Death

Queen Isabella was quite ill when I returned. When she died on November 26, 1504, I lost my friend and benefactor. Even though I was wealthy from my many explorations, I still felt I should be restored as governor of Hispaniola.

Finally in the spring of 1505, Ferdinand called me to court. The king heard the explorer's petition(my petition), but did nothing. A year later, I was ill. I died on May 20 , disappointed that I never found the route to the East and convinced I had set foot in Asia rather than a new world.

I died of a heart attack due to reactive arthritis (Reiter's Syndrome) on May 20, 1506- at the age of 55-
This was deduced based on observer accounts and my personal writings, of my symptoms, in my notebook.
When I died I was still unaware that I was in the western hemisphere (thought I was in the east coast of Asia).

getting arrested

During my stint as governor and viceroy, I had been accused of governing tyrannically. I was physically and mentally exhausted; my body was wracked by arthritis and my eyes by ophthalmia. In October 1499, I sent two ships to Spain, asking the Court of Spain to appoint a royal commissioner to help me govern.

The Court appointed Francisco de Bobadilla, a member of the Order of Calatrava; however, his authority stretched far beyond what Columbus had requested. Bobadilla was given total control as governor from 1500 until his death in 1502. Arriving in Santo Domingo while I was away, Bobadilla was immediately peppered with complaints about all three Columbus brothers: Christopher(me), Bartolomé, and Diego. Consuelo Varela, a Spanish historian, states: "Even those who loved him [Columbus] had to admit the atrocities that had taken place."

As a result of these testimonies and without being allowed a word in his own defense, I upon my return, had manacles placed on my arms and chains on my feet and was cast into prison to await return to Spain. I was 53 years old.

On October 1, 1500, me and my two brothers, likewise in chains, were sent back to Spain. Once in Cádiz, a grieveng me wrote to a friend at court:

It is now seventeen years since I came to serve these princes with the Enterprise of the Indies. They made me pass eight of them in discussion, and at the end rejected it as a thing of jest. Nevertheless I persisted therein... Over there I have placed under their sovereignty more land than there is in Africa and Europe, and more than 1,700 islands... In seven years I, by the divine will, made that conquest. At a time when I was entitled to expect rewards and retirement, I was incontinently arrested and sent home loaded with chains... The accusation was brought out of malice on the basis of charges made by civilians who had revolted and wished to take possession on the land.... I beg your graces, with the zeal of faithful Christians in whom their Highnesses have confidence, to read all my papers, and to consider how I, who came from so far to serve these princes... now at the end of my days have been despoiled of my honor and my property without cause, wherein is neither justice nor mercy.

According to testimony of 23 witnesses during his trial, I regularly used barbaric acts of torture to govern Hispaniola.

Me and my brothers lingered in jail for six weeks before the busy King Ferdinand ordered our release. Not long thereafter, the king and queen summoned the Columbus brothers to their presence at the Alhambra palace in Granada. There the royal couple heard the brothers' pleas; restored their freedom and their wealth; and, after much persuasion, agreed to fund my fourth voyage. But the door was firmly shut on my role as governor. From that point forward, Nicolás de Ovando y Cáceres was to be the new governor of the West Indies.

June 1507

I made a fourth voyage nominally in search of the Strait of Malacca to the Indian Ocean. Accompanied by my brother Bartolomeo and my 13-year-old son Fernando(my little man),I left Cádiz, Spain, on May 11, 1502, with the ships Capitana, Gallega, Vizcaína and Santiago de Palos. I sailed to Arzila on the Moroccan coast to rescue Portuguese soldiers whom I had heard were under siege by the Moors. On June 15, we landed at Carbet on the island of Martinique (Martinica). A hurricane was brewing, so I continued on, hoping to find shelter on Hispaniola. I arrived at Santo Domingo on June 29, but was denied port, and the new governor refused to listen to my storm prediction (dumb dumb). Instead, while my ships sheltered at the mouth of the Rio Jaina, the first Spanish treasure fleet sailed into the hurricane(tould ya so). My ships survived with only minor damage, while twenty-nine of the thirty ships in the governor's fleet were lost to the July 1 storm. In addition to the ships, 500 lives (including that of the governor, Francisco de Bobadilla) and an immense cargo of gold were surrendered to the sea.

After a brief stop at Jamaica, I sailed to Central America, arriving at Guanaja (Isla de Pinos) in the Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras on July 30. Here Bartolomeo found native merchants and a large canoe, which was described as "long as a galley" and was filled with cargo. On August 14,we landed on the American mainland at Puerto Castilla, near Trujillo, Honduras. He spent two months exploring the coasts of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, before arriving in Almirante Bay, Panama on October 16.

On December 5, 1502, me and my crew found themselves in a storm unlike any they had ever experienced. In my journal I wrote,

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 headland for shelter; hence we were forced to keep out in this bloody ocean, seething like a pot on a hot fire. Never did the sky look more terrible; 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 off my spars and sails; 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 to fall from the sky; 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.

In Panama, I learned from the natives of gold and a strait to another ocean. After much exploration, in January 1503 he established a garrison at the mouth of the Rio Belen. On April 6 one of the ships became stranded in the river. At the same time, the garrison was attacked, and the other ships were damaged (Shipworms also damaged the ships in tropical waters. I left for Hispaniola on April 16, heading north. On May 10 I sighted the Cayman Islands, naming them "Las Tortugas" after the numerous sea turtles there. My ships next sustained more damage in a storm off the coast of Cuba. Unable to travel farther, on June 25, 1503, they were beached in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica.


I intimidated natives by predicting lunar eclipse. For a year me and my men remained stranded on Jamaica. A Spaniard, Diego Mendez, and some natives paddled a canoe to get help from Hispaniola. That island's governor, Nicolás de Ovando y Cáceres, detested me and obstructed all efforts to rescue me and my men. In the meantime I, in a desperate effort to induce the natives to continue provisioning me and my hungry men, successfully intimidated the natives by correctly predicting a lunar eclipse for February 29, 1504, using the Ephemeris of the German astronomer Regiomontanus. Help finally arrived, no thanks to the governor, on June 29, 1504, and me and my men arrived in Sanlúcar, Spain, on November 7.

1499

On May 30, 1498, I left with six ships from Sanlúcar, Spain, for my third trip to the New World. I was accompanied by the young Bartolomé de Las Casa

I led the fleet to the Portuguese island of Porto Santo, my wife's(Felipa Perestrello Moniz) native land. I then sailed to Madeira and spent some time there with the Portuguese captain João Gonçalves da Camara before sailing to the Canary Islands and Cape Verde. Columbus (yours truly) landed on the south coast of the island of Trinidad on July 31. From August 4 through August 12, he explored the Gulf of Paria which separates Trinidad from Venezuela. I explored the mainland of South America, including the Orinoco River. I also sailed to the islands of Chacachacare and Margarita Island and sighted and named Tobago (Bella Forma) and Grenada (Concepcion).

I returned to Hispaniola on August 19 to find that many of the Spanish settlers of the new colony were discontented, having been misled by me about the supposedly bountiful riches of the new world. An entry in my journal from September 1498 reads, "From here one might send, in the name of the Holy Trinity, as many slaves as could be sold..." Indeed, as a fierce supporter of slavery,I ultimately refused to baptize the native people of Hispanolia, since Catholic law forbade the enslavement of Christians.

I repeatedly had to deal with rebellious settlers and natives. I had some of my crew hanged for disobeying me. A number of returning settlers and sailors lobbied against me at the Spanish court, accusing me and my brothers of gross mismanagement. On my return I was arrested for a period.

Ship Ensign

this is my ship ensign

August 3 1496

First Voyage

On the evening of August 3, 1492,I departed from Palos de la Frontera with three ships; one larger carrack, Santa María, nicknamed Gallega (the Galician), and two smaller caravels, Pinta (the Painted) and Santa Clara, nicknamed Niña after her owner Juan Niño of Moguer. They were property of Juan de la Cosa and the Pinzón brothers (Martín Alonso and Vicente Yáñez), but the monarchs forced the Palos inhabitants to contribute to the expedition. I first sailed to the Canary Islands, which were owned by Castile, where I restocked the provisions and made repairs. On September 6, I departed San Sebastián de la Gomera for what turned out to be a five-week voyage across the ocean.

Land was sighted at 2 a.m. on October 12, 1492, by a sailor named Rodrigo de Triana (also known as Juan Rodríguez Bermejo) aboard Pinta. I called the island (in what is now The Bahamas) San Salvador; the natives called it Guanahani. Exactly which island in the Bahamas this corresponds to is an unresolved topic; prime candidates are Samana Cay, Plana Cays, or San Salvador Island (named San Salvador in 1925 in the belief that it was Columbus's San Salvador). The indigenous people i encountered, the Lucayan, Taíno or Arawak, were peaceful and friendly. From the October 12, 1492, entry in his journal I 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 Salvador to capture them; 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." Lacking modern weaponry and even metal-forged swords or pikes, I remarked upon their tactical vulnerability, writing, "I could conquer the whole of them with 50 men, and govern them as I pleased."

Europe and Cathay

Europe had long enjoyed a safe land passage to China and India— sources of valued goods such as silk, spices, and opiates— under the hegemony of the Mongol Empire (the Pax Mongolica, or Mongol peace). With the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the land route to Asia became more difficult. In response to this me and my bro had, by the 1480s, developed a plan to travel to the Indies, then construed roughly as all of south and east Asia, by sailing directly west across the "Ocean Sea," i.e., the Atlantic.

January 1493

This is completely perplexing!! I have been at sea for so long and I was supposed to be home by last week.I think I underestimated the circumference of the earth.If I was right I would have got us spaniards straight into the lucrative and very rich spice trade which is currently in control by the italians and arabians.(aargh!! those italians,with their pizza and fancy italian sports cariges,how i want a horarri Mc with dual horse power and nice mahogany rims.It's tight.)Now alot of my men have died.I am thinking of coming back. The only company I got here is my Mac Portable(BTW it is the best computer ever).By the way did you hear,pepper's gone up 3 gold coins and they say we will head into a recession the way things are going? I wonder what the heck a recession is.

May 1492

I'm going out to sea tommorow!!! Yes!! My idea of the world being round is finally working The news came at a critical time of growing national imperialism and economic competition between developing nation states seeking wealth from the establishment of trade routes and colonies. In this sociopolitical climate,my so-called "far-fetched scheme" won the attention of Queen Isabella of Spain.

Funny picture

Ontop of all the pressure of going out to sea some weirdo keeps on e-mailing twisted pictures of me like this one:

May 1, 1486

.On May 1, 1486, permission having been granted, I presented my plans to Queen Isabella, who, in turn, referred it to a committee. After the passing of much time, these savants of Spain, like their counterparts in Portugal, reported back that I had judged the distance to Asia much too short. They pronounced the idea impractical, and advised their Royal Highnesses to pass on the proposed venture.

However, to keep me from taking my ideas elsewhere, and perhaps to keep their options open, the King and Queen of Spain gave me an annual allowance of 12,000 maravedis and in 1489 furnished me with a letter ordering all Spanish cities and towns to provide me food and lodging at no cost.Which was pretty sweet.

After continually lobbying at the Spanish court and two years of negotiations, I finally had success in 1492. Ferdinand and Isabella had just conquered Granada, the last Muslim stronghold on the Iberian peninsula, and they received me in Córdoba, in the Alcázar castle. Isabella turned me down on the advice of her confessor, and I was leaving town by mule in despair, when Ferdinand intervened. Isabella then sent a royal guard to fetch me and Ferdinand later claimed credit for being "the principal cause why those islands were discovered".

About half of the financing was to come from private Italian investors, yours truly had already lined up. Financially broke after the Granada campaign, the monarchs left it to the royal treasurer to shift funds among various royal accounts on behalf of the enterprise. I was to be made "Admiral of the Seas" and would receive a portion of all profits. The terms were unusually generous, but as my son later wrote, the monarchs did not really expect him to return.

According to the contract that I had made with King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, if Myself discovered any new islands or mainland, I would receive many high rewards. In terms of power, he would be given the rank of Admiral of the Ocean Sea and appointed Viceroy and Governor of all the new lands. I had the right to nominate three persons, from whom the sovereigns would choose one, for any office in the new lands. I would be entitled to 10 percent of all the revenues from the new lands in perpetuity; this part was denied to me in the contract, although it was one of my most-wanted demands. Additionally, I 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.

Fathers Death Anniversary

My father was Domenico Colombo, a middle-class wool weaver, who
later also had a cheese stand where I was a helper, working both in Genoa and
Savona.My mother (also dead) was Susanna Fontanarossa. Bartolomeo, Giovanni Pellegrino and Giacomo are my brothers. Bartolomeo worked in a cartography workshop in Lisbon for at least part of his adulthood. We celebrated my dads death by recalling how he used to tell me that I would miss him when he would be gone and by god he was right. I will miss u daddyMy mother (also dead) was Susanna Fontanarossa. Bartolomeo, Giovanni Pellegrino and Giacomo are my brothers. Bartolomeo worked in a cartography workshop in Lisbon for at least part of his adulthood.

October 1460

hello i am a 9 year old boy named cristoforo columbo. I was born in 1451 in Genoa of modern italy and throughout my life i will keep u in touch