Columbus, Christopher
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Christopher Columbus ital.
Cristoforo Colombo
Posthumous portrait by Sebastiano del Piombo Occupation: navigator
Date of birth: between August 26 and October 31, 1451[1]
Place of birth: Republic of Genoa
Date of death: May 20, 1506(1506-05-20)
Place of death: Valladolid, Castile and Leon
Father: Domenico Colombo
Mother: Susanna Fontanarossa
Spouse: Felippa Moniz de Palestrello
Children: Diego Columbus,
Fernando Columbus,
Autograph:
Christopher Columbus on Wikimedia Commons
There are articles on Wikipedia about other people with the surname Columbus (values).
Christopher Columbus (ital.
Cristoforo Colombo, Spanish Cristóbal Colón, Lat. Christophorus Columbus; between August 26 and October 31, 1451 (1451)[1], Republic of Genoa May 20, 1506, Valladolid, Castile and Leon) was a Spanish navigator who discovered America for Europeans in 1492, thanks to the equipment of expeditions by Catholic kings.
Columbus was the first of the reliably known travelers to cross the Atlantic Ocean in the subtropical and tropical zone of the northern hemisphere and the first of the Europeans to go to the Caribbean Sea.
He discovered and initiated the exploration of South and Central America, including their continental parts and nearby archipelagos the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica and Puerto Rico), the Lesser Antilles (from Dominica to the Virgin Islands, as well as Trinidad) and the Bahamas.
Columbus can be called the discoverer of America with reservations, because even in the Middle Ages, Europeans in the face of Icelandic Vikings visited the territory of North America (see Vinland).
Since there was no information about these campaigns outside of Scandinavia, it was the Columbus expeditions that first made information about the lands in the west public domain and marked the beginning of the colonization of America by Europeans.
In total, Columbus made 4 voyages to America:
The first voyage (August 3, 1492 March 15, 1493).
The second voyage (September 25, 1493 June 11, 1496).
The third voyage (May 30, 1498 — November 25, 1500).
The fourth voyage (May 9, 1502 November 1504).
Content
1 Biography 1.1 Youth 1.2 Expeditions 1.2.1 First expedition 1.2.1.1 Chronology of the trip
1.2.2 Section of the world 1.2.3 Second Expedition 1.2.3.1 Chronology
1.2.4 Third Expedition 1.2.5 Fourth Expedition 1.2.5.1 Chronology
1.3 The last years of life and death 1.4 The fate of the remains
2 Mass colonization of Hispaniola 3 Expeditions to South America of Columbus 'contemporaries 4 Descendants 5 Columbus' Coat of Arms 6 Memory 6.1 Monuments 6.1.1 In Barcelona 6.1.2 Works of Tsereteli 6.1.3 Demolition of monuments in Venezuela
6.2 Named after Columbus 6.3 On the money 6.3.1 Columbus on the columns
6.4 In philately
7 Filmography 8 Notes 9 Literature 10 References
Biography[edit / edit wiki text]
Youth[edit / edit wiki text]
Artist D. Vanderlin.
The landing of Columbus in America
Columbus was born in a poor Genoese family, his father was Domenico Colombo (ital. Domenico Colombo), and his mother is Susanna Fontanarossa (ital. Susanna Fontanarossa).
Estelle Erizarri hypothesized that Columbus was a Catalan, not an Italian[2].
According to the researcher, based on official documents and personal correspondence of the navigator, Columbus deliberately concealed his origin: most likely, he was a converso (a Jew converted to Christianity)[3][an unauthorized source? 256 days].
The exact transliteration of his name from Spanish is Cristobal Colon, but in East Slavic and some other languages he is known as Christopher Columbus (Christophor transliteration of the Greek name Χριστόφορος).
According to the old version, in addition to Christopher, there were other children in the family: Giovanni (died in childhood, in 1484), Bartolomeo, Giacomo, Biancella (married Giacomo Bavarello).
Traditionally, six cities in Italy and Spain dispute the honor of being the small birthplace of Columbus.
The appearance of Columbus is known from the portraits that were painted after his death.
Bartolome de Las Casas, who saw Columbus in 1493, describes him as follows:
He was tall, above average height, had a long and respectable face, an aquiline nose, bluish gray eyes, white skin, with redness, his beard and mustache were reddish in his youth, but they turned gray in his labors.
He studied at the University of Pavia.
Around 1470, he married Dona Felipe Moniz de Palestrello, the daughter of a navigator of the time of Prince Enrique.
Until 1472, Columbus lived in Genoa, and since 1472 — in Savona.
In the 1470s, he participated in sea trading expeditions.
It is believed that as early as 1474, the astronomer and geographer Paolo Toscanelli told Columbus in a letter that India could be reached by a much shorter sea route if you sailed to the west.
Apparently, even then Columbus was thinking about his project of a sea voyage to India.
Having made his own calculations based on the Toscanelli map, he decided that it was most convenient to sail through the Canary Islands, from which, in his opinion, there were about five thousand kilometers left to Japan.
A modern map and a version of the Toscanelli map.
North and South America are depicted in light blue.
In 1476, Columbus moved to Portugal, where he lived for nine years.
It is known that in 1477 Columbus visited England, Ireland and Iceland, where he could get acquainted with the data of Icelanders about the lands in the west.
During this time, he also managed to visit Guinea as part of the expedition of Diogo de Azambuja, who went there in 1481 to build the fortress of Elmina (San Jorge da Mina).
The first appeal of Columbus with a proposal to sail to India to the west was in 1475-1480 (the exact time is unknown).
He addressed it to the government and merchants of his native Genoa.
There was no response.
In 1483, he proposed his project to the Portuguese King Joao II.
At first, King Juan II wanted to support the bold project, but after a long study, the project is rejected.
In 1485, Columbus and his son Diego moved to Spain (fleeing from persecution).
In the winter of 1485-1486, he found shelter in the monastery of Santa Maria da Rabida.
The abbot Juan Perez de Marchena received him and organized the first letter to Hernando de Talavera, his friend — the confessor of the Queen, with a brief summary of Columbus ' ideas.
The King of Spain was at that time in the city of Cordoba, where preparations were being made for a war with Granada with the personal participation of the sovereigns.
In 1486, Columbus was able to interest the Duke of Medina Celi in his project.
Since his own finances were not enough to organize an expedition to the west, Medina Celi brought Columbus together with royal financial advisers, merchants and bankers and with his uncle, Cardinal Mendoza.
In the winter of 1486, Columbus was introduced to Pedro Gonzalez de Mendoza, Archbishop of Toledo and Grand Cardinal of Spain, who, in turn, facilitated an audience with the Catholic kings.
A commission of theologians, cosmographers, lawyers, monks and courtiers, headed by Talavera, was appointed to study Columbus ' proposals.
The commission met for four years, but because of Columbus ' secrecy and his unwillingness to disclose plans, it never made a final verdict.
On April 20, 1488, Columbus, who was following the royal court from city to city, unexpectedly received a letter from the Portuguese king with an offer to return to Portugal:
And if you are afraid of Our justice regarding some of your obligations, then know that neither after your arrival, nor during your stay in Portugal, nor after your departure, you will not be arrested, detained, charged, convicted, or prosecuted for any reason arising from civil, criminal or any other law.
Columbus sends his proposals to other addresses: from King Henry VII of England in February 1488, he received a favorable response, but without any specific proposals.
Isabella of Castile and Christopher Columbus.
Monument in Granada
In 1491, a second personal meeting with Ferdinand and Isabella took place in Seville.
The result for Columbus was again disappointing: "In view of the enormous costs and efforts required for the conduct of the war, it is not possible to start a new enterprise."
It was decided to return to negotiations after the end of the war.
In 1491, Columbus turned to the Duke of Medina Sidonia, the largest magnate, the owner of about a hundred merchant ships, but he was also refused.
Finally, in January 1492, the long awaited event took place — the capture of Granada.
Columbus, apparently, greatly overestimated the victorious enthusiasm of the king of Spain: when he formulated the conditions under which he intended to discover and own new lands (appoint him viceroy of new lands, award him the title of "chief admiral of the sea of the ocean"), His majesty recognized Columbus's demands as "excessive and unacceptable", negotiations were interrupted, and the king left Santa Fe.
Columbus left for Cordoba in February 1492, and then declared his intention to emigrate to France altogether.
Here, Queen Isabella took a step forward.
During the previous meeting, Columbus shared with her his idea about the possibility of striking from the east at the Ottoman Empire, which was at that time carrying out a massive offensive into Europe by land and sea, and even about the likely liberation of Christian shrines in Palestine, lost by Europeans since the Crusades[4].
The idea of the upcoming liberation of the Holy Sepulchre so captured the heart of Isabella that she decided not to give this chance to either Portugal or France.
Although the Spanish kingdom was formed as a result of the dynastic marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, their monarchies retained, however, separate independent administrations, cortes and finances.
"I'll pawn my jewelry," she said.
On April 30, 1492, the royal couple bestows the title "don" on Columbus and his heirs (that is, they make him a nobleman) and confirms that, if the overseas project is successful, he will be Admiral of the Ocean Sea and Viceroy of all the lands that he will discover or acquire, and will be able to pass these titles by inheritance.
Nevertheless, Columbus had to find the money for the equipment of the expedition on his own at the expense of the lost state tax payments of Her Majesty the Queen of Castile.
In addition, according to the contract, the eighth part of the expenses was to be borne by Columbus himself, who did not have a penny at all.
However, Columbus was helped by Martin Alonso Pinson.
One of the ships, the Pinta, was his own, and he equipped it at his own expense; he lent Christopher money for the second ship so that Columbus could make his formal contribution under the contract.
Expeditions[edit / edit wiki text]
Map of the four expeditions of Columbus
Between 1492 and 1504, Christopher Columbus undertook four research expeditions by decree of the Spanish Catholic kings.
He described the events of these expeditions in his logbook.
Unfortunately, the original journal has not been preserved, but Bartolome de Las Casas made a partial copy of this journal, which has survived to this day, thanks to which many details of the described expeditions have become known.
The first expedition[edit / edit wiki text]
The first expedition
In his first expedition, Columbus equipped three ships the caracca " Santa Maria "(the flagship, the owner and captain of the caracca was a Cantabrian Juan de la Cosa), the" Pinta "(the owner of the ship and its captain Martin Alonso Pinson) and the third was a ship that is often called"Ninya".
The length of the vessel is the largest 17.3 meters, width 5.6 meters, draft 1.9 meters, displacement 101.2 tons, crew of 40 people.
The captain of the Niña is Vicente Yanes Pinson, the maestre and owner of the vessel is Juan Niño (es: Juan Niño, the older brother of Pedro Alonso Niño) and the pilot is Sancho Ruiz da Gama.
The flotilla team included only 100 people.
For the first time, a European set foot on the islands of the Caribbean Sea — Guanahani (Bahamas), Hispaniola (Haiti), Juana (Cuba).
This journey began the expansion of Spain into the New World.
In historical science, it is considered a debatable question about which island, called "Guanahani" in the local language, and named "San Salvador" by Columbus himself, was discovered on October 12, 1492: Watling Island or Samana Kay Island.
However, there is no doubt that it was one of the Bahamian Islands that are part of the Lukaya archipelago.
At the same time, Christopher Columbus considered these new lands to be East Asia — the environs of China, Japan or India.
Later, for quite a long time, these newly discovered territories were called by Europeans the West Indies, literally "West India", since it was necessary to sail to this "India" to the west, as opposed to India and Indonesia proper, which in Europe for a long time were called the East Indies or, literally, "East India".
A copy of Columbus 'ship" Santa Maria"
Chronology of the journey[edit / edit wiki text]
August 3, 1492 Columbus took the ships out of the harbor of the city of Palos de la Frontera.
September 6 - After fixing the leak on the "Pinta", the hike continues directly to the west from the island of Gomera (Canary Islands).
September 16 bunches of green algae began to appear on the way of the expedition.
Gradually, there were more and more of them.
The ships went through this strange water space for three weeks.
So the Sargasso Sea was discovered.
October 7 — at the request of the team, who believes that Japan has been "skipped", the ships change course to the west southwest.
October 12 — at two o'clock in the morning, the sailor Rodrigo de Triana discovered land from the Pinta.
Even the day before, the sailors noticed the lights.
October 13 Columbus landed on the shore, hoisted the Castilian banner on it, formally took possession of the island and drew up a notarial act about it.
The island is named San Salvador (for more information, see Guanajani).
Its coordinates are 24° s.
w.
and 74°30' s.
d. On the island, the Spaniards saw local residents.
Perhaps they were Arawaks.
Arawaks went completely naked, ritual patterns were applied to the body.
They had no iron weapons.
They traveled by sea in rowing canoes that could accommodate forty people.
It was here that the natives gave Columbus "dry leaves" - tobacco.
Seeing some of them with pieces of gold, Columbus tried to find out its origin and, having captured six Arawaks, forced them to show the way further.
For two weeks, Columbus gradually moved south, discovering new islands from the Bahamas.
The local residents wore clothes made of cotton yarn.
In their homes, the Spaniards saw hammocks for the first time.
From the residents, the Spaniards learned about the large southern island of Cuba.
October 28, 1492 Columbus landed in the Bay of Bariey in the northeast of Cuba, 76° s.
d. Communicating with the locals, Columbus decided that he was on one of the peninsulas of East Asia.
However, the Spaniards did not find any gold, spices, or large cities.
The houses of the inhabitants were built of tree branches and reeds, they cultivated cotton, potatoes, tobacco and maize (corn).
Believing that he had reached the poorest part of China, Columbus decided to turn to the east, where, according to his ideas, the richer Japan lay.
November 13, 1492 after learning from the natives about the island abounding in gold, Columbus moved east, in search of it.
November 15, 1492 Columbus in his diary for the first time describes the tobacco used by the Indians.
November 20, 1492 the "Pint" disappeared.
Her captain Pinson Sr. was distinguished by unauthorized actions and repeatedly left subordination.
He left Columbus near the island of Cuba, hoping to discover an imaginary island.
He was also later the first to discover Haiti, and the river where he landed (now Porto Cabello; this river originally bore his name).
The two remaining vessels continued eastward until they reached the eastern tip of Cuba Cape Maysi.
December 6, 1492 the island of Haiti is discovered, which Columbus called Hispaniola, because its valleys seemed to him similar to the lands of Castile.
Moving along the northern coast, the Spaniards discovered the island of Tortuga
Columbus declares the open land the property of the Spanish king.
An illustration from 1893.
December 25, 1492 - "Santa Maria" sat on the reefs.
With the help of local residents, they managed to remove guns, supplies and valuable cargo from the ship.
From the wreckage of the ship was built on about.
Haiti fort, named La Navidad (Christmas).
Columbus left 39 sailors here, armed the fort with cannons from the Santa Maria and left them supplies for a year, and on January 4, 1493, taking several islanders with him, he set sail on the small Ninya.
January 6, 1493 off the northern coast of Hispaniola, the "Ninya" came across the "Pinta".
Pinson Sr. explained his absence due to the influence of weather conditions.
January 16 two ships set out on their return journey.
February 12 a storm arose, and on the night of February 14, the ships lost sight of each other.
The storm was so strong that the Spaniards were ready for imminent death.
February 15 when the wind subsided a little, the sailors saw land, and on February 18, the Ninya approached the island of Santa Maria (Azores).
On March 9, the Ninya anchors in Lisbon, where Joao II receives Columbus as His Serene Highness and orders him to be provided with everything necessary.
March 15 - "Ninya" returns to Spain.
On the same day, the "Pint" also comes there.
Columbus brings with him natives (who are called Indians in Europe), some gold, plants never seen before in Europe, fruits and feathers of birds.
World section[edit / edit wiki text]
In 1452-1456, Popes Nicholas V and Calixtus III granted Portugal the right to own lands open to the south and east of Cape Bojador, "up to the Indians".
The return of Christopher Columbus from his first expedition and the news that he had discovered the "West Indies" (West Indies) alarmed Portugal — this discovery deprived her of the previously granted territorial rights.
Castile, however, refused to recognize the papal grants, citing the right of first discovery.
Only the head of the Catholic Church could resolve the conflict in peace.
On May 3, 1493, Pope Alexander VI announced that all lands that Castile had discovered or would discover west of the meridian passing 100 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands should belong to it, and new lands that would be discovered in areas east of this line should belong to Portugal.
The papal decision formed the basis of the Spanish Portuguese negotiations, which a year later ended with the Treaty of Tordesillas of June 7, 1494.
The second expedition[edit / edit wiki text]
The second expedition
Columbus ' second flotilla already consisted of 17 ships.
The flagship is the Maria Galante (displacement of two hundred tons).
According to various sources, the expedition consisted of 1500-2500 people.
Among the participants of the 2nd expedition, the pioneer Juan de la Cosa, the notary Rodrigo de Bastidas, the future conqueror and governor of Cuba: Diego Velasquez de Cuellar.
It already included not only sailors, but also monks, priests, officials, serving nobles, courtiers.
They brought horses and donkeys, cattle and pigs, vines, seeds of agricultural crops, for the organization of a permanent colony.
[source?]
During the expedition, the complete conquest of Hispaniola was carried out, the mass extermination of the local population began.
The city of Santo Domingo was founded.
The most convenient sea route to the West Indies has been laid.
The Lesser Antilles, the Virgin Islands, the islands of Puerto Rico, Jamaica were discovered, the southern coast of Cuba was almost completely explored.
At the same time, Columbus continues to claim that he is located in Western India.
Timeline[edit / edit wiki text]
September 25, 1493 the expedition left Cadiz.
In the Canary Islands, they took sugar cane and dogs accustomed to hunting.
The course was about 10 degrees south than the first time.
Later, all ships from Europe to the "West Indies"began to use this route.
With a successful tailwind (in the equatorial region of the Atlantic Ocean, the winds constantly blow to the west), the journey took only 20 days, and already on November 3, 1493 (on Sunday), an island from the ridge of the Lesser Antilles, called Dominica, was discovered.
November 4 the expedition arrived at the largest of the local islands, named Guadeloupe.
On the open islands lived the Caribs, who raided the islands of peaceful Arawaks in large canoes.
Their weapons were bows and arrows tipped with fragments of turtle shells or jagged fish bones.
November 11 the islands of Montserrat, Antigua, Nevis are opened.
November 13 — the first armed clash with the Caribbean took place off the island of Santa Cruz.
November 15 an archipelago is discovered to the north of Santa Cruz, which Columbus called the "Islands of Eleven Thousand Virgins" - now they are called the Virgin Islands.
After circumnavigating the archipelago from both sides, the flotilla vessels joined up three days later at the western tip of the ridge.
November 19 the Spaniards landed on the western shore of a large island, which Columbus named San Juan Bautista.
Since the XVI century, it has been called Puerto Rico.
November 27 the flotilla approached the built during the first expedition to the island.
Haiti to the fort of La Navidad, but on the shore the Spaniards found only traces of a fire and corpses.
January 1494 — a town, La Isabella, was built to the east of the burned fort in honor of Queen Isabella.
Many Spaniards were struck down by an epidemic of yellow fever.
A detachment sent to explore the interior of the country found gold in the river sand in the mountainous region of the Cordillera Central.
March 1494 Columbus made a trip inside the island.
Meanwhile, in La Isabella, most of the food supplies were spoiled due to the heat, and Columbus decided to leave only 5 ships and about 500 people on the island, and send the rest to Spain.
With them, he told the king and queen that he had found rich deposits of gold, and asked them to send cattle, food supplies and agricultural implements, offering to pay for them with slaves from among the local residents.
April 24, 1494 leaving a garrison in La Isabella under the command of his son Diego, Columbus led three small ships west along the southeast coast of Cuba.
May 1 a narrow and deep bay is discovered (the modern city of Guantanamo with Guantanamo Bay).
Further to the west are the Sierra Maestra Mountains.
From here, Columbus turned south.
May 5 the island of Jamaica is discovered (Columbus named it Santiago).
May 14 after passing along the northern coast of Jamaica and finding no gold, Columbus returned to Cuba.
For the next 25 days, the ships moved through small islands along the southern coast of the island.
June 12 after passing almost 1700 km along the southern coast of Cuba and not reaching only 100 km to the western tip of the island, Columbus decided to turn because the sea was very shallow, the sailors were dissatisfied, and provisions were running out.
Before that, in order to protect himself from accusations of cowardice that could follow in Spain, he demanded that the entire team swear that Cuba is part of the continent, and therefore there is no point in sailing further.
Turning back, the flotilla discovered the island of Evangelista (later named Pinos, and since 1979 Juventud).
June 25 September 29 on the way back, we rounded Jamaica from the west and south, passed along the southern coast of Hispaniola and returned to La Isabella.
By this time, Columbus was already quite seriously ill.
In the past five months, Columbus ' second brother, Bartolome, brought three ships from Spain with troops and supplies.
A group of Spaniards captured them and fled home.
The others scattered around the island, robbing and raping the natives.
They resisted and killed some of the Spaniards.
After his return, Christopher was ill for five months, and when he recovered, in March 1495 he organized the conquest of Hispaniola by a detachment of two hundred soldiers.
The natives were almost unarmed, and Columbus used cavalry and specially trained dogs brought with him against them.
After nine months of this persecution, the island was conquered.
The Indians were taxed with tribute, turned into slavery on gold mines and plantations.
The Indians fled from the villages to the mountains, died from unknown diseases brought by colonists from Europe.
Meanwhile, the colonists moved to the southern coast of the island, where in 1496 Bartolome Columbus founded the city of Santo Domingo — the future center of Hispaniola, and later — the capital of the Dominican Republic.
Meanwhile, the Spanish royal couple, finding that the income from Hispaniola (a little gold, copper, valuable wood and several hundred slaves sent to Spain by Columbus) was insignificant, allowed all Castilian subjects to move to new lands, paying off the treasury with gold.
April 10, 1495 The Spanish government broke off relations with Columbus, and Amerigo Vespucci got the right to supply India until May 1498.
On January 11, 1496, Vespucci receives 10,000 maravedi from the treasurer Pinelo to pay the wages of sailors[5].
In fact, he signed a contract to supply one (if not two) expeditions in India in Andalusia, in particular the third expedition of Columbus.
The success of Columbus's enterprise inspired Amerigo with the idea of leaving the trading business to get acquainted with the newly discovered part of the world.
On June 11, 1496, Christopher Columbus returned to Spain to defend the rights granted to him earlier.
He provided a document according to which he really reached the Asian continent (see above, although in fact it was the island of Cuba), said that in the center of Hispaniola he discovered the wonderful country of Ophir, where gold was once mined for the biblical King Solomon.
In addition, Columbus proposed to send not free settlers to the new lands, but criminal criminals, reducing their sentence by half.
The latter proposal could not fail to find a response from the ruling elite, since, on the one hand, it freed Spain from undesirable elements, reducing the costs of their detention in prisons, and on the other hand, it ensured the development of newly discovered lands with rather desperate "human material".
The third expedition[edit / edit wiki text]
The third expedition
On the third expedition, we managed to find few funds, and only six small ships and about 300 crew members (among them Juan de la Cosa, Pedro Alonso Niño) went with Columbus, and criminals from Spanish prisons were accepted into the team.
On May 30, 1498, the flotilla left the mouth of the Guadalquivir River.
This time Columbus decided to stay even further south, believing that gold could be found only closer to the equator.
From the island of Hierro (Canary Islands), three ships went directly to Hispaniola, and the other three led to the Cape Verde Islands, from where he headed southwest, intending to stay as close to the equator as possible.
The ships descended to the latitude of 9°30 ' s.
s.
and then followed to the west.
On July 31, the island of Trinidad was opened.
Columbus rounded it from the south and came to the delta of the Orinoco River and the Gulf of Paria, which he explored for about two weeks, but, overcome by a serious illness, was forced to hurry north to Santo Domingo.
On August 20, Columbus arrived in Hispaniola, which he found in a deplorable state.
The colonists raised an armed rebellion against his brother Bartolome, which ended with the fact that Columbus was forced to introduce a system of enslaving the Indians for rebellious colonists (Spanish repartimiento — distribution), each of whom was assigned a large plot of land.
The Spanish royal treasury received almost no income from its new colony, and at this time the Portuguese Vasco da Gama opened a sea route to the real India (1498) and returned with a cargo of spices, thus proving that the lands discovered by Columbus were not India at all, and he himself was a deceiver.
In 1499, Columbus ' monopoly on the discovery of new lands was canceled.
In 1500, the royal couple sent their representative Francisco de Bobadilla to Hispaniola with unlimited powers.
He took all the power on the island into his own hands, arrested Christopher Columbus along with his brothers, put them in shackles and sent them to Spain.
Upon their arrival, however, local financiers were able to convince the royal couple to drop the charges against Columbus.
The fourth expedition[edit / edit wiki text]
The fourth expedition
Christopher Columbus still wanted to find a new way from the lands he discovered to South Asia, to the source of spices.
He was sure that such a path existed, since he had observed a strong sea current off the coast of Cuba, going west through the Caribbean Sea.
The king finally gave Columbus permission for a new expedition.
On the fourth expedition, Columbus took with him his brother Bartolomeo and his 13 year old son Hernando.
During the fourth voyage, Columbus discovered the continent to the south of Cuba the coast of Central America — and proved that the Atlantic Ocean separates from the Southern Sea, which he had heard from the Indians, an insurmountable barrier.
He was also the first to report on the Indian peoples living near the South Sea.
Timeline[edit / edit wiki text]
May 9, 1502 the beginning of the expedition.
From Cadiz: 4 caravels, the flagship - "La Capitana" on June 15 moving through the Lesser Antilles, discovered the island of Martinique.
June 29 fleeing from a sea storm, he asked the governor of Hispaniola, Nicolas de Ovando, for permission to take refuge in the harbor of Santo Domingo, but he was refused.
Fortunately, the ships of Columbus coped with the storm.
July Columbus moved west along the southern coast of Hispaniola and Jamaica.
He intended to reach the mainland in the west and find the strait by following the coast.
July 30 Columbus approached the northern coast of the land inhabited by the Maya people (Honduras).
Bartolome landed on the mainland and formally took possession of the country.
September 18 — open the Mosquito coast (Nicaragua) and "Gold coast" (later — Costa Rica, the "Rich coast").
October 5 — Indians of the country of Veragua Columbus learned that to the South sea (the Gulf of Panama in the Pacific ocean), you can get through the narrow but mountainous strip of land (isthmus of Panama).
October 17 Moskitos Bay is opened.
Local residents told about the existence in the south of the country, inhabited by warlike people who ride animals, wear shells, wield swords, bows and arrows (obviously, we were talking about Peru — a highly developed Inca state, whose inhabitants used llamas as pack animals).
November - Columbus ' ships struggle along the coast of Panama.
December The expedition celebrates the new year 1503 in the bay, which in 400 years will become the northern entrance to the Panama Canal.
Columbus is only 65 km away from the Pacific Ocean, but he will never overcome them.
January 1503 Columbus returns to the Bay of Mosquitos.
He wants to leave the colony here under the command of his brother Bartolome, but the local Indians are so belligerent that he refuses this intention.
April 16 Columbus goes to sea and resumes the search for the strait, moving east.
May 1 Reaching Cape Tiburon in the Gulf of Darien, Columbus learns from the Indians that there were Europeans in this area two years ago (Rodrigo de Bastidas, 1501), which means that the search for the strait can be stopped.
Columbus turns the ships north to Jamaica.
June 25 Columbus, after long wanderings at sea, during which he discovered the Cayman Islands, manages to bring the ships to the north coast of Jamaica (200 km from Hispaniola) and run them aground.
July Columbus sends an envoy to Hispaniola in an Indian pie with a request to the governor of the Spanish colony to come to his rescue.
February 29, 1504 Christopher Columbus uses a lunar eclipse to intimidate hostile Jamaican Indians: "...
The admiral rescued the expedition by resorting to an old remedy that can confuse simple minded Indians.
According to the calendars, he knew that there would be a lunar eclipse on February 29, 1504, which he announced to the Indian Caciques as a sign of heaven, dissatisfied with the poor supply of the Spaniards.
When the eclipse began, the stricken Indians were able to they said that Columbus was praying for their salvation, which would be granted if they resumed the supply of food.
The Caciques agreed to everything, and from now on the Spaniards had no food problems. "
- Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo and Valdez about the fourth expedition of Columbus (1502-1504).
June only a year later, a ship arrives in Jamaica, equipped at the expense of Columbus himself.
He takes all the surviving members of the expedition.
June 29 Columbus leaves Jamaica.
They get to Hispaniola for a month and a half.
September 12 the Columbus brothers leave Hispaniola and reach Castile through many storms.
The last years of life and death[edit / edit wiki text]
The seriously ill Columbus was transported to Seville.
He could not achieve the restoration of the rights and privileges granted to him, and spent all the money on fellow travelers.
On May 20, 1506, in Valladolid, Columbus uttered his last words: "Into your hands, Lord, I entrust my spirit."
He was buried in Seville, but his contemporaries almost did not notice his death.
The great importance of Columbus ' discoveries for Spain was recognized only in the middle of the XVI century, after the conquest of Mexico, Peru and the states in the north of the Andes, when ships with silver and gold went to Europe.
The fate of the remains[edit / edit wiki text]
After the death of Columbus in 1506, his ashes were first buried in Seville (Spain), but then the Emperor Charles V decided to fulfill his dying wish and bury him on the land of the West Indies.
In 1540, the remains of Columbus were taken to the island of Hispaniola (the so called Haiti at that time) and buried in Santo Domingo.
When at the turn of the XVIII and XIX centuries, part of Hispaniola passed from the Spaniards to the French (and became known as Haiti), the ashes were transported to Cuba in the cathedral of Havana.
After the expulsion of the Spaniards from this island in 1898, the navigator's ashes were again returned to Santo Domingo, and then to Seville.
Columbus ' grave is located in the Seville Cathedral.
However, at the end of the XIX century, during the restoration of the Cathedral of Santo Domingo, the oldest in the New World, a box with bones was discovered, on which it was written that they belonged to Columbus.
After that, a dispute arose between Seville and Santo Domingo for the right to be considered the place where the great navigator rests.
In 2003, a group of geneticists and anthropologists led by Jose Antonio Lorente, professor of forensic Medicine at the University of Granada and the FBI Academy at Quantico, began to study this issue.
Analysis of the alleged remains of Columbus, exhumed in Seville, showed, however, that they belong to a rather fragile 45 year old man, while Christopher Columbus, on the contrary, was very strong, and died at the age of 55 to 60 years.
Now it is the turn to study other remains that were exhumed in October 2003 at the base of the Columbus Monument lighthouse in Santo Domingo.
At the same time, it cannot be excluded that the remains of Christopher Columbus were generally lost during numerous crossings.
Mass colonization of Hispaniola[edit / edit wiki text]
Spain began to receive gold mined in Hispaniola, and pearls collected on the Pearl Coast (the southern coast of the Caribbean Sea).
Hundreds and thousands of people who wanted to achieve wealth rushed to Western India.
Since 1502, the mass settlement of the Antilles by the Spaniards began.
The Spaniards committed mass atrocities against the local population.
In 1515, the indigenous inhabitants of Haiti were already less than 15 thousand, and by the middle of the XVI century they had completely died out.
Slaves from the Lesser Antilles began to be imported to Hispaniola, as well as "savages" from Cuba, Jamaica and Puerto Rico.
When the indigenous population began to disappear there, mass slave hunting in South America intensified, and then slaves began to be imported from Africa.
Expeditions to South America by contemporaries of Columbus[edit / edit wiki text]
Immediately after the abolition of Christopher Columbus ' monopoly right to discover new lands in Western India in 1499, participants of the famous navigator's previous voyages began to equip their expeditions there.
The first were Pedro Alonso Niño (May, 1499-1500), Alonso Ojeda (May 20, 1499 February 1500, 1502), Vicente Yanes Pinson (December 1499-1500), Rodrigo de Bastidas (October 1500-1502).
He was accompanied on this expedition by Vasco Nunes de Balboa and Juan de la Cosa.
In 1499-1500, Pedro Alonso Niño visited the Pearl Coast to the west of the Gulf of Paria in the Caribbean Sea and brought home 38 kg of pearls — this was the richest overseas production of the Spaniards in the XV century.
With Alonso Ojeda, a representative of the Florentine bankers who financed the enterprise, Amerigo Vespucci, also went on an expedition in 1499, as a pilot and cartographer Juan de la Cosa and notary Rodrigo de Bastidas.
Approaching the South American mainland at a latitude of about 5° s.
s., Ojeda headed northwest, walked 1200 km along the coast of Guyana and Venezuela to the Orinoco Delta, then through the straits to the Caribbean Sea and to the Pearl Coast.
Meanwhile, Amerigo Vespucci, moving to the southeast, discovered the mouths of the Amazon and Para rivers.
Having climbed 100 kilometers upstream by boat, he was never able to land on the shore because of the dense forest.
The movement further to the southeast was extremely hampered by a strong oncoming current.
This is how the Guianan Current was discovered.
In total, Vespucci discovered about 1,200 kilometers of the northeastern coast of South America.
Returning back to the north and northwest, Vespucci landed on Trinidad, and later joined the ships of Ojeda.
Together they explored the coast to the west of the Pearl Coast, discovered the eastern part of the Caribbean Andes, participated in armed skirmishes with unfriendly Indians, discovered the islands of Curacao and Aruba — the westernmost of the Lesser Antilles.
The bay to the west of Ojeda was named Venezuela ("little Venice").
Later, this name spread to the entire southern coast of the Caribbean Sea to the Orinoco Delta.
In total, Ojeda surveyed more than 3,000 kilometers of the northern coast of an unknown land and never found an end to it, which meant that such a land should be a continent.
In December 1499, another member of the first Columbus expedition, Vicente Yanes Pinson, went overseas.
He was the first of the Spaniards to cross the equator, and on January 26, 1500, he went, as it turned out later, to the easternmost tip of the South American continent — Cape San Rocky.
Pinson landed on the shore and issued an act of taking possession of the country that would later be called Brazil.
Moving from here to the northwest, Pinson, for the second time after Vespucci, discovered the mouth of the Para, the Amazon, reached Guiana and the mouth of the Orinoco.
In October 1500, Bastidas sailed from Cadiz on two ships.
After reaching the shores of South America, Bastidas explored about 1000 km of the Caribbean coast, discovered the mouth of the Magdalena River, as well as the Gulf of Darien and the Gulf of Uraba (the northern coast of Colombia).
The members of the expedition were the first to explore the interior of the continent in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta region.
He was forced to return to Santo Domingo, having previously been the first European to set foot on the Isthmus of Panama.
During the voyage in 1502, Bastidas found a lot of gold, but on charges of illegal trade, he was arrested by the governor of Hispaniola, Francisco de Bobadilla, and sent to Spain.
At the same time, several more Spanish expeditions took place (the main purpose of which was to search for gold, pearls and capture slaves for sale in Spain), but also Portuguese expeditions (the discovery of Brazil by Pedro Alvarish Cabral on April 24, 1500, two expeditions to the Brazilian shores of 1501-1502 and 1503-1504 by Gonzalo Coelho with the participation of Amerigo Vespucci), as a result of which the outlines of the northern and eastern coasts of the new continent began to become clearer, and it turned out that a significant part of it is located south of the equator, which means that it canot be Asia.
Columbus with an anchor and his noble coat of arms.
1920
Posterity[edit / edit wiki text]
Christopher Columbus had two sons the legitimate, Diego, and the illegitimate, Fernando, settled in Spain, from an affair with Beatrice Henriques de Arana; soon after the death of their father, they became very wealthy people and received huge incomes for their time.
Diego Colon (1479-1526) was the eldest son of Christopher Columbus, the 4th Viceroy of New Spain (1511-1518), who also held the titles of Adelantado and Admiral of the Indies.
After the death of Diego, his descendants were assigned the titles of Marquis of Jamaica and Duke of Veragua.
Fernando Columbus, or Colon (1488-1539) was a Spanish writer and cosmographer, biographer of his father Christopher Columbus.
Coat of Arms of Columbus[edit / edit wiki text]
For his great discoveries, Columbus was granted a noble coat of arms by the Catholic monarchs, on which "the castle of Castile and the lion of Leon (Spanish castillo — castle, Spanish león — lion) were side by side with images of islands discovered by him, as well as anchors — symbols of the admiral's title"[6].
His son Diego married the niece of the Duke of Alba and demanded from the Spanish crown the provision of the Isthmus of Panama (the country of Veragua), discovered by his father during the last voyage.
Disputes over the status of these lands and the rights of Columbus ' descendants to them dragged on for almost 30 years.
In 1536, Columbus ' grandson announced the renunciation of his claims to the lands discovered by his grandfather and to the income from them, for which King Carlos I rewarded him with a solid pension with the titles of Marquis of Jamaica and Duke of Veragua.
In the future, these titles were carried by the descendants of the eldest daughter of Diego the younger Alvareshi, and then the Fitzjames (descendants of the Duke of Berwick).
In the XIX century, the bearer of the title "Duke of Veragua" as a sign of his descent from Columbus and he changed the name "Fitzjames" to "Cristóbal Colón" (Cristóbal Colón).
From the youngest daughter of Diego comes the Guadalest branch of the Catalan family of Cardona.
Memory[edit / edit wiki text]
Many films have been made about Columbus.
Including: the English "Christopher Columbus" (Christopher Columbus, 1949), the Italian TV series "Christopher Columbus" (Christopher Columbus, 1985), the Anglo American Spanish production "Christopher Columbus: The Discovery" (Christopher Columbus: The Discovery, 1992), the Anglo American Spanish French production "1492: The Conquest of Paradise" (1492: Conquest of Paradise, 1992).
Monuments[edit / edit wiki text]
Monument to H. Columbus in Barcelona (Spain)
In Barcelona[edit / edit wiki text]
Main article: Monument to Columbus (Barcelona)
In Barcelona (Spain), near the Rambla Boulevard, a 60 meter high monument dedicated to Christopher Columbus was built for the World Exhibition of 1888.
It is located in the place where Columbus returned from his first trip to America.
Tsereteli's works[edit / edit wiki text]
In 1991 and 1992, to mark the 500th anniversary of the discovery of the American continent by Europeans, the Georgian sculptor Zurab Tsereteli offered to buy his huge statue of Columbus at the helm of a Spanish caravel to the USA, Spain and Latin American countries (at the moment its smaller copy is installed in Spain) [7].
The statue of Columbus has a height of 90 meters, which is twice the height of the" Statue of Liberty " without a pedestal.
The sculpture weighs 599 tons.
The Baltimore Sun newspaper called an article about Tsereteli's Columbus "From Russia with 'ugh' " [8].
Subsequently, the ideas implemented in the monument to Columbus were used by the sculptor in 1997 when he erected a huge statue of Peter the Great in medieval clothes of a Spanish grandee, at the helm of a Russian sloop, 98 meters high, on the arrow of the Balchug Island between the Moscow River and the Drainage Channel in Moscow by order of the Moscow government.
In July 2010, it was announced that a statue of Christopher Columbus by Tsereteli would be installed on the northern coast of Puerto Rico, near the city of Arecibo.
The statue was kept divided into 2,750 parts, and to put it together, according to the government of Puerto Rico, it takes $ 20 million.
The statue, if installed, will become the tallest structure in the US controlled territories in the Caribbean [8].
Demolition of monuments in Venezuela[edit / edit wiki text]
2004: a group of supporters of Hugo Chavez broke and took away a bronze statue of Columbus in an unknown direction.
March 2009: According to the Associated Press, the prefect of Caracas (the district of the capital of Venezuela) ordered the demolition of the statue of Christopher Columbus.
President Hugo Chavez warmly approved of this decision of the official, saying during a televised speech that, having reached America more than 5 centuries ago, Christopher Columbus initiated the genocide of the Indian population of America[9].
Named after Columbus[edit / edit wiki text]
Toponyms
Colombia is a state in South America, Mount Cristobal Colon in Colombia, height 5775 m The Federal District of Columbia in the United States The Province of British Columbia in Canada A city in the Panama Canal Zone Colon Province in Panama Colon Department in Honduras Colon Square in Madrid Square in El Puerto de Santa Maria Square in New York Square in ZelAO Moscow[10] Streets in Volgograd[11] and Astrakhan[12] Localities in the United States, bearing the name Columbus and Columbia Toponyms in Latin America, bearing the name Colon The historical state of Great Columbia on the territory of modern Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama
Space
A crater on the visible side of the moon.
Aster
