I see Columbus as a man of his time. He was an admiral, appeared vehemently Catholic (Queen Isabella and her religious adviser from childhood, the notorious Tomas Torquemada, would have it no other way), but their is evidence in his journals that he was more a man of logic than superstition. He was brave (or desperate) to the point of insanity, and tenacious. I have the logs of his first and second New World voyages in English. They are on the net. I have sailed his waters from the Bahamas to south of St. Lucia. He was a fascinating character.
I share no animosity toward him. Under orders, he carried with him—at unnecessary cost of space and provisions—two fanatical friars of the infamous Dominican Order, the brutal, militant order of priests created by Torquemada specifically to rid Spain of all non-Catholics. These were the prosecutors of the Inquisition.
Columbus’ orders were to seek out westward trade rout to riches of Asia and claim all “uncivilized” lands (uninhabited lands or lands inhabited by technologically inferior non-Catholics) for the Spanish crown along the way..The priest’s orders were to convert all “savages” found on the voyage to Catholicism or have them put to the sword. If Columbus wanted ships, he would have to abide by the conditions dictated by Isabella. .
He was the ambitious son of a Genovese wool weaver, and became a successful seafaring merchant/mercenary/explorer interested in new and better trade routs, repair stations and new sources of trade product. He had been sailing European, North Atlantic and west African waters for years.
He read widely about astronomy, geography, and history, including the works of Claudius Ptolemy, Cardinal Pierre d’Ailly’s Imago Mundi, the travels of Marco Polo and Sir John Mandeville, Pliny’s Natural History, and Pope Pius II’s Historia Rerum Ubique Gestarum. (Wikipedia)
He did very well, earning an admiral’s rank from the Portuguese crown and then married far beyond his station. His first wife was a redhead, Filipa Moniz Perestrelo, a woman from tiny Porto Santo Island in the North Atlantic Portuguese archipelago of Madeira. She was the daughter of a Portuguese Knight of Santiago who was also a valued member of Prince Henry the Navigator’s household. She had been educated in one of the most elite convents in Portugal and obtained the status of Comendadora of the Military Order of St. James, one of only twelve in her generation. She gave Colombus two sons of whom each became admirals and Spanish viceroys of the West Indies. She died eight years before his first voyage west.
Through her family, he had access to a vast library of nautical charts that had been collected from all corners of the known world and unknown and incomprehensible to other seafarers like himself. It is from these charts and his other readings that he formulated the idea that a shorter, safer, less competitive trade route to Asia could be had by sailing to the west. So, he went begging among the monarchs of Europe for ships, money and brave men to pursue this wild dream. Isabella of Spain eventually took him up on it and gave him three, small, old, rotting ships and a crew of wastrels, some of whom had never been to sea.
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