Document Number: |
AJ-063 |
Author: |
Columbus, Christopher |
Title: |
Letter from Columbus to Luis de Santangel |
Source: |
Olson, Julius E. and Edward G. Bourne (editors). The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503: The Voyages of the Northmen; The Voyages of Columbus and of John Cabot. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1906). Pages 261-272. |
Pages/Illustrations: |
15 / 0 |
Citable URL: |
www.americanjourneys.org/aj-063/ |
Author Note
Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) was born in Genoa, Italy, and grew up
among merchants who traded throughout the Mediterranean and
along the Atlantic coasts of Africa and Europe. Working as a
young man for Genoese importers in Lisbon, Columbus traveled as
far afield as Iceland in the north, Ghana in the south, and the
Azores in the west. Believing that there might be an easier and
more profitable route to Japan, China, and the East Indies by
sailing west, he and his brother Bartholomew attempted to secure
government backing for an expedition from the monarchs of Spain,
Portugal, France, and England. In 1492, Columbus received the
monetary backing he needed from Spain (see AJ-061).
Columbus Expeditions, 1492-1504
America was not discovered by Columbus. Both North and South America had been
inhabited for more than ten thousand years when Columbus arrived.
Hundreds of distinct nations with their own languages, customs,
religions, and economic systems already occupied the land when
he stumbled onto it on his way to Asia. Norwegian
settlers preceded his arrival in America by some five hundred years (see
AJ-056 to AJ-060) and ample evidence suggests that European
fishermen had touched its coasts briefly in the decades before
his first voyage. Columbus never laid eyes upon, much
less stepped ashore and planted a flag on, the North American
continent; and until his dying day he believed he had traveled
to islands near China.
But these reflections in no way diminish the magnitude of his
achievements. If Columbus did not discover America, he did find
the best routes for Europeans to reach it, and nearly all other
ships followed in his wake for the next three hundred years. His
explorations initiated sustained contact between European and
American peoples. Columbus focused the attention and capital of
European governments and investors on America, which led them to
establish colonies throughout the region over the next century.
And he was the first European to explore the Caribbean islands
and the mainland from Honduras to Venezuela.
First Voyage, 1492-1493
Columbus’s journal of his first voyage (AJ-062) shows that he
departed Spain on August 3, 1492, and returned in April 1493,
landing in the Caribbean on October 12, 1492. Investigation by the
National Geographic Society in the 1980s concluded that this
landfall occurred on Samana Cay, in the Bahaman Islands, which
the Arawak Indian inhabitants called Guanahani and which
Columbus immediately christened San Salvador. From there he
traveled to Fortune Island, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic,
which he named Española, all the while thinking he was in the
vicinity of Japan. Leaving about forty men behind in on the island
of Española, or Hispaniola as it is also known, Columbus headed
home on January 16, 1493, encountering vicious storms on the
open ocean and imprisonment by the Portuguese on the Azores. He reached Lisbon in March 1493 and immediately sent this
letter to his friend and sponsor Luis de Santangel describing
his adventure. By the time he reached the Spanish court in early
April, this letter had been printed and was circulating
throughout Europe. The Spanish monarchs were delighted, and had
such high hopes of finding riches that they instructed Columbus
to go right back.
Second Voyage, 1493-1496
In early May 1493, Columbus responded to their request in a
letter (AJ-064) outlining his plans for colonizing the
Caribbean. He left on September 25, 1493, in a fleet of
seventeen ships
with about 1,200 colonists. Among these were the Queen’s
physician, Dr. Diego Alvarez Chanca, his younger brother Diego,
Juan de la Cosa, who would make the first map that showed
America, and Juan Ponce de Leon, who would be the first European
to explore Florida (AJ-095). The fleet approached the islands of
Dominica and Martinique on November 3, 1493, and explored
Antigua, St. Croix, Puerto Rico, and other islands before
landing at Hispaniola to find the garrison left by the first
voyage all dead. At the end of December 1493, Columbus selected a
second site for a settlement on the same island. Life in the
little colony is described in the letter written from there by
Dr. Chanca (AJ-065). The Spanish colonists virtually enslaved
the Taino Indian inhabitants in order to extract gold, leading
to a state of perpetual rebellion; brutality, warfare, and
European diseases wiped out two-thirds of the indigenous
population in five years. When the authorities in Spain learned
how bad the situation had become, Columbus was summoned home,
reaching Cadiz on June 11, 1496.
Third Voyage, 1498-1500
Columbus spent most of 1496 and 1497 restoring his reputation
with the court and building support for a third voyage (see AJ-066). He left Spain on May 30, 1498, with a
fleet of three supply ships headed for Hispaniola and three
ships whose goal was to discover if there was a landmass to the
south. Columbus reached the island of Trinidad on August 1,
1498, and the South American mainland at the Paria Peninsula in
Venezuela on August 5, before heading to the colony on
Hispaniola. He found that many of the settlers had died, most of
the survivors had syphilis, and the local leaders were engaged
in a civil war for control of the enterprise. When a
newly appointed administrator arrived from Spain in September
1499, he investigated for a few months before placing Columbus
and his brother in chains and shipping them home, where they
arrived in November of 1500. On board ship Columbus drafted the
letter to the nurse of Prince John (AJ-067) that tells his side
of the story.
Fourth Voyage, 1502-1504
After clearing his name, Columbus was permitted by Ferdinand
and Isabella to make one more voyage (see AJ-068), though they
prohibited him from stopping at the colony on Hispaniola. In a
fleet of four worn-out vessels, and accompanied by his teen-age
son Ferdinand (who would be his father’s first biographer), they
left Cadiz on May 9, 1502, and reached Martinique on June 15.
With a hurricane brewing, Columbus sailed to the forbidden
Hispaniola on June 29 for shelter; the storm wiped out a
homebound fleet carrying his political opponents but spared his
four ships. After coasting the southern shores of Hispaniola and
Cuba, Columbus turned southwest and encountered the Central
American mainland at the end of July. For the next ten months he
explored the eastern side of the isthmus, coasting south along
Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama, before heading back
toward the Caribbean islands the following May. Before they
could reach Hispaniola, their aging ships simply gave out, and
Columbus established a crude settlement on Jamaica where they
were marooned for more than a year. After being rescued, he
reached Spain again on November 7, 1504. Three weeks later his
principal supporter, Queen Isabella, died and, old, sick, and
out of favor at court, Columbus lived only another eighteen months,
passing away on May 20, 1506, in Valladolid, Spain.
Document Note
This letter, addressed to Luis de Santangel, treasurer of the
Kingdom of Aragon, was first published in Barcelona in 1493.
Santangel had financed a large part of the voyage and had
decisive influence with the King and Queen of Spain. In writing
this letter, Columbus acknowledges both Santangel’s influence
and money. This translation is taken from Quaritch’s The
Spanish Letter of Columbus (London: 1893) and is reprinted
in Olson, Julius E. and Edward G. Bourne (editors). The
Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503: The Voyages of the
Northmen; The Voyages of Columbus and of John Cabot. (New
York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1906).
Other Internet and Reference Sources
Historical and bibliographical details on the Columbus
documents given here are best read in the introductions to each
text. Publications and web sites devoted to Columbus exist in
bewildering variety. The best place to start is the Library of
Congress exhibit, “1492: An Ongoing Discovery” at
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/1492/ which contains texts,
illustrations, suggested readings, and further links.
The New York Public Library has published a bibliography and
research guide that gives information on the Columbus letters at
http://www.nypl.org/research/chss/grd/resguides/
columbus.html#primary.
An electronic text version of Edward Everett Hale’s biography
of Columbus, The Life of Christopher Columbus: from his own
letters and journals and other documents of his time
(Chicago: G. L. Howe & Co. 1891) has been put online by the
University of Virginia Library at
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/HalLife.html.
More about Luis de Santangel and his formative influence on
the funding of the expeditions can be found at the My Jewish
Learning.com website, co-produced by Hebrew College at
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/history_community/Medieval/
TheStory6321666/Expulsion/DestinationNewWorld.htm.
A student guide issued by Newman Library of Baruch College,
CUNY at
http://newman.baruch.cuny.edu/digital/2000/c_n_c/c_05_renaissance/
columbus_reports.htm comments on this letter and Columbus’s
other reports of his voyages. |
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