Christopher Columbus - Hero or Villain of the New World Documentary — Transcript

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1. 0:04The man known to history as Christopher Columbus  was born in 1451 in the Republic of Genoa,
2. 0:13one of the many city-states that  occupied the Italian peninsula
3. 0:18during the Middle Ages. In the absence  of birth and baptismal certificates,
4. 0:23it is impossible to know the exact date when  Columbus was born, but records from later in
5. 0:30his life indicate that he was born between the  25th of August and the 31st of October. His
6. 0:37actual name was Cristobal Colon. Christopher  Columbus is the anglicised version of it.
7. 0:46Columbus’ father was Domenico Colombo, who  was born around 1418, and was a master wool
8. 0:53weaver and a member of the local guild of  clothiers in Genoa. Around 1445 Domenico
9. 1:01married Susanna Fontanarossa, the daughter of  a prosperous family who lived near the Porta
10. 1:08dell’Olivella overlooking the Bisagno River. It  was most likely here that Christopher was born
11. 1:16in 1451. The couple had four more children,  three sons; Bartholomew, Giovanni Pellegrino,
12. 1:24and Giacomo, also known by his Spanish name  of Diego, and a daughter named Bianchinetta.
13. 1:33In 1455 the family moved to a house near  the Porta Sant’ Andrea, where a later
14. 1:40house built on the same foundations serves as  the house-museum Casa di Colombo. As a child,
15. 1:47Columbus likely studied arithmetic, geography and  navigation at a school attached to his father’s
16. 1:54guild. He was tall and had red hair. In 1470  he may have moved with his family to Savona,
17. 2:02perhaps to escape political instability in  Genoa or so that Domenico could improve his
18. 2:08wool trade. During his youth Christopher  was often named in business transactions
19. 2:14alongside his father, and in August  1473 he was named in an agreement
20. 2:21with his parents and brother Giovanni to  sell the house near the Olivella gate.
21. 2:28Genoa is a port city located in the northwest  of the Italian peninsula. The Genoese Republic’s
22. 2:35territory consisted of a strip of land by  the Mediterranean coast largely corresponding
23. 2:41to the Italian region of Liguria. A powerful  maritime republic and once the rival of Venice,
24. 2:48Genoa controlled the islands of Corsica and  Sardinia, as well numerous Greek islands in
25. 2:55the Eastern Mediterranean, and a colony in  southern Crimea on the Black Sea. At the time
26. 3:01of Columbus’ birth Genoa one of the largest  cities in Europe with a population of 75,000,
27. 3:10although its fortunes were in decline after the  Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in
28. 3:161453, which affected Genoa’s Mediterranean trade.  In 1458 the Doge of Genoa sold the city-state to
29. 3:26France due to threats from the Spanish, only for  the republic to be restored three years later
30. 3:33after a rebellion. Within the Republic, the rival  families of the Fregosos and the Adornos vied for
31. 3:42dominance. Columbus’ family was also caught  up in this torturous political wrangling and
32. 3:49supported the Fregoso faction. In 1463 the Duke  of Milan, Francesco Sforza, conquered the city,
33. 3:58and though Milanese rule restored political order,  the city’s maritime trade continued to decline.
34. 4:07It is unclear when Columbus went to sea for the  first time, interpretations ranging from as early
35. 4:14as 1461 to as late as 1472. Given Genoa’s  maritime traditions, it is possible that the
36. 4:24young Columbus sailed along the coast to buy and  sell goods on behalf of his father. Between 1470
37. 4:31and 1472 he may have been on a Genoese warship  fighting the Aragonese, a Spanish kingdom, in
38. 4:38the service of René of Anjou, the French duke who  had briefly been King of Naples. What is certain
39. 4:46is that around 1473 Columbus was apprenticed to  the banking house of Centurione, and in 1474 or
40. 4:551475 he sailed to the Greek island of Chios,  one of the Genoese colonies in the Eastern
41. 5:03Mediterranean. Then, in May 1476 he travelled on  an expedition to Portugal, during the course of
42. 5:11which he was shipwrecked and ended up swimming six  miles to the shoreline near the town of Lagos, in
43. 5:20southeast Portugal. Eventually he made his way to  Lisbon and from there he ended up travelling north
44. 5:28to England in 1477 and to Ireland where he spent  a brief period in the port of Galway. During this
45. 5:36northern voyage he also possibly visited Iceland.  Some have speculated that perhaps there Columbus
46. 5:45first learned about the North American continent  from legends told about the Norse settlements that
47. 5:50had been founded in what is now Newfoundland  back at the start of the eleventh century.
48. 5:58Columbus eventually made his home in Portugal,  a kingdom that was at the forefront of European
49. 6:05discovery and exploration at the time. The  Portuguese voyages of discovery had begun half a
50. 6:12century earlier under the patronage of the Infante  Dom Henrique, known in English as Prince Henry the
51. 6:19Navigator. From a base in Sagres on the tip of  Cape St Vincent, Henry sponsored voyages which
52. 6:27discovered the Azores Islands in 1439 and the  Cape Verde Islands in the late 1450s. By the time
53. 6:36of Columbus’ arrival in Portugal, the Portuguese  had expanded their voyages further south along the
54. 6:42coast of Africa and were voyaging ever nearer  to the Cape of Good Hope. The primary goal of
55. 6:49the Portuguese navigators and their sponsors  was to find a route round Africa to India,
56. 6:56China and the Spice Islands of Moluccas of the  East Indies in an effort to circumvent the Arab
57. 7:03merchants that controlled the trade with the Far  East. Yet, while most advocated for continuing
58. 7:09the exploration of the west coast of Africa,  some Europeans, such as the Florentine scholar,
59. 7:16Paolo Toscanelli, wondered if a western route  bypassing Africa might be a faster route to
60. 7:23Asia. However, these ideas found little leverage  in the royal court of Portugal or among mariners
61. 7:31themselves. Instead, the Portuguese continued to  establish trade relations with local kingdoms of
62. 7:38Africa and also began to conquer small areas  they believed essential for their efforts.
63. 7:47Columbus, like many other mariners of the day,  became deeply involved in the developing trade
64. 7:53with Africa, his work taking him as far south as  the Portuguese trading post of Elmina in modern
65. 8:00day Ghana. While sailing along the coasts of  Africa he improved his navigation and cartographic
66. 8:07skills and became more experienced in sailing  in newly discovered waters. When back in Lisbon,
67. 8:15Christopher and his younger brother Bartholomew  worked together in the map and navigational
68. 8:20chart business making Columbus a skilled  cartographer by the 1480s. Around 1479 he
69. 8:29married Felipa Perestrello e Moniz, a woman in  her early twenties with an Italian father and
70. 8:36a mother from one of Portugal’s leading  noble families. Columbus’ father-in-law
71. 8:42had been involved in the colonisation of the  island of Madeira and received the captaincy
72. 8:48of the small island of Porto Santo near  Madeira, which at this time was in the
73. 8:54hands of his son and namesake Bartolomeo.  The newlywed couple moved to Porto Santo,
74. 9:01where Columbus listened to tales from his  mother-in-law of her late husband’s voyages,
75. 9:07inheriting his instruments and charts. Soon after  the Columbuses moved to Porto Santo, Felipa gave
76. 9:15birth to the couple’s first and only child, a son  named Diego. Tragically, while Columbus was on a
77. 9:23voyage to Africa, Felipa died sometime between  1482 and 1484, leaving Columbus a widower with a
78. 9:33young son to raise. Despite the loss of his wife,  Columbus remained committed to his profession.
79. 9:42In August 1481 João II became King of Portugal  and sought to further expand Portugal’s maritime
80. 9:51empire. The following year he sent Diogo Cão  on a voyage to explore further south down the
81. 9:58African coast becoming perhaps the first  European expedition to cross the equator.
82. 10:05Portugal was abuzz with news about the growing  list of accomplishments of Portuguese mariners.
83. 10:12Columbus was widely read and was a master in  several languages including Latin, Portuguese,
84. 10:18and Castilian. He also paid attention to news  from abroad. In Lisbon he heard stories of
85. 10:25mariners sailing out of the port of Bristol in  southern England sighting land to the west of
86. 10:32Ireland and he corresponded with Paolo Toscanelli  about his theories about the size of the Earth
87. 10:39and the potential of finding a western route  to Asia. In creating his theories, Columbus
88. 10:46drew upon Toscanelli as well as geographers from  the Islamic world and ancient Greece. He made his
89. 10:53own calculations which indicated that Japan, or  Cipangu as the famous explorer Marco Polo called
90. 11:01it, was 2,400 nautical miles due west of the  Canary Islands. Armed with these calculations,
91. 11:10around 1484 Columbus asked King João for three  caravels, small manoeuvrable sailing ships,
92. 11:19for a westward expedition to Japan.  After consulting with three experts,
93. 11:25the King turned Columbus down. Disheartened  by his failure in the Portuguese court,
94. 11:32Columbus sent his brother Bartholomew to England  in an attempt to interest King Henry VII in the
95. 11:38proposal after he rose to the throne there  in 1485, but the English monarch was likewise
96. 11:47uninterested at that time, although he would  sponsor similar voyages in years to come.
97. 11:55Meanwhile, in mid-1485, Christopher went to King  Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, the rulers of the
98. 12:02two Spanish kingdoms, Aragon and Castile, who were  at that time forging a new Spanish nation after
99. 12:11their marriage had brought the Castilians and the  Aragonese into a political union. Upon his arrival
100. 12:18in Spain, Columbus initially called on the Duke  of Medina Sidonia and the Duke of Medina Celi,
101. 12:25both wealthy aristocrats with plenty of influence  at court. While Medina Celi was prepared to
102. 12:32furnish Columbus with the three or four caravels  he requested, he recognised the potential impact
103. 12:39of such a voyage and requested permission from  Queen Isabella, who agreed to meet the Genoese
104. 12:45navigator. While he was waiting for an audience  with the queen in Spain, Columbus met a young,
105. 12:52orphaned peasant girl named Beatriz Enríquez de  Harana who would become his mistress and mother
106. 13:00to his second child Ferdinand in 1488. Columbus’  fortunes seemed to be on the rise, particularly
107. 13:09after an encouraging first meeting with Queen  Isabella in May 1486. Following the meeting,
108. 13:16Isabella appointed a commission to examine  Columbus’ proposed voyage. As the commission
109. 13:22met in the university town of Santander, its  members were sceptical about Columbus’ theory
110. 13:29of a narrow western ocean but did not dismiss a  western voyage altogether. In 1487 Columbus was
111. 13:37put on the royal payroll. However, for the time  being in the late 1480s and into the early 1490s,
112. 13:45Isabella and Ferdinand’s primary focus remained  on conquering the last Muslim emirate in southern
113. 13:52Spain, the emirate of Granada, and for a  time Columbus’ plans were delayed further.
114. 14:01Frustrated, but still undaunted, in 1488 Columbus  returned to Portugal to make a second attempt at
115. 14:08convincing King João to fund his expedition. While  he was in Lisbon, in December, another mariner in
116. 14:16Portuguese employ, Bartolomeu Dias, returned from  a voyage down the African coast. Although Dias
117. 14:24had not reached India, he had rounded the southern  tip of Africa and became the first of the voyagers
118. 14:31to look out onto the Indian Ocean. Dias’s voyage  established a viable eastern route to India and
119. 14:39the King of Portugal lost any and all interest in  Columbus’ proposed western route. Hence, between
120. 14:471489 and 1491, Columbus returned to Spain to  petition Isabella and Ferdinand. But he received
121. 14:56word in 1490 that the commission established  by Queen Isabella to investigate his proposed
122. 15:02western voyage had finally reported and rejected  Columbus’ idea, claiming among other things that
123. 15:11it would in fact take three years to sail west to  Asia, thus making it a far less pragmatic option
124. 15:18for the monarchs of Spain than sending their own  ships around the continent of Africa. Yet, when
125. 15:25Ferdinand and Isabella received the report, they  neither accepted nor rejected it, but informed
126. 15:33Columbus that his proposals might be considered  once again after the conquest of Granada.
127. 15:40After waiting for several months without any  further information, Columbus considered going to
128. 15:47France, where his brother Bartholomew was hopeful  about the support of the King of France. But then
129. 15:54a potential breakthrough came for Christopher  while in Spain in the summer of 1491 when he was
130. 16:01granted an audience with Queen Isabella, who was  at the fortified camp of Santa Fe overseeing the
131. 16:08siege of Granada. According to Ferdinand Columbus’  biography of his father, written many years later,
132. 16:16Columbus’ idea was rejected yet again on this  occasion, not because the committee found his
133. 16:22ideas impractical, but because the King and  Queen were not prepared to accept his demands
134. 16:29for titles and revenues. At this juncture he had  nearly resolved to head to France and commit to
135. 16:38convincing the government there to support his  plan, but in January 1492 the city of Granada, the
136. 16:46last Muslim stronghold in the Iberian Peninsula,  capitulated to the Spanish besiegers. With this,
137. 16:54Isabella and Ferdinand suddenly became much  more receptive to Columbus’ proposals. Concerted
138. 17:02negotiations commenced and in April 1492 an  agreement was finally reached. Columbus was
139. 17:10to be sent westwards with three caravels and  sailors, paid for by the Spanish monarchs. The
140. 17:17king and queen also agreed to appoint Columbus  as Viceroy and Governor-General to all the lands
141. 17:24that he might discover or claim in their name.  Armed with these promises, Columbus left Granada
142. 17:32on the 12th of May 1492 and arrived at the port  of Palos de la Frontera on the 22nd of May 1492.
143. 17:42The authorities at Palos were ordered by the  King and Queen to provide and refit two caravels,
144. 17:49the Niña and Pinta, while Columbus himself  chartered the carrack Santa Maria. It is
145. 17:56important to bear in mind how small these  ships that would discover the Americas
146. 18:01were. The caravels were around fifteen metres in  length and five metres wide at its widest point,
147. 18:10while the Santa María may have been up to twenty  metres in length and around six metres wide. The
148. 18:17white sails on the ships were painted with red  crosses, a symbol of the religious piety of the
149. 18:24Admiral and the Catholic Monarchs who sponsored  his expedition. Columbus’ flagship was the
150. 18:30Santa Maria, with its owner Juan de la Cosa as  second-in-command. Martín Alonso Pinzón and his
151. 18:39younger brother Vicente Yáñez Pinzón captained  the Pinta and Niña respectively. There is some
152. 18:47evidence that Martín Alonso had been curious  about a western passage to Japan before joining
153. 18:53Columbus’ voyage. On the 3rd of August, Columbus’  fleet departed Palos for the Canary Islands. Nine
154. 19:02days later the Santa María and the Niña arrived at  the island of Gomera in the Canaries. The Pinta,
155. 19:10whose rudder had been damaged, would not arrive in  Las Palmas until the 24th of August. Columbus and
156. 19:17the rest of the ships arrived at Las Palmas on the  following day and waited for the Pinta’s rudder to
157. 19:24be rebuilt under the supervision of Martín Alonso.  On the morning of the 6th of September Columbus’
158. 19:31fleet weighed anchor, though unfavourable winds  meant that it was not until the 9th of September
159. 19:38that the ships left the Canaries behind and  made their journey into the great unknown.
160. 19:46Columbus’ ships carried provisions for over  a year and if he sailed far enough he was
161. 19:53guaranteed to hit land, but he made a conscious  decision to understate the distance he believed
162. 20:00the fleet had travelled in order to make his  crew believe that they were closer to home than
163. 20:06they actually were. By the 19th of September they  were over a thousand miles west of the Canaries,
164. 20:14carried by favourable trade winds, but from  the 20th onwards the winds turned against them,
165. 20:21enabling the Admiral to reassure his crew  that they would also have suitable winds
166. 20:27for the homeward passage. The fleet made good  progress during the first week of October,
167. 20:33and by the 6th of October they had sailed  further west than where Columbus had expected
168. 20:39to find Japan. While Martín Alonso suggested  changing course, the Admiral continued west
169. 20:48hoping to hit China instead. At sunset on the 7th,  noticing a flock of birds heading west-southwest,
170. 20:56Columbus changed course to follow the birds hoping  they were headed for land. A couple of days later,
171. 21:04the Pinzón brothers advised Columbus to turn back,  and on the 10th the crew of the Santa María were
172. 21:13in open mutiny. The Admiral quelled the mutiny  by promising the men that they would sail on for
173. 21:20three or four more days and turn back then if they  did not reach land. After changing course back
174. 21:29west late on the 11th, the Pinta’s lookout Rodrigo  de Triana sighted land at 2 o’clock in the morning
175. 21:37of the 12th. Columbus gave orders to lower sail,  and after daybreak he came ashore thirty-three
176. 21:45days after leaving the Canaries. Columbus had  succeeded in directing his fleet across the
177. 21:51Atlantic. However, the lands he discovered  were not the ones he believed they were.
178. 21:59Columbus and his men had arrived in  the Bahamas and set foot on an island
179. 22:05known locally as Guanahaní, which the Admiral  claimed for the Spanish Crown as San Salvador.
180. 22:14The visitors were greeted by the Taino people,  a tribe that cultivated corn and made pottery,
181. 22:22but were typically unarmed and naked. Columbus  declared to the natives that he was sent “not
182. 22:29to subjugate you but to teach you the true  religion.” Writing in his Journal which he
183. 22:35intended to present to the sovereigns, Columbus  believed that these “Indians” would be useful as
184. 22:42servants and was deeply impressed with what  he saw as the goodness of the culture of the
185. 22:48people. Given how far he sailed, Columbus  was certain that he had reached the Indies,
186. 22:55though the poverty of the Indians he encountered  convinced the Admiral that he had not reached
187. 23:01Japan. After exploring San Salvador for a couple  of days, on the afternoon of the 14th Columbus
188. 23:09set sail seeking again in search of Japan, which  he figured would lie to the southwest, with China
189. 23:17beyond it. Through hand gestures and other signals  the Taino were able to supply and guide Columbus
190. 23:25to the island of Rum Cay, and thence onto Long  Island by the 16th. It took several days for the
191. 23:33natives to understand that the Spaniards were  looking for gold, and Columbus’ men went from
192. 23:39island to island marvelling at the unknown flora  and fauna but without finding either gold or Asia.
193. 23:50Convinced that he was only a day or two away  from Japan, on the 23rd of October Columbus
194. 23:57set sail for Cuba, which he believed from what  the natives had indicated might be Japan. After
195. 24:05arriving there on the 28th, he described the place  as “the most beautiful that eyes have ever seen:
196. 24:12full of very good harbours and deep rivers.”  When he did not find any sign of the “gold,
197. 24:20pearls and precious stones” that Marco Polo wrote  of in his description of Japan, Columbus concluded
198. 24:27that he must be on the Chinese mainland. Persuaded  by the local Taino that the city of Quinsay,
199. 24:35Marco Polo’s designation for the Chinese city of  Hangzhou, was some twenty-five miles to the south,
200. 24:42Columbus dispatched an embassy to the “Grand Khan”  headed by the Arabic interpreter Luis de Torres
201. 24:50carrying an official letter of credence from  Ferdinand and Isabella. On the 5th of November,
202. 24:57the delegation returned to report that all  they had seen was a village of several hundred
203. 25:03people living in thatched huts, and the man they  hoped would be the Emperor of China was merely
204. 25:10a local chieftain or cacique. Yet in their  quest for gold they had stumbled on local
205. 25:17Tainos rolling cigars and smoking tobacco, a  crop that would soon become quite valuable.
206. 25:26Although disappointed not to have found any  trace of the Chinese Emperor, Columbus wrote
207. 25:31in his journal intended for the King and Queen  that the Indians would make good Christians.
208. 25:39Columbus did take six captives from the local  Indians, whom Columbus hoped would learn Spanish,
209. 25:46become Christians and thus become equals with  the Spanish, and serve as interpreters for future
210. 25:53voyages. However, Columbus wrote in his diary  that, “we might form great friendship, for I knew
211. 26:00that they were a people who could be more easily  freed and converted to our holy faith by love than
212. 26:07by force.” On the 10th of November Columbus sailed  east heading for the island of Baneque, since
213. 26:15identified as Great Inagua, where the Indians  spoke of beaches covered in gold. By the middle
214. 26:22of November the fleet was struggling against the  wind and Columbus decided to turn back to Cuba.
215. 26:29After stopping off at various harbours there,  on the 5th of December the Admiral reached the
216. 26:35eastern extremity of the island and was planning  another attempt at Baneque when he decided to take
217. 26:42advantage of favourable winds to cross over to  the island to the east, which the Taino called
218. 26:49Haiti. Columbus named the new land Española,  subsequently Latinised as Hispaniola. On the 16th
219. 26:58of December he entertained a local chief there  and was encouraged by the fact that the people
220. 27:04here wore gold jewellery. The chief and other  locals informed him that the gold lay further to
221. 27:11the east and they duly sailed along the northern  coast of Hispaniola in search of it. By the 22nd,
222. 27:19Columbus arrived at Acul Bay and was receiving  gifts from the natives which included small pieces
223. 27:25of gold. He received messengers from Guacanagarí,  the supreme chief in northwest Haiti, who informed
224. 27:34him that the precious metals they had were from  a region of central Hispaniola that they called
225. 27:41the Cibao. Perhaps this was where Marco Polo’s  Cipangu was to be found, Columbus speculated.
226. 27:51On Christmas Eve, Columbus sailed east, hoping to  spend Christmas Day with Guacanagarí. On the night
227. 28:00of the 24th, after rounding Cape Haitien,  the Santa María ran aground while those on
228. 28:07board were asleep, lulled into the false sense of  security provided by the bay. Alerted by a small
229. 28:14boy who remained awake, Columbus realised that  the ship was taking in water and ordered Juan de
230. 28:22la Cosa to take steps to save it, but instead the  Santa María’s owner sought refuge with the Niña,
231. 28:30whose captain ordered him to go back to  save his ship. By the time he returned,
232. 28:36Columbus was forced to abandon the Santa María  and evacuate her men and stores to the Niña,
233. 28:44a task carried out with the assistance  of Guacanagarí and his subjects. After
234. 28:50meeting Columbus on the morning of the  26th, the cacique presented the Admiral
235. 28:56with gifts of gold and gestured where to find  a mine with a great abundance of gold. When
236. 29:02Guacanagarí expressed his fears about the  allegedly cannibal Caribs who lived there,
237. 29:09Columbus showed the chieftain the bows and arrows  and muskets salvaged from the Santa María and
238. 29:16won his trust. Many Spaniards begged to remain  behind to profit from the local mine. Columbus
239. 29:24ordered a fort to be built on the site, which he  named La Navidad. Thirty-nine men led by Diego
240. 29:31de Harana, the cousin of Columbus’ mistress  Beatriz, stayed behind at the new settlement.
241. 29:40Following reports from Indians that the Pinta,  which had sailed away from the main fleet some
242. 29:46weeks earlier, had been sighted further to the  east, after bidding farewell to his host on the
243. 29:522nd of January, Columbus set sail on the 4th.  By the 6th he found the Pinta sailing in his
244. 30:00direction and welcomed Martín Alonso aboard.  Both men defended their conduct on their day
245. 30:07of separation, and Pinzón reported to his  superior that while he had reached Baneque,
246. 30:14he found no gold there and sailed south to  Hispaniola and reached the peninsula of Monte
247. 30:21Cristi three weeks earlier. By this time Columbus  and the other senior mariners were coming to the
248. 30:28conclusion that the time had come to return  to Spain to report on their discoveries,
249. 30:34even if they had not located Japan,  China or a major source of gold. Thus,
250. 30:42in mid-January they turned back east and headed  home. During the return voyage, in mid-February,
251. 30:50Columbus composed a letter which he intended  to submit to the king and queen when he arrived
252. 30:55back to Spain, one which outlined his discoveries  and made the case for a second voyage. He claimed
253. 31:04that Cuba was China and told tales of Hispaniola  and its gold, even though he had found no major
254. 31:12source of the precious metal. Soon after finishing  the letter, the fleet was caught up in a terrible
255. 31:19storm and the two caravels lost sight of each  other. After praying for salvation, the wind died
256. 31:26down on the 14th and on the 17th they arrived  at the island of Santa Maria in the Azores.
257. 31:35Since he was in the service of the Spanish  monarchs, Columbus had sought to avoid any
258. 31:41Portuguese territory, but the damage to the  Niña forced him to make repairs and take on
259. 31:48provisions. Upon his arrival Columbus proudly  announced that he had discovered the Indies, but
260. 31:56the deputy captain of the island was unconvinced  and ordered the arrest of half the Niña’s crew,
261. 32:03though he later relented. By late February  Columbus set sail for Palos, but another storm
262. 32:11blew them towards Portugal, and rather than  risk sailing round the coast, Columbus sailed
263. 32:17into Lisbon on the 4th of March. As Columbus sat  at anchor, none other than Bartolomeu Dias came
264. 32:26aboard as the second-in-command of a Portuguese  warship and invited Columbus to an audience with
265. 32:33the King. The Admiral refused but agreed to show  his credentials from Ferdinand and Isabella,
266. 32:40after which he was welcomed into the city. A few  days later he met King João, who congratulated
267. 32:48him for his accomplishment but claimed the newly  discovered lands for the Crown of Portugal under
268. 32:54the terms of the 1479 Treaty of Alcáçovas , which  recognised Spanish dominion of the Canary islands
269. 33:03and Portuguese sovereignty over the Cape Verde  islands and West Africa. After further questioning
270. 33:10about his discoveries, Columbus was dismissed  on the 11th, and on the 15th of March the Niña
271. 33:17arrived back in Palos with the Pinta, last  seen a month earlier, following close behind.
272. 33:25While at Seville in early April, Columbus  received word from the King and Qu n in
273. 33:30Barcelona confirming his titles and privileges  and ordering preparations for a second voyage.
274. 33:38The Admiral drew up a plan of colonisation for two  thousand settlers to be distributed across three
275. 33:44or four towns in Hispaniola, each with a church  and sufficient clergy. He also set out regulations
276. 33:53governing the gathering of gold. Even before  Columbus’ arrival at court in Barcelona at the
277. 33:59end of April, Ferdinand and Isabella had sent news  of Columbus’ discoveries to Pope Alexander VI,
278. 34:07a Spaniard by birth, who issued four papal bulls  confirming Spanish sovereignty over not only the
279. 34:14lands which Columbus had discovered, but any  future lands “one hundred leagues towards the
280. 34:21west and south from any of the islands  commonly known as the Azores and Cape
281. 34:27Verdes.” After negotiations with Portugal,  the line of demarcation was moved to 370
282. 34:35leagues west of the Cape Verdes through  the Treaty of Tordesillas of June 1494.
283. 34:44In their formal instructions from the end of May,  Ferdinand and Isabella ordered Columbus to sail
284. 34:52to the Indies for the purpose of converting the  natives, taking care that they were “treated very
285. 34:59well and lovingly,” and to punish any Spaniards  who mistreated the Indians. For his second voyage,
286. 35:08Columbus was provided with a much larger fleet of  seventeen ships which consisted of three larger
287. 35:15ships and fourteen caravels, a clear indication  of how seriously Isabella and Ferdinand considered
288. 35:23his new discoveries to be. Columbus flew his flag  on the Santa María, nicknamed the Mariagalante,
289. 35:31while the Niña and very possibly the Pinta  from the previous expedition were among the
290. 35:37caravels. Among the 1,200 men who sailed on the  second voyage were the mapmaker Juan de la Cosa
291. 35:46and Juan Ponce de León, who would later discover  Florida. The fleet set sail from Cadiz on the 25th
292. 35:54of September 1493, and arrived at the Canaries a  week later. On the 7th of October the fleet sailed
293. 36:03west, and Columbus plotted a southwest course in  an attempt to find the fabled isle of Matinino en
294. 36:11route to Hispaniola. After a relatively smooth  passage, land was spotted early on Sunday the
295. 36:183rd of November, prompting Columbus to name the  island Dominica. Following an unsuccessful attempt
296. 36:26to find a harbour, the fleet sailed on. After  claiming a small island named Mariagalante after
297. 36:34the flagship, the fleet continued north along the  Lesser Antilles. On the 4th they arrived on an
298. 36:42island which Columbus named Guadeloupe after  the famous Spanish monastery in Estremadura.
299. 36:49Six days later the fleet set sail, passing  islands which he named Montserrat and Antigua.
300. 36:58After passing the three islands of  St Kitts, St Eustatius and Saba,
301. 37:04Columbus made land on the 13th at an island  he named Santa Cruz after the Holy Cross,
302. 37:12now known by the French form St Croix.  Following a skirmish with a small group
303. 37:18of local Caribs during which a Basque seaman  was mortally wounded, Columbus headed for a
304. 37:24chain of islands which Columbus named Saint  Ursula and the eleven thousand virgins after
305. 37:31a medieval legend which told of the daughter of  a Cornish king who went off to sea accompanied
306. 37:38by eleven thousand young women who were also  eager to escape being married off. On the 18th
307. 37:45of November the fleet arrived at a large island  which Columbus named San Juan Bautista or St
308. 37:52John the Baptist. A few years later Juan Ponce  de Léon would found the city of San Juan here,
309. 38:01later nicknamed San Juan de Puerto Rico, which  eventually gave its name to the whole island.
310. 38:08After collecting water and provisions, including a  large haul of fish, the fleet left Puerto Rico on
311. 38:15the 22nd of November and headed for Hispaniola,  following the instructions of the Taino guides.
312. 38:23As they arrived at the flat eastern tip of the  island that evening, some of the veterans from
313. 38:29the first voyage were unconvinced that it was  the same island since they had only encountered
314. 38:36the mountainous northern coast of Hispaniola,  but the natives assured them that this was so.
315. 38:44The fleet sailed west along the northern coast of  Hispaniola and soon reached the bay from where the
316. 38:50first expedition had departed homewards at the  beginning of the year. Keen to learn the fate
317. 38:56of the colony of Spaniards he had left behind  at La Navidad, the fleet arrived on the night
318. 39:02of the 27th of November, where flares were made  without a response from the fort. In the night a
319. 39:10group of Taino approached in a canoe led by  one of Guacanagarí’s cousins, who informed
320. 39:24Columbus that the settlers were well, but some  had died of illness while others were killed in
321. 39:27a quarrel. On the morning of the 28th the  fleet made anchor and found La Navidad burned
322. 39:29to the ground, after which Guacanagarí’s  cousin admitted that all the men were dead,
323. 39:37and they had been killed by Caonabó,  a rival chief. A couple of days later,
324. 39:42after speaking to Guacanagarí himself,  it emerged that the Navidad garrison
325. 39:49had fought among each other for gold and  women. A large party left the fort and
326. 39:57was captured and put to death by Caonabó,  who then attacked and killed what remained
327. 39:59of the Navidad garrison, despite  Guacanagarí’s best efforts to defend
328. 40:05his allies. For all Columbus wrote about  their timidity during the first expedition,
329. 40:11the Spaniards realised that the Taino  were capable of putting up resistance.
330. 40:18Mourning the loss of his comrades and seeking  a location for a new colony nearer to the gold
331. 40:24of the Cibao, Columbus left the unhappy  site of Navidad on the 7th of December and
332. 40:30attempted to sail eastwards against the  trade winds. On the 2nd of January 1494,
333. 40:37having covered barely thirty miles in twenty-five  days and with the men unwilling to go further,
334. 40:44Columbus founded the colony of La Isabela  in honour of the Queen. Even though the new
335. 40:51location did not have a suitable harbour and the  nearest source of drinking water was a mile away,
336. 40:57the Admiral began to lay the foundations of the  new settlement. On the 6th he ordered Alonso de
337. 41:05Ojeda to lead an inland expedition to the Cibao.  The party returned with gifts of gold from the
338. 41:12natives living among the rivers that flowed from  the mountains, but Columbus was keen to find a
339. 41:18mine to bring back the vast quantity of gold that  he had promised Ferdinand and Isabella. However,
340. 41:26with the men at La Isabela falling sick, on  the 2nd of February Columbus decided to send
341. 41:32twelve ships back to Spain under Antonio  de Torres to request further supplies,
342. 41:38leaving behind two bigger ships and three  caravels. On the 12th of March, Columbus led
343. 41:46an expedition up the mountains of the Cibao and  established an inland fort at Santo Tomás, which
344. 41:54he intended as the centre of mining operations.  He would remain here for several weeks.
345. 42:02On the 24th of April, Columbus took the  three caravels and went to Cuba, hoping to
346. 42:09prove his theory correct that it was a peninsula  connected to the Chinese mainland. After reaching
347. 42:16the eastern promontory, on the 30th, Columbus and  his captains decided to explore the unknown south
348. 42:24coast. Late in the day, they entered a harbour  which Columbus called Puerto Grande but was known
349. 42:32by the native Taino as Guantanamo. After hugging  the shore before it turned northeast at Cape Cruz,
350. 42:40Columbus sailed south for Jamaica, where he was  told there would be large quantities of gold.
351. 42:47Arriving there on the 5th of May, Columbus  encountered more than sixty canoes full of
352. 42:53warriors, who dispersed after a blank salvo from  the Spanish cannons. The following day they came
353. 43:01across another band of warriors and killed several  with crossbows, and after failing to find the
354. 43:08promised gold, the fleet returned to Cuba. After  going round the coast the fleet headed west and
355. 43:15discovered an archipelago off southern Cuba  which Columbus named the Queen’s Garden. Here
356. 43:22they encountered flamingos for the first time. As the fleet continued west, Columbus was
357. 43:30encouraged by natives who informed him that the  coast had no end. After getting tangled in another
358. 43:37archipelago off the Zapata Peninsula, on the 27th  of May the fleet anchored near the fishing port
359. 43:45of Batabanó, where twenty years later the town of  San Cristóbal de la Habana, later simply Havana,
360. 43:53would be founded. By the middle of June, Columbus  was less than fifty miles from the western end of
361. 44:00Cuba, but as the coast curved to the south  the Admiral convinced himself that this was
362. 44:06the Malay Peninsula. He turned back east on  the 13th of June and eventually decided to
363. 44:13return to Jamaica to resupply. In the weeks that  followed Columbus would have been surprised to
364. 44:20see his brother Bartholomew, who some time  earlier had left France for Spain following
365. 44:27news of his brother’s discoveries. There he been  knighted by Ferdinand and Isabella and was placed
366. 44:34in command of three caravels sent westwards  to the Caribbean to resupply Christopher.
367. 44:42This piece of good news aside, Columbus had much  to worry about. He had still failed to find Japan,
368. 44:51China or any other part of Asia, which was his  ultimate goal, while a source of the gold which he
369. 44:58saw the natives wearing also eluded him. Finally,  his men were increasingly in conflict with the
370. 45:06natives on several of the islands which had been  discovered, the soldier Mosén Pedro Margarit and
371. 45:12the 400 men under his command roamed the islands  extorting gold from the natives but after a rebuke
372. 45:20from Columbus’ brother Diego, Margarit stormed  back onboard and sailed back to Spain. Among the
373. 45:27men who joined him was Fray Buil, the Catalan  friar who had been tasked with converting the
374. 45:35native Indians. Indeed, much of the remainder of  1494 and all of 1495 were spent fighting the Taino
375. 45:44on Hispaniola and the other islands as Columbus’  second voyage became bogged down in distractions
376. 45:52despite the far superior resources he had been  afforded by comparison with the first expedition.
377. 46:00In June 1495 a hurricane destroyed three of  Columbus’ ships, with only the Niña remaining
378. 46:08afloat, and with the wood salvaged Columbus  ordered the construction of a new vessel nicknamed
379. 46:15India. Keen to defend himself against Margarit  and Buil’s reports to Ferdinand and Isabella,
380. 46:22Columbus set sail in March 1496 once the  India was fully equipped. Before doing so,
381. 46:30he gave his brother Bartholomew, whom he appointed  Adelantado or Leader, instructions to abandon La
382. 46:38Isabela and found the new colony of Santo Domingo  on the southern coast of Hispaniola. Over two
383. 46:46hundred Spaniards and thirty Indians were aboard  the Niña and India as Columbus returned home. On
384. 46:54the 8th of June the two caravels sighted the coast  of Portugal, and arrived at Cadiz on the 11th.
385. 47:03In the summer of 1496 Columbus met the  King and Queen at court in Burgos and
386. 47:09presented his case for a third voyage. The  sovereigns agreed to Columbus’ proposal to
387. 47:17send two ships to re-provision Hispaniola and  six to explore the ocean south of the islands,
388. 47:25where King João of Portugal believed there  was a large continent. Since the monarchs
389. 47:31were otherwise distracted by the wars they were  engaged in against the French and others in Italy,
390. 47:38it was not until April 1497 that they issued  instructions for a new voyage. In January 1498
391. 47:48the Niña and India were sent ahead to Hispaniola,  while Columbus chartered six further ships,
392. 47:56which consisted of the Admiral’s flagship and five  caravels. Columbus’ third voyage began on the 30th
393. 48:04of May 1498 and after anchoring in the Canaries  on the 19th of June the Admiral ordered three
394. 48:12caravels to sail to Hispaniola via Dominica and  Puerto Rico, while he took the rest to the Cape
395. 48:20Verdes. On the 4th of July, Columbus set sail for  the Indies on a southwest course in his attempt
396. 48:28to validate the theory of a large continent south  of the Caribbean islands. In late July he passed
397. 48:36an island with three mountains to the west, which  Columbus named Trinidad. Then, for the first time
398. 48:44in his voyages, Columbus caught sight of the  American mainland on the 1st of August 1498,
399. 48:53but from ten miles away it looked like an  island which Columbus named Isla Sancta.
400. 49:02After anchoring on the south-western  cape of Trinidad, the men came ashore,
401. 49:07where Columbus was disappointed to find that the  native inhabitants were the familiar Caribs. On
402. 49:14the 5th of August the fleet headed west  and anchored on the American mainland for
403. 49:19the first time. The following day the fleet  anchored on the south of the Paria peninsula,
404. 49:26where Columbus encountered natives wearing  jewellery made of guanin, an alloy of gold,
405. 49:33silver, and copper. Recognising that these Indians  were of a different and seemingly more advanced
406. 49:40culture and spoke a different language, Columbus  captured a few to become interpreters. As they
407. 49:47sailed along the coast, the Spaniards were excited  to see the women wearing pearl necklaces. On the
408. 49:5410th of August Columbus sailed west under  the assumption that Paria was an island,
409. 50:01but was eventually forced to turn back east.  After sailing through the northern channel
410. 50:07between Trinidad and Venezuela, which Columbus  named the Boca del Dragón, the Admiral sailed
411. 50:15west along the coast and finally realised that he  must have discovered the hypothesised continent,
412. 50:22hitherto unknown to mankind. Convinced that  he was south of China, Columbus desperately
413. 50:31wanted to continue exploring, but instead was  compelled to resupply his brother in Hispaniola.
414. 50:40On the 20th of August Columbus arrived at Beata  Island a hundred miles from Santo Domingo,
415. 50:47where he met his brother the following day.  On the 22nd they made their way back to the
416. 50:53port and arrived on the 31st. During Columbus’  absence, Francisco Roldán, whom Columbus had
417. 51:02appointed chief justice on the island, had led a  rebellion against Bartholomew. After the arrival
418. 51:09of the Niña and India carrying news of royal  confirmation of the Adelantado’s authority,
419. 51:15the men aboard joined Bartholomew in pacifying  Roldán. The Spanish rebel remained at large and
420. 51:24his rebellion had been bolstered by men from the  three caravels Columbus sent from the Canaries,
421. 51:30who missed Santo Domingo and ended up near  Roldán’s headquarters at Xaragua. On the 18th
422. 51:37of October Columbus sent two of his ships back  to Spain with news about his discoveries of the
423. 51:44mainland continent and requested reinforcements  to deal with the rebellion. In the meantime the
424. 51:51Admiral sought to negotiate with Roldán and was  forced to grant concessions to him in September
425. 51:571499, offering the rebels free passage home with  their slaves and free land grants for those who
426. 52:05stayed. In the process, Columbus helped to set  up the encomienda system by allocating large
427. 52:12tracts of land and the Indians who lived  on it to individual settlers. The caciques
428. 52:19consented to this new arrangement, which  was less of a burden than the gold tribute.
429. 52:27While Columbus struggled to restore order  on Hispaniola, he received news that Alonso
430. 52:33de Hojeda had obtained permission to lead a  voyage of his own, reaching the Gulf of Paria
431. 52:40and continued his discoveries on the mainland,  which he named Venezuela. The Florentine Amerigo
432. 52:48Vespucci who joined this expedition would  later lend his name to the whole continent,
433. 52:55America being named after Amerigo who published  some pamphlets back in Europe in the years that
434. 53:02followed advertising the discovery of the new  continent which now bears his name. Hojeda was
435. 53:09not along in undertaking such voyages independent  of Columbus. Vicente Yáñez Pinzón carried out
436. 53:17his own expedition in 1499, discovering  the mouth of the Amazon River and large
437. 53:24parts of the Brazilian coast before doubling  back to Paria and Hispaniola. These voyages,
438. 53:31carried out without the knowledge of the Admiral  of the Indies, were a sign that Ferdinand and
439. 53:37Isabella were running out of patience with  Columbus’ promises of gold and a sea route
440. 53:43to Asia. But worse was to follow. In July 1500  Francisco de Bobadilla sailed for Santo Domingo
441. 53:53as royal commissioner with authority over the  Admiral. Upon his arrival in August, Columbus
442. 54:00was arrested and sent back to Spain to answer for  why the monarchs’ resources had been squandered.
443. 54:09Columbus returned to Spain in chains and  arrived at Cadiz at the end of October,
444. 54:15but it was not until mid-December that he, as  well as his brothers Diego and Bartholomew, who
445. 54:22had also been arrested, were released and summoned  to court. There the king and queen treated them
446. 54:29graciously but were distracted by a new round of  hostilities in Italy. Even with these conflicts,
447. 54:37the monarchs continued to grant charters for new  voyages to explore more of the American continent,
448. 54:44further diminishing Columbus’ role in  the governance of America. For instance,
449. 54:50on the 3rd of September 1501, Isabella and  Ferdinand appointed Nicolás de Ovando as
450. 54:58governor of the Indies, while Hojeda and Vicente  Pinzón were allocated their own fiefdoms in the
451. 55:06Americas. After Ovando set sail in February 1502,  Columbus requested ships for another voyage,
452. 55:15hoping to find a western passage to India which he  expected to be west of Cuba. On the 14th of March,
453. 55:23he received royal authorisation for a fourth  voyage. This time the rulers of Spain instructed
454. 55:31him to finally find the western route  to Asia and to sail around the world.
455. 55:39On the 9th of May 1502, Columbus left Cadiz with a  fleet of four caravels and around 140 men on board
456. 55:48on what would be his fourth and final voyage to  the Americas. After stopping off at the Canaries
457. 55:56the fleet began its ocean crossing on the 25th.  Although aiming for Dominica, in mid-June they
458. 56:03arrived to Martinique. Despite being warned by  the monarchs not to call at Hispaniola on the
459. 56:10outbound voyage, Columbus arrived there at the end  of the month seeking to replace one of his ships,
460. 56:17which he deemed too unwieldy for exploration.  Ovando’s fleet of thirty ships was preparing to
461. 56:25sail home and Columbus warned the new governor not  to do so until an expected storm had passed over.
462. 56:34The dismissive governor refused the Admiral  entrance into Santo Domingo and ordered the
463. 56:40fleet to depart. Soon enough almost the entire  fleet was destroyed, including the flagship with
464. 56:48Antonio de Torres and Bobadilla and a substantial  quantity of gold on board. Only a single ship
465. 56:57arrived back in Spain, the one carrying the  agent Columbus had appointed to bring home his
466. 57:03share of the gold, worth 4,000 pesos. While Santo  Domingo itself was destroyed by the hurricane,
467. 57:13Columbus intelligently shielded his fleet from the  most powerful winds and all four ships survived.
468. 57:22The hurricane was a sign of things to come for  Columbus’ fourth voyage. From the end of July
469. 57:29to mid-October, the fleet sailed along Central  America trying to find the straits that would
470. 57:35carry them westwards to what Columbus imagined  was the Indian Ocean. After reaching land on
471. 57:43the northern coast of Honduras on the 16th  of August, the fleet sailed east and then
472. 57:49south along the eastern coast of Nicaragua  towards Costa Rica. In early October the
473. 57:56fleet sailed into a channel which for a brief  moment appeared to be the desired straits,
474. 58:03but instead turned out to be a wide bay which  the Admiral named Almirante Bay. Over the next
475. 58:11few days Columbus was made to understand by  the natives that there were no straits and
476. 58:18he was on an isthmus which separated him from  what he still believed was the Indian Ocean.
477. 58:25He consoled himself that these natives wore large  gold disks on their chests as jewellery. For the
478. 58:33remainder of the year the fleet sailed along  the coast of the Veragua region to Panama,
479. 58:39which the Indians identified as a great source of  gold. The fleet spent Christmas and New Year of
480. 58:471503 anchored within sight of the location where  the Panama Canal would be built four centuries
481. 58:54later. On the 6th of January 1503 Columbus set  up camp near a river he named Belén, which was
482. 59:04intended as a base for exploring the promised gold  of Veragua. The Spanish soon obtained permission
483. 59:11to explore from the local cacique of the Guaymi  tribe, and at the beginning of February they
484. 59:18managed to find a source of gold richer than any  in Hispaniola. Finally, Columbus seemed to have
485. 59:26accomplished one of his main goals, to find  a source of precious metal and he now ordered
486. 59:33the construction of a permanent settlement  nearby which he named Santa María de Belén.
487. 59:42In early April 1504, Columbus decided to leave  some of his men behind and head home to Spain
488. 59:50with news of the discovery of a source of gold.  This was a violation of his instructions which had
489. 59:57commanded him to find the western route, but the  discovery of a source of gold left him confident
490. 1:00:05that his employers would want him to return home  to inform them of what he had found. After sailing
491. 1:00:12east along the Panama coast, Columbus imagined  that Hispaniola was directly due north, but
492. 1:00:20instead his fleet, now down to two after another  worm-eaten ship had to be abandoned, was heading
493. 1:00:28straight for Cuba. On the 10th of May they came  across a group of islands full of turtles which
494. 1:00:35they named Las Tortugas, now the Cayman Islands.  By the time they reached the southern coast of
495. 1:00:43Cuba, the remaining ships were in extremely  bad condition and taking on water, prompting
496. 1:00:50Columbus to head south for Jamaica. As the ships  were no longer seaworthy, they ran ashore on the
497. 1:00:5825th of May at a place now called St Ann’s Bay.  They would spend over a year here effectively
498. 1:01:05waiting to be rescued by their compatriots on the  other islands of the Caribbean. During this time
499. 1:01:12Columbus had to contend with infighting amongst  his men, native revolts and dwindling resources.
500. 1:01:21In the end it was only at the end of June  1504 that a small caravel of Spanish colonists
501. 1:01:29from Hispaniola found them stranded on Jamaica.  After taking on the hundred or so survivors that
502. 1:01:37remained, the vessel arrived in Santo Domingo  six weeks later. There, in September 1504,
503. 1:01:45Columbus chartered a new ship and sailed for  Europe, leaving America behind for the last time,
504. 1:01:52though his aspiration was to return again when he  left. He arrived in Spain on the 7th of November
505. 1:02:001504. When Columbus returned he received no  invitation to make report from the king and
506. 1:02:08queen as Queen Isabella was terminally ill and  died just two and a half weeks later. Columbus
507. 1:02:16was himself increasingly ill too and could not  travel to court in the months that followed. It
508. 1:02:23was only in May 1505 that Columbus felt well  enough to travel to the court at Segovia,
509. 1:02:30where he met King Ferdinand. The monarch,  who was now embroiled in a clash with the
510. 1:02:37nobles of Castile to see if he could rule his  deceased wife’s kingdom following her death,
511. 1:02:43gave him a frosty response, doubtlessly  exacerbated by Columbus’ failure to find the
512. 1:02:50western route to Asia and suspicious of any claims  his Italian navigator made about finding gold in
513. 1:02:58the Americas at this stage. Columbus spent the  last year of his life petitioning at the Spanish
514. 1:03:06court to have his claims to 10% of any gold found  in the Americas given to him and to have his son
515. 1:03:14Diego succeed him as Viceroy of any territories  that had been discovered. It was in this rather
516. 1:03:23un-salubrious manner that he died at Valladolid  on the 20th of May 1506 at the age of fifty-four.
517. 1:03:33There is no doubting the significance  of Christopher Columbus as an historical
518. 1:03:38figure. 1492, the year that he crashed  into the New World while looking for Asia,
519. 1:03:45is one of the most significant years in human  history. Some modern descriptions of him as a
520. 1:03:52navigator who simply got lost are not accurate.  He was correct in his analysis that a western
521. 1:04:00route existed to Asia, he just hadn’t realised  there was an enormous landmass in the way. His
522. 1:04:07success lies in his persistence in petitioning at  various European courts all through the 1480s and
523. 1:04:15early 1490s for an expedition to be undertaken  westwards, when all the monarchs of Europe were
524. 1:04:23more interested in further exploring the  route to Asia around Africa. Admittedly,
525. 1:04:29though, in this age of intense European overseas  exploration, someone was going to discovery the
526. 1:04:36Americas before very long. It is worth remembering  that John Cabot, another Italian explorer in the
527. 1:04:44service of King Henry VII of England, was actually  the first person to reach mainland America in
528. 1:04:51early modern times when he arrived there in 1497  at a time when Columbus and the Spanish were still
529. 1:04:59exploring the islands of the Caribbean. As such,  had Columbus not rediscovered the New World in
530. 1:05:071492 in the way that he did, someone else would  have done so before long. His accomplishments
531. 1:05:14would not have satisfied him. Ultimately, when  he died in 1506 he did so believing his work
532. 1:05:22to have ended in failure as the western route  to Asia was not found nor riches obtained. It
533. 1:05:30would be fourteen years before Ferdinand Magellan  sailed around the southern tip of the Americas in
534. 1:05:361520 before the western route into the Pacific  Ocean was located, right around the time that
535. 1:05:44Hernan Cortes was conquering the Aztec Empire  in Mexico and setting Spain on the road to
536. 1:05:51obtaining vast riches from the Americas. Had he  lived to see those events, Columbus might have
537. 1:05:59believed his life’s work had ended in success. What do you think of Christopher Columbus? Was
538. 1:06:08he a visionary who should be credited with  discovering the Americas or would someone
539. 1:06:13else have founded the New World before  very long if he hadn’t done so? Please
540. 1:06:19let us know in the comment section and in the  meantime, thank you very much for watching.