Columbus

 I apologise for the spelling and the formatting in this blog post.  My computer seems to know where I am and has adjusted the spelling accordingly, I hope someday to outsmart this feature, but that day is not today.  Also, the transition from "pages" to "blogger" seems to have mangled my formatting.

Nathaniel McCain

     Because Symcox and Sullivan’s introduction emphasises that Columbus’ first voyage was undertaken mainly as “a commercial enterprise” and that “building an empire and spreading the Gospel would come later,1” and because the first documents either establish Columbus’ Genoese roots and are not directly connected to the voyages, or were written well after the first voyage with the benefit of hindsight, I am also including in this blog entry documents ten and eleven which detail the reasons for the first voyage and the formal agreements made between Ferdinand and Isabella and Columbus.

     Columbus probably planned his voyages with a religious justification in mind, the

Spanish Monarchs had united Spain, instigated the Reconquista to remove the Muslim rulers from Iberia, and began pogroms aimed at removing or converting the large and influential Jewish population. After the Reconquista was completed with the capture of Grenada in 1492, the Spanish crown needed a new outlet for their martial pursuits, “colonisation of the Americas can be seen both as an extension of the Reconquista and as part of the imperial state building initiated by the dynastic union of the two crowns.2”

     The impetus of Columbus’ trip west was commerce and exploration, the religious

justification of the enslavement and genocide of the Indians under the encomienda system came later. Meanwhile the Spanish crown had enlisted the aid of the Pope, Rodrigo Borgia or Alexander VI, in their race with Portugal to claim the New World and, in exchange, brought the previously latent religious impulse to the surface.3

     Document 10, the Santa Fe Capitulations details the reward that Columbus is to receive while Document 11 the Granada Capitulations officially grants the rewards explained in the previous document. In these two documents, we see that because Columbus offered his “command and expertise” and because the nature of maritime exploration means “placing yourself in danger for our [the Spanish Monarchs] service,” in order to “discover and acquire certain islands and mainland in the Ocean Sea4” he deserves a reward. The Crown agreed to grant Columbus and his heirs the titles of Admiral of the Ocean Sea and viceroy and governor general of all those islands and any mainland and islands that he may discover and acquire in the seas.”5 Along with the titles, Columbus is given the right to one-tenth of all treasure found, jurisdiction over any lawsuits that may arise from his explorations, and the right to invest a one-eighth share in outfitting trade ventures and to receive a one-eighth share in the profit. The only mention of religion in either of the documents authorising Columbus’ first voyage is the usual proclamation that Jesus knows that it is the year 1492.

     The documents written later, by Oviedo, De Las Casas, and even Columbus himself place much more emphasis on the religious components of the conquest of the Americas, maybe they were searching for forgiveness for the enslavement and genocide of the New World, maybe they understood, like their contemporary that religion was a wonderful tool for keeping people docile and fearful. 

“If our religion claims of us fortitude of soul, it is more to enable us to suffer than to achieve great deeds.  These principles seem to me to have made men feeble, and caused them to become an easy prey to evil-minded men, who can control them more securely, seeing that the great body of men, for the sake of gaining paradise, are more disposed to endure injuries than to avenge them.”

Niccoló Machiavelli, The Discourses. 1517.6

1 Geoffrey Symcox and Blair Sullivan, Christopher Columbus and the Enterprise of the Indies: A Brief

History with Documents (Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005), pg. #14.

2 Ibid, pg. #11.

3 Ibid, pg#19.

4 Ibid, pg#63.

5 Ibid, pg#61.

6 "Machiavelli - Quotes Justify the Man," Latest Articles, accessed January 16, 2012, http://

www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/670893/posts.