Christopher Columbus (1451-1506)

Last modified: 2010-06-24 08:00:33 UTC

The study of history is a dubious enterprise. With a few facts and a lot of speculation, we develop theories about what happened long ago, and when new facts are introduced, we come to dramatically different conclusions. Somewhere in there, our speculations become incredulous. We try not to speculate, but then we have only archaeological facts, and the richest lessons of history are lost to us. Because of the value, it is definitely an enterprise, but because of the poverty of factual data upon which to draw conclusions, it is a dubious one.

So let the reader beware — archaeology is science, but history is art, and the more history departs from archaeology, the more it behaves like art, in the subjectivity of its interpretations, and in the inconsistency of its trends. There's no guarantee that it will be as beautiful tomorrow. If you don't like the idea of the past changing from day to day, stay away from speculative history. Stick to archaeology, and to that history which has a solid archaeological foundation. And acknowledge that sketchy data are all that you will ever have. But if you want history to come alive, you have to flesh out the facts, and this takes a lot of speculation. Just remember that such is art, not science. If it inspires you, that's great. If it turns out to be foundationless, oh well.

Despite the significance of it becoming common knowledge amongst Europeans that the American continents exist, for which Columbus gets the credit, there is little consensus on how this all came about, and there are many misnomers.

It has been said that Columbus was the first to realize that the Earth is a sphere, and that sailing west would (eventually) lead him to the Indies. This is not true. There is no evidence, even in ancient times, of anyone ever believing that the world was flat. Eratosthenes (c. 276 BC - c. 195 BC) proved that the Earth is a sphere, and calculated the circumference to within 1% of the modern estimate. By the time Columbus came along, the calculations had been confirmed in many ways.

So the question was not at all whether the western route to the Indies would be shorter, as everyone knew that it wouldn't. But at the time it was still theoretically possible that a western route could nevertheless be faster. Ships following the trade winds could make better time than pack animals on overland trails. So even though the distance might be greater, the voyage might still take less time.

And then there was an ulterior motive for interest in a western route. Overland trade with the Far East was traveling through the Middle East, enriching the Pope's archrivals, the Ottoman Turks. By Columbus' time, the Catholics had given up trying to take the Middle East by brute force. The only alternative was to find a way around the Turkish Empire, by sea.

The more conservative approach, financed by Portugal and led by Bartolomeu Dias in 1488, was to sail around the southern tip of Africa and into the Indian Ocean from there. Then there was the radical idea of attempting to reach the Indies by sailing west. Depending on the winds, either route might turn out to be the fastest.

The real question concerning the western route was whether or not there were islands along the way, where the ships could replenish their supplies — otherwise they'd never make it. And since no ship that sailed west from Europe had ever returned, and since no explorer had ever come to Europe from the west, it was thought that the Atlantic was one huge, empty expanse, too big to traverse with the ships of the day.

So Columbus appears on the scene, with 5 pounds of bad mathematics, 10 pounds of religious devotion, and a request for 3 sturdy ships to explore the Atlantic for a possible western route to the Indies. If he succeeded, he was to be rewarded by being made admiral of Spanish navy, and governor of any new lands he "discovered," with rights to a percentage of the profits from trade through such lands. Ferdinand and Isabella were initially unimpressed, but finally agreed to the terms. Columbus' son later wrote that the monarchs didn't expect to see him again, so putting up the admiralty and provincial governorship as rewards constituted a safe promise for them. Surely Ferdinand and Isabella trusted their advisors, who knew that Columbus wasn't even close to a correct estimate of the distance. Perhaps they arranged the funding for the voyage just to prove their loyalty to the Pope, whose friendship was worth at least 3½ ships, if not 4, for a 15^th century monarch. (And if you lose 1 Genoese merchant captain in the process, oh well.) They may also have believed that if such a voyage could actually be made, it would only be by the conviction of a pious man, which Columbus was. For whatever reason, Columbus got his ships and supplies, and off he went.

Upon the completion of his first voyage, he then showed Ferdinand and Isabella the "proof" that he had found islands just off the coast of the Indies, in the form on the "Indians" that he had captured. He then demanded that Ferdinand and Isabella make good on their promises. Never in his life did Columbus concede that he was wrong about the distance, and he therefore goes down in history as the brave and devout but mathematically-challenged sea captain who found the Americas but never realized that they were not the Indies.

But this doesn't exactly explain how Columbus effectively used his astrolabe to navigate to the Americas and back again. Astrolabes were based on the principle that the Earth is round, and were calibrated based on the work of Eratosthenes. How, exactly, did Columbus trust his life to his astrolabe, and yet maintain to his death that he had found a western route to the Indies?

Columbus had sailed all over the Atlantic coast of Europe as a merchant captain. Off the coasts of England and Ireland, he had observed that a couple of weeks after a big storm, there would sometimes be tree branches in the water — sometimes from trees not native to Europe. And he knew that the tree branches were not from Greenland or Iceland — they had to be from a more temperate climate. From the wave patterns in the ocean, an experienced sailor can tell how far away the storm was. Putting these facts together, Columbus knew that there was a continent out there, and that it was a lot closer than anybody else thought. He was also aware of the Norse legends of another continent beyond Greenland.

He also knew about the trade winds, and he was confident that he would have steady winds in both directions, if he traveled at the right time of year and at the right latitudes.

So Columbus' conviction that the voyage could be made successfully wasn't just bad mathematics and dumb luck. It was a conclusion based on facts that others knew, yet Columbus was the one to put it all together. There was another continent out there; it was within sailing distance; and the fastest way to get there and back was to follow the trade winds.

And it is likely that he knew full well that the continent in question could not be the Indies. So why did he not expose his true reasoning?

Columbus was a merchant captain from Genoa, not a Spanish nobleman well-connected at the court of Ferdinand and Isabella. If he had written up an honest business plan and sent it to the monarchs, he would have received a thank-you note and an invitation to stand on the dock to watch as someone more powerful than himself embarked on the journey. And it would have been someone else who would have been made the admiral of the Spanish navy, and governor of all of the new lands found. So it served Columbus' purposes to present a plan based on bad mathematics that no smart person would have stolen.

Let's get real here. How was he going to tell Ferdinand and Isabella that he lied to get the funding for the voyage, knowing full well that it wasn't the Indies, but that he still wanted to be the admiral of the Spanish navy, and governor of whatever it was? Admitting to a lie would have invalidated all of his rights. As long as he could sell the idea that he had found a western route to the Indies, he (and his heirs) had certain titles to it. So he stuck to his original story. And perhaps he didn't even mind being thought a fool for having attempted the impossible, and all the more so for having actually succeeded at it by dumb luck. He knew what he did, and everybody understood the significance of it all.