Christopher Columbus: Motivations and Controversies

• Christopher Columbus is a figure who is both mythologized and debated in history.

Columbus's Knowledge and Motivation

• Columbus was not the first to propose the Earth was spherical; scholars had established this concept centuries earlier.
• He believed the Earth was pear-shaped, with a protrusion as the source of rivers and a gateway to heaven.
• While a decent seaman, Columbus's geographical understanding was flawed, underestimating the Earth's size.
• Religious motivations significantly influenced Columbus, aiming to use Asian riches to fund a new Catholic crusade to take Jerusalem.
• Queen Isabela of Spain was intrigued by Columbus's proposal, aligning with her devout Catholicism and the completion of the Reconquista.

Columbus's Controversial Reputation

• Columbus was brutal to natives and claimed their lands as Spanish territory.
• His views were racist by modern standards, judging native Americans by their religion, language, and cultural practices.
• He insisted on being known by an inscrutable symbol.
• Columbus is both overly credited and blamed, with his accidental discovery of the Americas resulting from imagination, fearlessness, and ability to gain sponsorship.

New Spain Conquest

• Conquest is defined as aggressively seizing land to exploit resources, sometimes with the justification of bringing civilization and religion.
• A financial motive for conquest/empires was the development of new markets.

Conquistadors

• Conquistadors were minor Spanish noblemen leading conquest missions in the New World,
• Cortes conquered the Aztecs in Mexico in 1519.
• Pizarro conquered the Inca in Peru in 1532.
• Coronado explored the current Southwest US in the 1540s.
• Menendez established St. Augustine, Florida, in 1565 as a fort against European competition.
• St. Augustine, FL is the oldest continuously-existing European city in the US.

Reasons for Conquest

• Metals (money): Europe was shifting to a monetary economy in the 16th century, valuing gold and silver due to their scarcity.
• The New World possessed gold and silver in the ground and within native's jewelry, coveted by China, which was moving to a silver standard.
• Missions (religion): Spain remained Catholic, leading to Catholicism taking hold in areas they settled.

Catholicism's Success in the New World

• Iconography: Catholicism's use of physical objects in rituals resonated with natives accustomed to using "icons" in their own religions.
• Veneration of saints/polytheism: Praying to saints in Catholicism was familiar to natives from polytheistic religions.
• Catholicism remains influential in Latin America, with more Catholics residing there than anywhere else.
• In 2013, Jorge Maria Bergoglio of Argentina became Pope Francis I, the first pope from outside Europe.

Explore the motivations and controversies surrounding Christopher Columbus. Columbus's geographical understanding was flawed, and religious motivations significantly influenced him. He aimed to use Asian riches to fund a new Catholic crusade to take Jerusalem. His views were considered racist.