Christopher Columbus

A man with a mission and moral vacancy.

    Some, in the past, have tried to prove that Christopher Columbus was a Spaniard, others thought he might be a Greek, but serious scholars, through years of research, are firmly convinced he was an Italian. To be more specific, a Geonese, one who was born in or near Genoa, Italy.

    Columbus had little or no formal education and spoke a native dialect that was never a written language. When, later in life, he did learn to write it was not in Italian, but Castilian, then a dialect of Spanish, but is now the main spoken language of Spain.

    He worked in his father trade as a master weaver for awhile and even as a wine buyer for a little shop his father operated. In his early 20's he started to make trips to sea, to nearby lands, perhaps to buy the wool and wine for his father's shop.

     His brother was a mapmaker, and for a while, he learned a little of that trade too. Once, as a deckhand on a voyage to England, French pirates sunk his ship and he used an oar as a life raft and made his way to Portugal. That turned out to be a fortunate event, for Portugal at the time was a center for overseas exploration, and the young shipwrecked Columbus learned navigation and hydrography.

    Sixteen years later he set sail, and Columbus bumped into a new land unknown by him but peopled with tens of millions of tribes and advanced civilizations.

 It’s immoral and sad that his exploration eventually led to disease, slavery, and the extinction of vast empires. He condoned native peoples rape and pilliging. In Europe he is said to have condemned Jews and non-whites for not being Christian. These are the historic truths of man who is honored for discovering America. Discovery? I think not. Honored? Hense, today's controversy.