Columbus, scoundrel

Columbus, scoundrel

Columbus, scoundrel

 

This should be interesting.

Later today, a team of geneticists is due to announce the results of a comprehensive analysis of DNA samples – taken from the purported remains of Christopher Columbus, and a number of his descendants.

Columbus’ true identity and ethnic background have remained a bone of contention among scholars for centuries.

Although purportedly buried in Spain (due to his explorations having been funded by the Crowns of Spain), he has traditionally been claimed to have been a native of Genoa, in Italy.

This hasn’t stopped countries like the Dominican Republic from claiming to be the final resting place of Columbus’ remains, and it hasn’t stopped wider speculation that his origins might be found as far afield as Hungary or Poland.

Many (including this writer), have wondered if Columbus may in fact have been of Jewish background, and chose to keep this quiet due to the Jewish, Romani, and Moorish Muslim expulsions taking place in Catholic Iberia during the 1490s.

It is already certain that Columbus included Jewish translators and Ciganos (Iberian Gypsies) among his expedition members.  Remember that he was aiming to find a route to China and the East Indies, where he expected to encounter Jewish merchants.

Whatever comes of today’s announcement, it will remain a matter of historical fact that Columbus was a wealth and power-seeking scoundrel obsessed with status and titles. A man who brought nothing but pain, torture, disease, slavery, death, and genocide to the indigenous Taino people of the island he would rename “Hispaniola” – the modern Dominican Republic and Haiti.

Don’t trust my opinion.  Read his letters.  Read his friends’ letters.  Read royal court correspondence.  Read Bartolomé de las Casas.

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