is unclear whether Columbus learned about the winds from his own sailing experience or if he had heard about them from others. The corresponding technique for efficient travel in the Atlantic appears to have been exploited first by the Portuguese, who referred to it as the
("turn of the sea"). Columbus' knowledge of the Atlantic wind patterns was, however, imperfect at the time of his first voyage. By sailing directly due west from the Canary Islands during , skirting the so-called
of the mid-Atlantic, Columbus risked either being becalmed or running into a , both of which he luckily avoided.
In 1485, Columbus presented his plans to King . He proposed that the king equip three sturdy ships and grant Columbus one year's time to sail out into the Atlantic, search for a western route to the , and return.
Columbus and Queen Isabella: detail of the Columbus monument in
Columbus also requested he be made "Great Admiral of the Ocean", appointed governor of any and all lands he discovered, and given one-tenth of all revenue from those lands.
The king submitted Columbus' proposal to his experts, who rejected it. It was their considered opinion that Columbus' estimation of a travel distance of 2,400 miles (3,860 km) was, in fact, far too low.
In 1488, Columbus appealed to the court of Portugal once again, and once again, John II invited him to an audience. That meeting also proved unsuccessful, in part because not long afterwards
returned to Portugal with news of his successful rounding of the southern tip of Africa (near the ). With an eastern sea route to Asia apparently at hand, King John was no longer interested in Columbus's far-fetched project.
Columbus traveled from Portugal to both
and , but he received encouragement from neither. Columbus had also dispatched his brother
to the court of , to inquire whether the English crown might sponsor his expedition, but also without success.
Columbus before the Queen, as imagined by , 1843
Columbus had sought an audience from the monarchs
and , who had united several kingdoms in the Iberian Peninsula by marrying, and were ruling together. On 1 May 1486, permission having been granted, Columbus presented his plans to Queen Isabella, who, in turn, referred it to a committee. After the passing of much time, the
of Spain, like their counterparts in , replied that Columbus had grossly underestimated the distance to Asia. They pronounced the idea impractical and advised their Royal Highnesses to pass on the proposed venture.
However, to keep Columbus from taking his ideas elsewhere, and perhaps to keep their options open, the
gave him an annual allowance of 12,000
and, in 1489, furnished him with a letter ordering all cities and towns under their domain to provide him food and lodging at no cost.
~ Flagship of Columbus ~ Fleet of Columbus ~
~ 400th Anniversary Issues of 1893 ~
U.S. stamps reflecting the most commonly held view as to what Columbus' first fleet might have looked like. The , the flagship of Columbus' fleet, was a —a merchant ship of between 400 and 600 tons, 75 feet (23 m) long, with a beam of 25 feet (7.6 m), allowing it to carry more people and cargo. It had a deep draft of 6 feet (1.8 m). The vessel had three masts: a mainmast, a foremast, and a mizzenmast. Five sails altogether were attached to these masts. Each mast carried one large sail. The foresail and
the sail on the mizzen was a triangular sail known as a lateen mizzen. The ship had a smaller topsail on the mainmast above the mainsail and on the foremast above the foresail. In addition, the ship carried a small square sail, a , on the .
After continually lobbying at the
and two years of negotiations, he finally had success in January 1492. Ferdinand and Isabella had just conquered , the last
on the Iberian Peninsula, and they received Columbus in , in the
castle. Isabella turned Columbus down on the advice of her , and he was leaving town by mule in despair, when Ferdinand intervened. Isabella then sent a royal guard to fetch him, and Ferdinand later claimed credit for being "the principal cause why those islands were discovered".
In the April 1492 "", King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella promised Columbus that if he succeeded he would be given the rank of Admiral of the Ocean Sea and appointed Viceroy and Governor of all the new lands he could claim for Spain. He had the right to nominate three persons, from whom the sovereigns would choose one, for any office in the new lands. He would be entitled to 10 percent of all the revenues from the new lands in perpetuity. Additionally, he would also have the option of buying one-eighth interest in any commercial venture with the new lands and receive one-eighth of the profits.
Columbus was later arrested in 1500 and dismissed from his posts. He and his sons, Diego and Fernando, then conducted a lengthy series of court cases against the , known as the , alleging that the Crown had illegally reneged on its contractual obligations to Columbus and his heirs. The Columbus family had some success in their first litigation, as a judgment of 1511 confirmed Diego's position as Viceroy, but reduced his powers. Diego resumed litigation in 1512, which lasted until 1536, and further disputes continued until 1790.
Main article:
The voyages of Christopher Columbus
Between 1492 and 1503, Columbus completed four round-trip voyages between Spain and the Americas, all of them under the sponsorship of the . These voyages marked the beginning of the
of , and are thus of enormous significance in .
Columbus always insisted, in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary, that the lands that he visited during those voyages were part of the Asian continent, as previously described by
and other European travelers. Columbus' refusal to accept that the lands he had visited and claimed for Spain were not part of Asia might explain, in part, why the American continent was named after the
and not after Columbus.
12 October ;– Landing of Columbus, painting by
On the evening of 3 August 1492, Columbus departed from
with three ships: a larger , the
ex-Gallega ("Galician"), and two smaller , the
("The Pint", "The Look", or "The Spotted One") and the Santa Clara, nicknamed the
(lit. "Girl") after her owner Juan Ni?o of Moguer. The monarchs forced the
inhabitants to contribute to the expedition. The Santa María was owned by
and captained by Columbus. The Pinta and the Ni?a were piloted by the
Columbus first sailed to the , which belonged to , where he restocked the provisions and made repairs. After stopping over in , he departed from
on 6 September, for what turned out to be a five-week voyage across the ocean. A lookout on the Pinta,
(also known as Juan Rodríguez Bermeo), spotted land about 2:00 on the morning of 12 October, and immediately alerted the rest of the crew with a shout. Thereupon, the captain of the Pinta, Martín Alonso Pinzón, verified the discovery and alerted Columbus by firing a . Columbus later maintained that he himself had already seen a light on the land a few hours earlier, thereby claiming for himself the lifetime pension promised by Ferdinand and Isabella to the first person to sight land.
First voyage. Modern place names in black, Columbus' place names in blue
Columbus called the island (in what is now ) San Salvador; the natives called it . Exactly which island in the Bahamas this corresponds to is unresolved. Based on primary accounts and based on what one would expect based on the geographic positions of the islands given Columbus's venture's course, the prime candidates are
(so named in 1925 on the theory that it was Columbus' San Salvador), , and .
he encountered, the , , or , were peaceful and friendly. Noting their gold ear ornaments, Columbus took some of the Arawaks prisoner and insisted that they guide him to the source of the gold.
From the entry in
of 12 October 1492, in which he wrote of them, "Many of the men I have seen have scars on their bodies, and when I made signs to them to find out how this happened, they indicated that people from other nearby islands come to San Salv they defend themselves the best they can. I believe that people from the mainland come here to take them as slaves. They ought to make good and skilled servants, for they repeat very quickly whatever we say to them. I think they can very easily be made Christians, for they seem to have no religion. If it pleases our Lord, I will take six of them to Your Highnesses when I depart, in order that they may learn our language."
Columbus remarked that their lack of modern weaponry and metal-forged swords or pikes was a tactical vulnerability, writing, "I could conquer the whole of them with 50 men, and govern them as I pleased."
Columbus also explored the northeast coast of , where he landed on 28 October. On 22 November, Martín Alonso Pinzón took the Pinta on an unauthorized expedition in search of an island called "Babeque" or "Baneque", which the natives had told him was rich in gold. Columbus, for his part, continued to the northern coast of , where he landed on 5 December.
There, the Santa María ran aground on Christmas Day 1492 and had to be abandoned. The wreck was used as a target for cannon fire to impress the native peoples. Columbus was received by the native
, who gave him permission to leave some of his men behind. Columbus left 39 men, including , the Converso interpreter, who spoke Hebrew and Arabic, and founded the settlement of
at the site of present-day Bord de Mer de Limonade, . Columbus took more natives prisoner and continued his exploration. He kept sailing along the northern coast of Hispaniola with a single ship, until he encountered Pinzón and the Pinta on 6 January.
On 13 January 1493, Columbus made his last stop of this voyage in the New World. He landed on the , where he met the hostile Ciguayos who presented him with his only violent resistance during his first voyage to the Americas. The Ciguayos had refused to trade the amount of bows and arrows that C in the ensuing violence two were stabbed to death. Because of this and because of the Ciguayos' use of arrows, he called the inlet where he met them . Today, the place is called the Bay of Rincón, in Samaná, the . Columbus kidnapped about 10 to 25 natives and took them back with him (only seven or eight of the natives arrived in Spain alive).
The return of Christopher C his audience before King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, painting by Eugène Delacroix
Columbus headed for Spain on the Ni?a, but after a stop in the
a storm forced him to separate from the Pinta and into the port at . He anchored next to the King's harbor patrol ship on 4 March 1493 in Portugal and was interviewed by , whose rounding of the
a few years earlier in
had complicated Columbus's attempts for funding from the Portuguese court. After spending more than one week in Portugal, and paying his respects to , he set sail for Spain.
was a young boy and a ward of Eleanor' it is likely he saw Columbus during this visit. After departing, and after reportedly being saved from assassins by , Columbus crossed the bar of Saltes and entered the harbor of
on 15 March 1493. Word of his finding new lands .
Columbus's second voyage
Columbus left the port of
on 24 September 1493, with a fleet of
carrying 1,200 men and the supplies to establish permanent colonies in the New World. The passengers included priests, farmers, and soldiers, who would be the new colonists. This reflected the new policy of creating not just "colonies of exploitation", but also "colonies of settlement" from which to launch missions dedicated to converting the natives to Christianity. Modern studies suggest that, as reported by the Washington Post, "crew members may have included free black Africans who arrived in the New World about a decade before the slave trade began."
As in the first voyage, the fleet stopped at the , from which it departed on 13 October, following a more southerly course than on the previous expedition. On 3 November, Columbus sighted a rugged island that he named
(Latin for Sunday); later that day, he landed at , which he named Santa María la Galante. After sailing past
(Los Santos, "The Saints"), he arrived at the island of , which he named
de Extremadura, after the image of the Virgin Mary venerated at the Spanish monastery of , in , Spain. He explored that island from 4 to 10 November.
Michele da Cuneo, Columbus' childhood friend from , sailed with Columbus during the second voyage and wrote: "In my opinion, since Genoa was Genoa, there was never born a man so well equipped and expert in the art of navigation as the said lord Admiral." Columbus named the small island of "Saona ... to honor Michele da Cuneo, his friend from Savona."
The same childhood friend reported in a letter that Columbus had provided one of the captured indigenous women to him. He wrote, "While I was in the boat, I captured a very beautiful Carib woman, whom the said Lord Admiral gave to me. When I had taken her to my cabin she was naked—as was their custom. I was filled with a desire to take my pleasure with her and attempted to satisfy my desire. She was unwilling, and so treated me with her nails that I wished I had never begun. But—to cut a long story short—I then took a piece of rope and whipped her soundly, and she let forth such incredible screams that you would not have believed your ears. Eventually we came to such terms, I assure you, that you would have thought that she had been brought up in a school for whores."
Pedro de las Casas, father of the priest , also accompanied Columbus on this voyage.
The Inspiration of Christopher Columbus by , 1856
The exact course of Columbus' voyage through the
is debated, but it seems likely that he turned north, sighting and naming several islands, including:
(for Santa María de Montserrate, after the Blessed Virgin of the , which is located on the Mountain of Montserrat, in Catalonia, Spain),
(after a church in , Spain, called Santa María la Antigua, meaning "Old St. Mary's"),
(Santa María la Redonda, Spanish for "St. Mary the Round", owing to the island's shape),
(derived from the Spanish Nuestra Se?ora de las Nieves, "Our Lady of the Snows", because Columbus thought the clouds over Nevis Peak made the island resemble a snow-capped mountain),
(for , patron of sailors and travelers),
(for the early Roman martyr, ),
(after the Biblical ),
(San Martín), and
(from the Spanish Santa Cruz, meaning "").[]
Columbus also sighted the chain of the , which he named Islas de Santa ?rsula y las Once Mil Vírgenes, "Islands of
and the 11,000 Virgins" (shortened, both on maps of the time and in common parlance, to Islas Vírgenes). He also named the islands of
("Fat Virgin"), , and
(San Pedro).
He continued to the , and landed in , which he named San Juan Bautista in honor of
(a name that was later retained only for the capital city of ). One of the first skirmishes between
and Europeans since the time of the Vikings occurred when Columbus's men rescued two native boys who had just been castrated by their captors in another tribe.
On 22 November, Columbus returned to Hispaniola, where he intended to visit the fort of , built during his first voyage and located on the northern coast of . Columbus found the fort in ruins, destroyed by the native
people. Among the ruins were the corpses of 11 of the 39 Spaniards who had stayed behind as the first colonists in the New World.
Columbus then sailed more than 100 kilometers eastwards along the northern coast of Hispaniola, establishing a new settlement, which he called , in the present-day . However,
proved to be poorly located and the settlement was short-lived.
Third voyage
On 30 May 1498, Columbus left with
from , for his third trip to the New World. Three of the ships headed directly for Hispaniola with much-needed supplies, while Columbus took the other three in an exploration of what might lie to the south of the Caribbean islands he had already visited, including a hope-for passage to continental Asia.
Columbus led his fleet to the Portuguese island of , his wife's native land. He then sailed to
and spent some time there with the Portuguese captain Jo?o Gon?alves da Camara, before sailing to the
and . As he crossed the Atlantic, Columbus discovered that the angle between North as indicated by a magnetic compass and North as measured by the position of the
changed with his position (a phenomenon now known as ""). He would later use his previous measurements of the compass variation to adjust his reckoning.
After being becalmed for several days in the
of the mid-Atlantic, Columbus' fleet regained its wind and, dangerously low on water, turned north in the direction of , which Columbus had visited in his previous voyage. The ships sighted the land of
on 31 July approaching from the southeast. The fleet sailed along the southern coast and entered , anchoring near
where they made contact with a group of native
in canoes. Columbus then landed on Trinidad at
(which he named Punta de Arenal) on 2 August. After resupplying with food and water, from 4 to 12 August Columbus explored the , which separates Trinidad from what is now , near the delta of the . He then touched the mainland of South America at the .
Columbus correctly interpreted the enormous quantity of fresh water that the Orinoco delivered into the Atlantic Ocean as evidence that he had reached a continental landmass. As he sailed the Gulf of Paria, he observed the
of the pole star in the sky, which he erroneously interpreted as evidence that the Earth was not perfectly spherical, but rather bulged out like a pear around the new-found continent. He also speculated that the new continent might be the location of the biblical . He then sailed to the islands of
and . He sighted
(which he named "Bella Forma") and
(which he named "Concepción").
In poor health, Columbus returned to
on 19 August, only to find that many of the Spanish settlers of the new colony were in rebellion against his rule, claiming that Columbus had misled them about the supposedly bountiful riches of the New World. A number of returning settlers and sailors lobbied against Columbus at the , accusing him and his brothers of gross mismanagement. Columbus had some of his crew hanged for disobedience. He had an economic interest in the enslavement of the Hispaniola natives and for that reason was not eager to baptize them, which attracted criticism from some churchmen. An entry in his journal from September 1498 reads: "From here one might send, in the name of the Holy Trinity, as many slaves as could be sold ..."[]
Columbus was eventually forced to make peace with the rebellious colonists on humiliating terms. In 1500, the Crown had him removed as governor, arrested, and transported in chains to Spain (see
section below). He was eventually freed and allowed to return to the New World, but not as governor.
Columbus's fourth voyage
Before leaving for his fourth voyage, Columbus wrote a letter to the Governors of the , Genoa, dated at Seville, 2 April 1502. He wrote "Although my body is here my heart is always near you."
Columbus made a fourth voyage nominally in search of the
to the Indian Ocean. Accompanied by his brother
and his 13-year-old son , he left
on 11 May 1502, with his flagship Santa María and the vessels Gallega, Vizcaína, and Santiago de Palos. He sailed to
on the Moroccan coast to rescue Portuguese soldiers whom he had heard were under siege by the .
On 15 June they landed at Carbet on the island of
(Martinica). A
was brewing, so he continued on, hoping to find shelter on . He arrived at
on 29 June but was denied port, and the new governor refused to listen to his storm prediction. Instead, while Columbus' ships sheltered at the mouth of the Rio Jaina, the first
sailed into the hurricane.
Columbus' ships survived with only minor damage, while 29 of the 30 ships in the governor's fleet were lost to . In addition to the ships, 500 lives (including that of the governor, ) and an immense cargo of gold were surrendered to the sea.
After a brief stop at , Columbus sailed to Central America, arriving at
off the coast of
on 30 July. Here Bartolomeo found native merchants and a large canoe, which was described as being "long as a galley" and filled with cargo. On 14 August he landed on the continental mainland at , near . He spent two months exploring the coasts of Honduras, , and , before arriving in
on 16 October.
On 5 December 1502, Columbus and his crew found themselves in a storm unlike any they had ever experienced. In his journal Columbus writes,
For nine days I was as one lost, without hope of life. Eyes never beheld the sea so angry, so high, so covered with foam. The wind not only prevented our progress, but offered no opportunity to run behind any
hence we were forced to keep out in this bloody ocean, seething like a pot on a hot fire. Never did the sk for one whole day and night it blazed like a furnace, and the lightning broke with such violence that each time I wondered if it had carried of the flashes came with such fury and frightfulness that we all thought that the ship would be blasted. All this time the water never ceased
I do not say it rained, for it was like another deluge. The men were so worn out that they longed for death to end their dreadful suffering.
Columbus awes the Jamaican natives by predicting the
In Panama, Columbus learned from the
of gold and a strait to another ocean, but was told by local leader
not to go past a certain point down the river. After much exploration, in January 1503 he established a
at the mouth of the . On 6 April one of the ships became stranded in the river. At the same time, the garrison was attacked by Quibían and the other ships were damaged.
also damaged the ships in tropical waters.
Columbus left for Hispaniola on 16 April heading north. On 10 May he sighted the , naming them "Las Tortugas" after the numerous
there. His ships next sustained more damage in a storm off the coast of Cuba. Unable to travel farther, on 25 June 1503 they were beached in .
For one year Columbus and his men remained stranded on . A Spaniard, Diego Méndez, and some natives paddled a
to get help from . The governor, , detested Columbus and obstructed all efforts to rescue him and his men. In the meantime Columbus, in a desperate effort to induce the natives to continue provisioning him and his hungry men, successfully won their favor by predicting a , using 's astronomical charts. Help finally arrived, no thanks to the governor, on 29 June 1504, and Columbus and his men arrived in , on 7 November.
Following his first voyage, Columbus was appointed Viceroy and Governor of the Indies under the terms of the . In practice, this primarily entailed the administration of the colonies in the island of , whose capital was established in .
By the end of his third voyage, Columbus was physically and mentally exhausted: his body was wracked by
and his eyes by . In October 1499, he sent two ships to Spain, asking the Court of Spain to appoint a royal commissioner to help him govern.
By this time, accusations of tyranny and incompetence on the part of Columbus had also reached the Court. Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand responded by removing Columbus from power and replacing him with , a member of the .
Bobadilla, who ruled as governor from 1500 until his death in a storm in 1502, had also been tasked by the Court with investigating the accusations of brutality made against Columbus. Arriving in Santo Domingo while Columbus was away in the explorations of his , Bobadilla was immediately met with complaints about all three Columbus brothers: Christopher, Bartolomé, and Diego. A recently discovered report by de Bobadilla alleges that Columbus regularly used
to govern Hispaniola. The 48-page report, found in 2006 in the state archive in the Spanish city of , contains testimonies from 23 people, including both enemies and supporters of Columbus, about Columbus and his brothers' treatment of colonial subjects during his seven-year rule.
According to the report, Columbus once punished a man found guilty of stealing corn by having his ears and nose cut off and then selling him into slavery. Testimony recorded in the report claims that Columbus congratulated his brother Bartolomé on "defending the family" when the latter ordered a woman paraded naked through the streets and then had her tongue cut out for suggesting that Columbus was of lowly birth.
The document also describes how Columbus put down nati he first ordered a brutal crackdown in which many natives were killed and then paraded their
bodies through the streets in an attempt to discourage further rebellion.
"Columbus's government was characterised by a form of tyranny," Consuelo Varela, a Spanish historian who has seen the document, told journalists. "Even those who loved him [Columbus] had to admit the atrocities that had taken place."
Because of their gross mismanagement of governance, Columbus and his brothers were arrested and imprisoned upon their return to Spain from the third voyage. They lingered in jail for six weeks before busy King Ferdinand ordered their release. Not long after, the king and queen summoned the Columbus brothers to the
palace in . There the royal couple heard the brothers' restored thei and, after much persuasion, agreed to fund Columbus' fourth voyage. But the door was firmly shut on Columbus' role as governor. Henceforth
was to be the new governor of the .
Replica of the , Columbus' flagship during his first voyage, at his
Tomb in . The remains are borne by kings of , , Aragon and .
While Columbus had always given the conversion of non-believers as one reason for his explorations, he grew increasingly religious in his later years. Probably with the assistance of his son Diego and his friend the
monk Gaspar Gorricio, Columbus produced two books during his later years: a
(1502), detailing and documenting the rewards from the
to which he believed he and his heirs were entitled, and a
(1505), in which he considered his achievements as an explorer but a fulfillment of Bible prophecy in the context of .
In his later years, Columbus demanded that the Spanish Crown give him 10 percent of all profits made in the new lands, as stipulated in the . Because he had been relieved of his duties as governor, the crown did not feel bound by that contract and his demands were rejected. After his death, his heirs sued the Crown for a part of the profits from trade with America, as well as other rewards. This led to a protracted series of legal disputes known as the
("Columbian lawsuits").
During a violent storm on his first return voyage, Columbus, then approximately 41, suffered an attack of what was believed at the time to be . In subsequent years, he was plagued with what was thought to be
and other fevers, bleeding from the eyes, and prolonged attacks of gout. The suspected attacks increased in duration and severity, sometimes leaving Columbus bedridden for months at a time, and culminated in his death fourteen years later.
Based on Columbus' lifestyle and the described symptoms, modern doctors suspect that he suffered from , rather than gout. Reiter's syndrome is a common presentation of reactive arthritis, a joint inflammation caused by intestinal bacterial infections or after acquiring certain sexually transmitted diseases (primarily chlamydia or gonorrhea). "It seems likely that [Columbus] acquired reactive arthritis from food poisoning on one of his ocean voyages because of poor sanitation and improper food preparation," writes Dr. Frank C. Arnett, a
and professor of internal medicine, pathology and laboratory medicine the University of Texas Medical School at Houston.
The death of Columbus, lithograph by L. Prang & Co., 1893
On 20 May 1506, aged probably 54, Columbus died in , Spain.
Silver Caravel. Ashes of Christopher Columbus
Columbus' remains were first interred at Valladolid, then at the monastery of
(southern Spain) by the will of his son , who had been governor of . In 1542 the remains were transferred to , in the present-day . In 1795, when France took over the entire island of , Columbus' remains were moved to , Cuba. After Cuba became independent following the
in 1898, the remains were moved back to Spain, to the , where they were placed on an elaborate .
However, a lead box bearing an inscription identifying "Don Christopher Columbus" and containing bone fragments and a bullet was discovered at
To lay to rest claims that the wrong relics had been moved to Havana and that Columbus' remains had been left buried in the cathedral at ,
samples of the corpse resting in
were taken in June 2003 (History Today August 2003) as well as other DNA samples from the remains of his brother Diego and younger son . Initial observations suggested that the bones did not appear to belong to somebody with the physique or age at death associated with Columbus. DNA extract only short fragments of
could be isolated. The
fragments matched corresponding DNA from Columbus's brother, giving support that both individuals had shared the same mother.
Such evidence, together with
and historic analyses led the researchers to conclude that the remains found in Seville belonged to Christopher Columbus. The authorities in Santo Domingo have never allowed the remains there to be exhumed, so it is unknown if any of those remains could be from Columbus' body as well. The location of the Dominican remains is in "" (Faro a Colón), in Santo Domingo.
~ Christopher Columbus ~
The anniversary of Columbus' 1492 landing in the Americas is usually observed on 12 October in Spain and throughout the Americas, except Canada. In Spain it is called the Fiesta Nacional de Espa?a y Día de la Hispanidad, while a number of countries in Latin America celebrate it as Día de la Raza. In the United States it is called
and is observed annually on the second Monday in October.
in Chicago, 1893, commemorated the 400th anniversary of the landing of Christopher Columbus in the Americas. Over 27 million people attended the exposition during its six-month duration.
participated in the celebration issuing the first US , a series of 16 postage issues called the
depicting Columbus, Queen Isabella and others in the various stages of his several voyages. The issues range in value from the 1-cent to the 5-dollar denominations. Under Benjamin Harrison and his Postmaster General
the Columbian commemorative stamps were made available and were first issued at the
in Chicago, Illinois, in 1893. Wanamaker originally introduced the idea of issuing the nation's first commemorative stamp to Harrison, the Congress and the U.S. Post Office. To demonstrate his confidence in the new Columbian commemorative issues Wanamaker purchased $10,000 worth of stamps with his own money. The Columbian Exposition lasted several months and, and over $40 million in commemorative postage stamp had been sold. The 400th anniversary Columbian issues were very popular in the United States. A total of two billion stamps were issued for all the Columbian denominations, and 72 percent of these were the two-cent stamps, "Landing of Columbus", which paid the first-class rate for domestic mail at the time.
In 1992, a second Columbian issue was released that was identical to the first to commemorate the 500th anniversary, except for the date in the upper right hand corner of each stamp. These issues were made from the original dies of which the first engraved issues of 1893 were produced. The United States issued the series jointly for the first time with three other countries, Italy in lire, Portugal in escudos and Spain in pesetas.
Columbus Lighthouse (Faro a Colón),
Though Christopher Columbus came to be considered the "discoverer of America" in US and European popular culture, his true historical legacy is more nuanced. America was first discovered by , and Columbus was not even the first European to reach its shores as he was preceded by the
at . But the lasting significance of Columbus' voyages outshone that of his Viking predecessors, because he managed to bring word of the continent back to Europe. By bringing the continent to the forefront of Western attention, Columbus initiated the enduring relationship between the 's two major landmasses and their inhabitants. "Columbus' claim to fame isn't that he got there first," explains historian Martin Dugard, "it's that he stayed."
Historians have traditionally argued that Columbus remained convinced to the very end that his journeys had been along the east coast of Asia, but writer
argues that a document in the Book of Privileges indicates Columbus knew he found a new continent. Furthermore, his journals from the third voyage call the "land of Paria" a "hitherto unknown" continent. On the other hand, his other writings continued to claim that he had reached Asia, such as a 1502 letter to
where he asserted that Cuba was the east coast of Asia. He also rationalized that the new continent of South America was the "Earthly Paradise" that was located "at the end of the Orient". Thus, it remains unclear what his true beliefs were.
The term "" is usually used to refer to the peoples and cultures of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus and his European successors.
This section needs attention from an expert in History. The specific problem is: it contains no sources.
(or its ) may be able to help recruit an expert. (September 2015)
Columbus is often attributed with refuting a prevalent belief in a flat Earth. However, this legacy is a . To the contrary, the
had been known to scholars since , and was common knowledge among sailors. Coincidentally, the oldest surviving globe of the earth, the , was made in 1492 just before Columbus' return to Europe. As such it contains no sign of the Americas and yet demonstrates the common belief in a spherical Earth.
Replicas of Ni?a, Pinta and Santa Maria sailed from Spain to the
The scholar , who sailed to America in the years following Columbus' first voyage, was the first to speculate that the land was not part of Asia but in fact constituted some wholly new continent previously unknown to Eurasians. His travel journals, published 1502–04, convinced German cartographer
to reach the same conclusion, and in 1507—a year after Columbus' death—Waldseemüller published a world map
America from Vespucci's Latinized name "Americus". According to Paul Lunde, "The preoccupation of European courts with the rise of the
in the East partly explains their relative lack of interest in Columbus' discoveries in the West."
Columbus monument near the
in , Colorado
Historically, the British had downplayed Columbus and emphasized the role of the Venetian
as a pioneer explorer, but for the emerging United States, Cabot made for a poor national hero. Veneration of Columbus in America dates back to colonial times. The name
for "America" first appeared in a 1738 weekly publication of the debates of the British Parliament. The use of Columbus as a founding figure of New World nations and the use of the word "Columbia", or simply the name "Columbus", spread rapidly after the American Revolution. Columbus' name was given to the federal capital of the United States (), the
of two U.S.
( and ), and the . Outside the United States the name was used in 1819 for the , a precursor of the modern . Numerous cities, towns, counties, streets, and plazas (called Plaza Colón or Plaza de Colón throughout Latin America and Spain) have been named after him. A candidate for sainthood in the Catholic Church in 1866, celebration of Columbus' legacy perhaps reached a zenith in 1892 with the 400th anniversary of his first arrival in the Americas. Monuments to Columbus like the
in Chicago and
in New York City were erected throughout the United States and Latin America extolling him.
In 1909, descendants of Columbus undertook to dismantle the Columbus family chapel in Spain and move it to
near , Pennsylvania, where it may now be visited by the public. At the museum associated with the chapel, there are a number of Columbus relics worthy of note, including the armchair that the "Admiral of the Ocean Sea" used at his chart table.
of this section is . Relevant discussion may be found on the . Please do not remove this message until the . (July 2015)
More recent views of Columbus have tended to be much more critical. The combined effects of Columbus' forced labor regime, war, and slaughter resulted in the near-total eradication of 98% of the native Taino of Hispaniola. De las Casas records that when he first came to Hispaniola in 1508, "there were 60,000 people living on this island, including the I so that from 1494 to 1508, over three million people had perished from war, slavery, and the mines. Who in future generations will believe this? I myself writing it as a knowledgeable eyewitness can hardly believe it...."
The native Taino people of the island were systematically enslaved via the
system implemented by Columbus, which resembled a feudal system in Medieval Europe.
Disease played a significant role in the destru however there is no record of any massive smallpox epidemic in the Antilles until 25 years after the arrival of C rather the natives' numbers declined due to extreme overwork, other diseases, and a loss of will to live after the destruction of their culture by the invaders. When the first
finally struck in 1519 it wiped out much of the remaining native population. According to the historian
by 1548, 56 years after Columbus landed, fewer than five hundred Taino were left on the island.
Columbus' treatment of the Hispaniola na his soldiers raped, killed, and enslaved with impunity at every landing. When Columbus fell ill in 1495, soldiers were reported to have gone on a rampage, slaughtering 50,000 natives. Upon his recovery, Columbus organized his troops' efforts, forming a squadron of several hundred heavily armed men and more than twenty attack dogs. The men tore across the land, killing thousands of sick and unarmed natives. Soldiers would use their captives for sword practice, attempting to decapitate them or cut them in half with a single blow.
The historian
writes that Columbus spearheaded a in 1495 his men captured in a single raid 1500 Arawak men, women, and children. When he shipped five hundred of the slaves to Spain, 40% died en route. Historian
asserts that "Columbus not only sent the first slaves across the Atlantic, he probably sent more slaves – about five thousand – than any other individual... other nations rushed to emulate Columbus."
When slaves held in captivity began to die at high rates, Columbus switched to a different system of forced labor: he ordered all natives over the age of thirteen to collect a specified amount (one hawk's bell full) of gold powder every three months. Natives who brought the amount were given a copper token to hang around their necks, and those found without tokens had their hands amputated and were left to bleed to death.
The Arawaks attempted to fight back against Columbus's men but lacked their armor, guns, swords, and horses. When taken prisoner, they were hanged or burned to death. Desperation led to mass suicides and infanticide among the natives. In just two years under Columbus' governorship more than half of the 250,000 Arawaks in Haiti were dead. The main cause for the depopulation was disease followed by other causes such as
and harsh enslavement.
, a Harvard historian and author of a multivolume biography on Columbus writes, "The cruel policy initiated by Columbus and pursued by his successors resulted in complete genocide." Loewen laments that while "Haiti under the Spanish is one of the primary instances of genocide in all human history", only one major history text he reviewed mentions Columbus' role in it.
There is evidence that the men of the first voyage also brought
from the New World to Europe. Many of the crew members who served on this voyage later joined the army of
in his invasion of Italy in 1495. After the victory, Charles' largely mercenary army returned to their respective homes, thereby spreading "the Great Pox" across Europe and triggering the deaths of more than five million people.
On his way back to Spain to stand trial for accusations of abuse of Spaniard colonists, he wrote a letter to the nurse of the son of Ferdinand and Isabella, pleading his case. Among it he wrote:
"Now that so much gold is found, a dispute arises as to which brings more profit, whether to go about robbing or to go to the mines. A hundred castellanos are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and there are plenty of dealers who go abo those from nine to ten are now in demand, and for all ages a good price must be paid."
In , 1531–36
Although an abundance of artwork involving Christopher Columbus exists, no
contemporary
has been found. , author of , believes the various posthumous portraits have no historical value.
Sometime between 1531 and 1536,
painted an altarpiece, , that includes a depiction of Columbus. The painting was commissioned for a chapel in Seville's
(House of Trade) and remains there to this day, as the earliest known painting about the discovery of the Americas.
At the 1893 , 71 alleged portraits of Col most did not match contemporary descriptions. These writings describe him as having reddish or blond hair, which turned to white early in his life, light colored eyes, as well as being a lighter-skinned person with too much sun exposure turning his face red. Accounts consistently describe Columbus as a large and physically strong man of some six feet or more in height, easily taller than the average European of his day.
The most iconic image of Columbus is a portrait by , which has been reproduced in many textbooks. It agrees with descriptions of Columbus in that it shows a large man with auburn hair, but the painting dates from 1519 and cannot, therefore, have been painted from life. Furthermore, the inscription identifying the subject as Columbus was probably added later, and the face shown differs from other images, including that of the "Virgin of the Navigators."
– COLUMBUS MONUMENTS PAGES. Vanderkrogt.
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