Why the Atlantic
It was a "manifest destiny" that someone in this age would take on the dangers of a voyage across the Atlantic in search of India or "Cathay." For two thousand years a legend had spoken of the island of Atlantis on the far side of the sea, and later legends told of a spring beyond the Atlantic whose water gave eternal youth. The Christians' defeat in the Crusades led, in the end, to the discovery of America. Turkish control of the eastern Mediterranean, the closing of the overland road by the Ottomans at Constantinople and by anti-Christian governments in Persia and Turkestan, made the old East-West trade costly and dangerous. Italy and France, despite war and banditry, might cling to the remnant of this trade, but Portugal and Spain, at the far western edge, were too distant to profit from it.
Their problem was to find a new route. Portugal opened a way to the East around Africa. Spain remained, with no choice but to seek a way to the East from the west.
Learning, Error and Daring
With the progress of science the roundness of the earth had long been taken as certain. The errors of learning, which underestimated the width of the Atlantic and imagined Asia ready for conquest and exploration on the other side, themselves fed the daring of sailors. Scandinavian mariners had reached Labrador in 986 and 1000 and brought word of a great continent. In 1477 Columbus, if we trust his own account, went to Iceland, and apparently heard the proud tales of Leif Ericson's voyage to "Vinland." All that was now needed for this great adventure was money. There was courage and daring in plenty.
Who Was Columbus
In his will, written before leaving on his third Atlantic voyage, Columbus named Genoa as his birthplace. It is true that in his surviving writings he always calls himself by the Spanish name Cristóbal Colón, not the Italian Cristoforo Colombo, but most probably this is because he wrote in Spanish, lived in Spain and sailed for Spanish rulers, not because he was born there.
It is supposed that his ancestors were converted Spanish Jews who had emigrated to Italy; that Columbus had Hebrew blood and zeal in his veins has an almost convincing argument behind it, the book says, though this is a conjecture and not a documented fact. His father was a weaver, and Columbus apparently followed his father's trade for a time in Genoa and Savona. According to the biography written by his son Ferdinand, he studied astronomy, geometry and cosmography at the University of Pavia; but the university records do not contain his name, and he himself says that he went to sea at fourteen, since in Genoa all roads led to the sea.
Years at Sea and in Lisbon
In 1476 the ship in which he was sailing to Lisbon was attacked by corsairs and sank; Columbus relates that, with the help of wreckage, he swam about ten kilometers to shore (the book remarks that the great admiral may also have had an extraordinary imagination). He says that a few months later he went as a ship's captain to England, then to Iceland, and then to Lisbon. There he married, settled, and worked as a map-maker and cartographer. His father-in-law was a sailor who had served Prince Henry the Navigator, and no doubt Columbus heard feverish stories of the Guinea coast from him. In 1482, probably as an officer, he joined a Portuguese fleet bound for Elmina. He read with great interest, and made many notes in, the famous book of Pope Pius II, which spoke of the possibility of sailing around Africa.
The Reading Behind the Plan
But his studies drew him more and more westward. He knew that Strabo in the first century had spoken of an attempt to circle the globe. He knew the words of Seneca: that after the passing of years there would come an age when the barriers of the sea would break and a vast continent would appear, when the seer Tiphys would show the world new worlds, and Thule [Iceland] would no longer be thought the last point of the earth. He had read Marco Polo's travels, which praised the wealth of China and placed Japan 2,400 kilometers from the Asian mainland. In his copy of Pierre d'Ailly's Imago Mundi he wrote more than a thousand notes.
He accepted the then-current estimate of the earth's circumference at 29,000 to 32,000 kilometers; combined with Marco Polo's statement on the location of Japan, this led him to conclude that the nearest Asian islands must lie about 7,000 kilometers west of Lisbon. He knew of the letter written in 1474 by the Florentine physician Paolo Toscanelli to Alfonso V of Portugal, which said that a shorter way to India than around Africa lay seven thousand kilometers to the west. Columbus wrote to Toscanelli and received an encouraging reply. His plan matured and set his mind boiling.
Rejected by Portugal
About 1484 he proposed to John II of Portugal that the king equip three ships for a one-year exploring voyage in the Atlantic; that Columbus be made "Great Admiral of the Ocean" and governor of all lands discovered; and that he receive a tenth of all revenue and precious metals Portugal gained from those regions (the book's wording of the terms is partly garbled). As is plain, the spread of Christianity was secondary to material considerations. The king submitted the proposal to a council of scholars, who rejected it: Columbus had estimated the width of the Atlantic at 3,850 kilometers (the book's figure is garbled), a number the scholars thought far too small and mistaken. (This distance roughly matches the actual gap between the Canary Islands and the West Indies.)
In 1485 two Portuguese sailors proposed a similar plan to King John, taking the cost on themselves. John at least gave his blessing, and the sailors set sail (1487); but they followed a course too far to the north, met strong westerly winds and returned in despair. Columbus proposed again (1488) and the king summoned him, but he arrived just when Bartolomeu Dias had rounded Africa and returned in triumph. The Portuguese government, delighted with finding the African route to India, forgot the question of a western route across the Atlantic. Columbus turned to Genoa and Venice, but there too his proposals were ignored, because they had fixed their attention on the eastern route to the East.
England, and the Man Himself
Columbus sent his brother to England to ask the opinion of Henry VII, who invited him to negotiate. The invitation reached Columbus after he had presented his proposal to Spain. By now (1488) he was about forty-two. He was tall and lean, with a long face, a reddish freckled complexion, an aquiline nose, blue eyes and light red hair that was turning gray and would soon be white. His son and friends described him as modest, pleasant, dignified, perceptive, moderate in eating and drinking, and deeply pious. Others claimed he was vain, flaunted the titles he gained, improved his ancestry in his imagination and writings, and bargained greedily for a larger share of the gold of the new world. In any case he was worth more than he asked.
He sometimes stepped outside the commandments: in Córdoba, after the death of his wife, a woman named Beatriz Enríquez bore him an illegitimate son (1488). Although Columbus provided a comfortable life for her, in his lifetime and afterward in his will, he did not marry her. Since many great men of that cheerful age had many illegitimate children, it is not likely that anyone looked on this one with disapproval or anger.
Spain: Delay, Rejection and a Last Chance
Meanwhile he presented his request to Isabella, ruler of Castile (May 1, 1486). Isabella left its examination to a council of her advisers headed by Archbishop Talavera. After long delay the council rejected it as impracticable and declared that Asia was farther away than Columbus believed. Even so, Isabella and Ferdinand set him an annual allowance of 12,000 maravedís (840 dollars, the book's conversion) and, by letter, ordered all municipalities to give him free lodging and food. Perhaps they meant in this way to keep their claim on his plan, lest Columbus offer it, since it might lead to the discovery of a new continent, to another king. But when the Talavera council, after studying the plan, rejected it again, Columbus resolved to submit his proposal to Charles VIII of France.
Friar Juan Pérez, prior of La Rábida, obtained permission for another audience with Queen Isabella and dissuaded him from this course. Isabella sent him another 20,000 maravedís for travel expenses so that he could come to the camp at Santa Fe. Columbus did so; Isabella listened to his request with great kindness; but her advisers rejected his proposal once more, and he made ready to leave for France (January 1492).
The Financier Who Turned the Wheel
At this decisive moment a baptized Jew turned the wheel of history. Luis de Santángel, Ferdinand's finance minister, reproached Isabella for lacking imagination and the courage to undertake great things, stirred her with the promise of converting the peoples of Asia, and proposed to meet the cost himself with the help of some friends. A few other Jews, such as Don Isaac Abravanel, Juan Cabrero and Abraham Señor, backed his view. Isabella was moved and offered her jewels to raise the needed money. Santángel saw no need. From the brotherhood association of which he was treasurer he borrowed 1,400,000 maravedís, added 350,000 from his own pocket, and Columbus received all this sum plus a further 250,000 maravedís (the book's figures). The king signed the necessary papers on April 17, 1492.
Departure
At that time or later a letter addressed to the Great Khan of Cathay was written and given to Columbus, for the place Columbus hoped to reach was China, not India, and to the end of his life he believed that the place he had discovered was that land. On August 3 the Santa María (his flagship) and the two ships Pinta and Niña, with eighty-eight men and a year's provisions, set sail into the open sea.