From Edge of the World to Leader of the World: Trollheart's History of America

[Trollheart]

Leif Ericssson

Reacting to the tales of one of his countrymen, Bjarni Herjolfsson, who had discovered what is generally taken to have been north coastal America quite by accident as he tried to find his father, who had emigrated to Greenland (Bjarni obviously wasn't the world's greatest navigator), but who had not bothered to make landfall tehre, being in a hurry and not very interested, Erik's son Leif decided to retrace Bjarni's route to see if he could find this strange country. It wasn't too hard: America lies just over the Davis Strait from Greenland, about two hundred and fifty miles of a journey, a mere popping down to the shops for some tobacco and mead, can I pick you up anything for a Viking. So the tale of his long and arduous journey is in fact a short one, and though he met the natives of this new country, which he called Vinland (not to be confused with Finland, of course) he fell out with them and there were skirmishes, during one of which his brother Thorvald (named, no doubt, for his grandfather) was killed.

Leif's actual intention in setting out to find Vinland was to convert its denizens to Christianity, which might explain why the denizens replied with arrows and violence, not being in any particular rush to drop their own gods, who had served them very well for millennia thank you, and weren't you guys only recently worshipping Odin and Thor and all that lot? What happened to them, huh? You like those guys who only support a football team till they start losing and then change your allegiance? Well, not us. The Great Spirit is our man, and we're sticking with him. Which is exactly what you can do with your god. Stick him, we mean.

Rather darkly amusing, Erik was offered a place in the ship and was all fired up to go, riding his horse towards the vessel and possibly drunkenly yelling "Let's do this thing!" when he rather unfortunately slipped from his horse and landed on his arse maybe. Although he wasn't badly injured (you'd be surprised how many people actually died from such accidents; King Richard II came a cropper when he and his horse parted company suddenly. Imagine that: survive the Crusades, battle the Muslims, fight all sorts of exotic diseases, thirst and hunger, make it home to Merry Old England at last, and break your fool neck falling from your saddle. Not much of an epitaph for a king, is it?) the incident convinced him it was a bad omen and he stayed behind. Really bad judgement on his part, as that winter  plague swept through the town and did for him.

Leif is believed to have arrived in Canada first, around the Labrador area, and sailing west as winter began to set in, and unbeknownst to him, back home his dad was breathing his last and probably considering his imminent death a punishment from Odin for being such a big girl's blouse as to be scared of a little old fall from a horse he came across another landmass which he called Vinland, or wine land. This has been more or less identified as having been Newfoundland. After sensibly spending the winter there, Leif upped sticks once the weather turned warmer and headed home, at such a leisurely pace that he even had time for a bit of castaway rescue on the way, earning him the nickname "Leif the Lucky".

As an aside, there is a possibility that the crew he rescued, captained by one Thorir, may very well also have been to Vinland, or America, and obviously if so then Thorir had made it there before Leif. But as the only real accounts we have of this voyage come from personal family sagas, and they all concern only Leif and his family, Thorir doesn't get a mention. However history may have done him an injustice. Of course, Bjarni was definitely, if we read this correctly, the first, but as he passed by, sort of Mister Burns-like ("Sir, I've arranged for the people of Australia to spell out your name in candles for your birthday. If you can just turn your head - BAH! No time!") without bothering to land, never mind explore, he too is ignored by choniclers, and while he should really be on the top pedestal being awarded the gold medal, as it were, he ends up just a spectator.

For all his discovery of the continent though, it would be Leif's brother, Thorvald, who would first properly explore it. He headed over there the following year and following his bro's directions ("Two lefts and a right, then straight on; you can't miss it") he arrived in Vinland and explored away, unfortunately falling foul of the local population and losing his life, ending up buried in the new world. This did not sit well with Leif, who wanted him interred in his homeland, not some gods-forsaken wild country only newly discovered, and so he sent his son Thorstein to bring the body home. Unfortunately, though Thorvald had found it a doddle to make his way to Vinland, Thorstein had more trouble, exacerbated by a storm blowing up, and ended up being blown around instead to the other side of Greenland, where he rather inconveniently died.

So that was the end of the Norse adventures in America was it? Not a bit of it. Don't you know these people yet? Adventure flows in their blood, even if it had been thinned by the ideas of men in black dresses who thought everyone should love each other as long as they all worshipped the same god, if not they deserved to burn like evil heretics. Gudrid, Thorstein's widow remarried and prevailed upon her new husband to check out Vinland. Thorfinn Karlsefni, outfitting a major expedition, headed off. Thorfinn wasn't fucking around though: he didn't just intend to explore, or gather what resources he could and hightail it back to Greenland, oh no. He wanted to set up a permanent colony on Vinland, and he brought men, women, livestock and supplies, ready to settle the country in the name of the Norse and Leif Erikson.

Far from, then, Columbus and his men being the first white men to arrive in America, Gudrid's son, Snorri, is said to have been the very first white man born in America, so if anyone owns "white privilege" in America it's the Scandinavians. But here's the thing.

There are two family sagas that recount the adventures of the Norse in America, and the one called The Saga of Erik the Red puts a very different complexion on Thorfinn's expedition. This one says that, far from being a peaceful and mostly uneventful exploration of Vinland, Thorfinn's time there resulted in a terrible war with the natives, which led to the death of Thorvald. This directly contradicts the source The Saga of the Greenlanders, which tells us Leif's brother died in Greenland of a disease. According to Erik the Red, not only was he still alive at the time Thorfinn went back to America, but he fought alongside him. And died there. So it's hard to know which one to take as the right one, if either is. Still, according to the Erik the Red account, the war with the native population sent Thorfinn back to Greenland, deeming it too much trouble to set up a permanent presence in Vinland, and on his return the Norse shrugged and forgot all about America.

In essence then, both accounts tally in at least the result, that the Norse forsook their attempts to colonise America, though the reason given in Erik the Red makes more sense than that in Greenland, as otherwise what was to stop Thorfinn or other Norse returning to Vinland? Only if Thorfinn came back and said "forget it lads, them natives is fucking crazy. The land may be fertile but I will be double fucked if I'm going back to face them headcases again, and nor should you." Thorvald's fate? Well, let's give him an honourable Viking death, falling in battle rather than the rather ignominious one of dying from a nasty disease in his homeland, huh? He'd probably have preferred that, whether or not it's the truth.

The fact that they abandoned the idea of a colony there though did not stop other Norse visiting America, and it's kind of nice in a way to see that even Jesus Christ the Redeemer couldn't quite redeem the Vikings, as told in the story of Freydis, bastard daughter of Erik, and so half-sister to Leif, who had been with Thorfinn on his ill-fated expedition, and had hatched a plot on her return, roping in two brothers, Helgi and Finnbogi, to help her out and return to Vinland where she said there were massive profits to be had, which she would share with the brothers. She left out the rather important fact that neither of them would leave Vinland alive, as, slaying them both and all their men and women, she grabbed all the riches and hied her back to Greenland as fast as her men could sail. But her treachery was uncovered, and left such a stain on the idea of Vinland that no self-respecting Norseman would ever go near there again.

The western world was, as per usual, slow, and very sulkily reluctant, to agree or recognise that men from Scandinavia had been to America almost half a millennium before their darling, and even in the eighteenth century the stories told in the two Sagas were dismissed as myth, fairy tales, made-up nonsense. But history usually has the last laugh, and when actual physical evidence of the occupation was unearthed over a non-consecutive period of ten years (1961 to 1968 and then 1973 to 1976; don't ask me why the big gap, maybe funding dried up?) they had no choice. The findings were clear: houses, boatsheds, a smithy, a kiln, cooking houses were all excavated in Newfoundland in a place called L'Anse aux Meadows, along with artifacts such as pins, bits of iron, copper and charcoal, all dated back to the eleventh century.

Accounts from Indian tribes, too, speak of men with blue eyes and yellow hair, who came in long boats with animal heads, and who the Indians worshipped like gods. The story is also told of a Viking ship found buried in the side of a mountain in a desert in California, witnessed only by three people we know of, but buried in an earthquake soon after, all trace of it lost. And then of course there are the inscriptions, records of travels and trade supposedly carved in rocks by the Norse, and found from Rhode Island to Colorado. I hardly need tell you that most if not all of these are pronounced fake or too recent by most researchers to be of any help in establishing evidence of the Norse presence in America, do I? In Mexico though, there's some pretty strong - circumstantial, of course, but still - evidence to suggest the god of the Aztecs, Quetzcoatl, the winged serpent, is based on a Norse traveller who got marooned there and taught the people to turn away from human sacrifice. Yet another theory holds that the legend of the Amazons of South America can be traced back to the presence of Norse women in Paraguay.

Whatever the skeptics want to think, however much they may resist the idea, it is in fact quite impossible, and wilfully ignorant and arrogant to try to deny the Norse explored America in the early eleventh century. Why they did not succeed in establishing a permanent colony is dependent on many factors, not least of which was the hostility of the native population and their being outnumbered, far from home, and with no supply route to maintain a sustained offensive against the Indians. But advancing glaciers which choked the sea with ice, the similar advance of a darker and much more deadly barrier, the Black Death, and a general fight for survival surely took precedence over the need to explore, as Greenland was cut off from the rest of Europe and its population, like that of Europe itself, declined severely.

[Trollheart]

IRISH/CELTS

Despite their almost stubborn and concerted efforts to do so, it's hard for scientists to ignore the evidence when it's staring them in the face. In Maine there's a carving of a dude, sorry druid, who looks very Celtic. In Vermont a burial chamber has been found which is decorated with Celtic script proclaiming it as being dedicated to Bel, the ancient Sun god of the Celts while in - perhaps ironically - Salem (not that one), New Hampshire, a collection of dolmens and megaliths look very Celtic too. Bel pops up again in Colorado, where in a cave called, um, Crack Cave, there's an inscription in Ogham (ancient Celtic alphabet, see my History of Ireland journal for more) which says "Strike on here." Huh? Sorry, sorry: "Strikes here on the day of Bel." Okay, well, still sounds like a call to the Celts to down tools... All right, if you insist. You're no fun anymore. Rather like the burial chamber in Newgrange in Ireland, the sun's first rays at the summer solstice (June 21) do indeed strike the inscription first.

A small tool believed to be a bone comb was found at the hilariously-named Snapp's Bridge (wouldn't fancy crossing that!)  in Tennessee, but was later discovered to be a stamping tool for use on pottery, made by, you guessed it, Celts again. Iberian ones this time. No not Siberian: Iberian, the countries now known as Spain and Portugal. Oh, and two skeletons too - or what was left of them - which date from about the third century BC. Inscribed stones believed to have been the work of Basque Celts have been found all over Pennsylvania, while back in Stephen King country, there are Celtic Ogham inscriptions in Maine which say "Ships from Phoenicia; Cargo Platform", and that leads us to the next bunch who got more than a jump on Columbus.

Land of Saints and Sailors: The Voyage of Saint Brendan

Personally, when someone has "saint" before their name, I tend to treat with a certain amount of skepticism the evidence of their existence, but I probably should not. I mean, essentially these are men and women who surely existed, are perhaps credited with miracles which then elevated them to be canonised by the Catholic Church. Saint Patrick certainly seems to have existed, as did Saint George and Saint Bernadette; in fact, most if not all saints probably were real people.

Opinion, however, remains divided as to the actual existence of Saint Brendan, an Irish monk who, in the sixth century, set sail across the Atlantic, something I believe no Irishman had attempted before. Whether he was real or not - the account of his voyage was only compiled three hundred years after his death - there's also doubt as to whether he made the voyage described therein, but there are those who believe he did. Taking those people as our lodestar, we'll cast off with this enigmatic Irish priest and see where he takes us.

From what we know of him, Brendan was born in Tralee in County Kerry in about 484. Rising to the position of abbot, he seems to have perhaps missed his calling, as he was said to have been an expert sailor and very interested in exploration, sailing the coast of Ireland and on to Scotland and Wales, the Orkney Islands and Shetland Islands, and as far as Brittany in France. He seems to have lived to about 90, a good age for the time, especially for someone who engaged in such strenuous and potentially dangerous activities. Unlike the Spanish and even, as discussed above, the Chinese Buddhist missionaries, Brendan did not set out to convert, but as a monk simply to find a place of solitude and grace, a place to be at one with God, a retreat at which he could dedicate his life to pure prayer. Sure we've all felt like that at one time or another, right? Right? Hello? Have it your own way then.

From what we're told in Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis (The Voyage of Saint Brendan the Abbot) it seems he was not the first Irish monk to see America, at least according to another one called Barinthus, who came to him (according to the book) and told him he had found a beautiful land in the west, the "Promised Land of the Saints." Brendan decided he'd go and have a look for this mythical place, as it sounded just like the sort of thing for a man ready to settle down and devote his life to God, with no distractions or interruptions. "Promised Land of the Saints?" he almost certainly did not say, "That sounds just the ticket. Go raibh mile mhath agat, mo chara (Thanks pal) - I'll go and take a butchers."

Apparently monks were good at other things than praying and tsking at single mothers, as Brendan and fourteen others of his order constructed the ship that would take him across the ocean, then another three appeared and, not having taken part in the work, cadged a lift so that there were eighteen people eventually in the curragh, or skin-covered low-sitting boat, when it departed. With so much symbolism, mythology and outright fiction included in the narrative, it's hard to plot the course Brendan and his monks followed, but scholars (those who believe he existed as well as those who believe he made the voyage and didn't just cobble the account together from details of other journeys) reckon he made landfall around the Faroe Islands first. In a twist used almost twelve hundred years later in Star Wars, it's related that at one point the boys landed on an island but that when it began to move they realised they were actually on the surface of a whale! No doubt they blessed it and moved on.

But sure isn't it always the same? You can go to the farthest corners of the earth on holidays and who will you meet but your next-door neighbour or office colleague? So it was that when the monks landed on what is believed to be one of the islands in the Azores, Flores, they met a party of Irish monks who were living there, and had a monastery and all sorted out and going for nearly as long as Brendan had been born. Sure throw on the kettle there will ya, like a good lad! I'm gasping, so I am! Christmas being near, nobody wanted to spend it bobbing along on the ocean so they decided to kip down with the lads till the festive, sorry holy season was over, and sure didn't they have a grand time? Well, I don't know that they did, but I assume it was better than constant cries of "Any land yet?" with attendant groans in the negative, and some possibly very unholy comments on why they had ever left Ireland in the first place, and how they could murder a pint of mead.

565 didn't start too well for our Brendan, with his craft constantly being blown back the way he had come. "I said WEST, damn it I mean darn it I mean if you please brother!" Like some sort of aquatic ping-pong ball the monks' vessel bounced from west to east, east to west, played with by the prevailing winds, called, maddeningly for the boys, the Westerlies. But they blow east... Look, don't ask me, all right? I'm just the author here. I don't know nothing about winds in the Azores, okay? After a bad pint (of water) at São Miguel the lads weren't feeling too clever, but pushed on regardless, fifth time lucky perhaps? No such luck. This time they got trapped, Coleridge's Ancient Mariner-like, in the Sargasso Sea, where they remained becalmed for twenty days. Brendan told the monks to trust in God. It's possible some of the monks advised him where he could shove God, but eventually a wind rose and they were able to sail on... right into the path of an approaching killer whale, whose attentions they only avoided by the rather convenient expedient of another whale appearing and fighting it. I didn't know whales fought. Well these did, if we're to believe the old Navigatio, and I guess Brendan and the lads must have credited the appearance of the second one to God, and the monk or monks who had blasphemed his name possibly looked sheepish.

"Hey! We're going to Barbados!" they almost categorically did not sing, for three reasons. One, they had no idea where they were going, two the song would not be written for another millennium and a half and three, well, they were monks, and in all likelihood only sang for the greater glory of God, or to give Him a headache and remind him they were, yes, still out here, Lord, drifting around like frigging drifting things, pardon our Irish. If you could see your mighty way clear any time soon to finding us some bloody land that would be just great, if it's not too much trouble, yours in adoration but very much approaching exasperation now, Brendan and the monks. PS No we are not a bloody rock band. Rock has not been invented yet.

Anyway, they found Barbados distinctly lacking in scantily-clothed natives and without suspicious clouds of smoke wreathing the place, thought "well this can't be the Promised Land of the Saints, can it?" and moved briskly on, though for centuries afterwards, right up to and after indeed 1492, Barbados was known as "St. Brendan's Isle." Staying a mere three months (some say three days: doesn't time fly when you're on a completely uninhabited island with a bunch of irritable monks?) off they went. On the way they had a pink flamingo - oh no wait: a pink flamingo dropped a branch on their boat. This led them to the Bahamas, where they stayed for a while, snaffling all the cool fruit they could when they left, and quite possibly sporting a most un-monkish (and un-Irish) tan. Finding themselves north of Newfoundland and south of Greenland they came across an iceberg, which would surely have been the first time any Irishman had seen such a thing. They weren't the Titanic though and didn't crash into it, though they did circle it and measure it at 2,100 feet. That's more than five times the size of the one that did for the world's most famous shipwreck.

Some time later (there's no real measurement of time in the Navigatio: they use phrases such as "on a certain day" as well as using "forty days" as a general yardstick for a long time) it seems Satan must have been trying to scupper the voyage. Perhaps they were getting too close to the Promised Land of the Saints? Anyway here's the rather amusing take Saint Brendan had on it, with what Huyghe believes to be the explanation following it.

"Suddenly, from a "rocky" island ahead of them, they heard the banging of hammers of iron and anvils, and assumed the island was "full of workers." One of the "workers" ran down to the shore and hurled a fiery mass at them, which missed, fell into the sea, and began to glow. More fiery masses were hurled after they had passed. "The entire island was burning like a furnace and the sea boiled up... ." From a great distance "a very offensive stench reached their nose." Brendan called the area "the confines of hell."

This vivid description suggests that the traveling monks had witnessed the eruption of a submarine volcano. Given the limited geographic occurrence of this phenomenon, the episode provides a good indication of Brendan's position. Northeast of the summer iceberg region about a thousand miles lies the submarine ridge off the Reykianes Peninsula on the southwestern comer of Iceland. A number of islands are known to have appeared in this region as a result of volcanic eruptions in the course of history.

It's quite interesting how people who had no idea such things even existed, never mind ever saw one before, interpreted these phenomena. To Brendan's credit, he didn't necessarily attribute it to Satan (that was me messing about) though as you can see he did consider the possibility that they had sailed close to Hell.

Bad luck continued to dog the voyage, maybe because of those comments as to where God could stick it, and as they approached "The Land of Fire" (Iceland) one of the monks was chosen to go ashore and explore the dark soil around the boiling mountain. I like to think it was the one I've decided grumbled about God. You can just see it can't you?

Saint Brendan: "Right lads, sure this looks terrible interesting altogether. One of us better check it out. What about you, Brother Sean?"
Brother Sean: "What? Just because I took the Lord's name in vain? You want me to go onto that dangerous island?"
Saint Brendan: "God moves in mysterious ways, brother. Now get out there before He mysteriously moves me to plant me foot up your arse."
Brother Sean: "Grumble, grumble AAAAGHHH!"
God: "Got ya ya bastard! Slag ME off, will ya?"

Or perhaps not. Either way, the monks quickly realised, to their cost - but more especially to the cost of the one who went or was sent to investigate - that volcanos are probably best studied, if at all, by those who know what they're doing and have all the proper gear. Perhaps ironic that on a country named as the coldest in the world someone should die from excessive heat, but as they say, God moves etc. With one monk less, Brendan and the lads sailed on till they came to a big rock in the middle of the sea where they met a hermit who told them "Ireland? Ah sure ye can't miss it lads. Straight on for another seven days and ye'll be home." Thereafter they arrived back on the shores of Erin, August 565, having spent years at sea and possibly being able to lay claim to being the true discoverer of America.

Not at all surprisingly, few give this account credence - after all, who wants to admit that a holy man from Ireland discovered America before a dissolute drunk from Italy happened to stumble across it a millennium later? But explorer Tim Severin did at least prove Brendan's voyage was possible, as in 1976 he retraced the route the monks were said to have taken, in an exact replica of the curragh Brendan and his companions sailed.

The voyage of Saint Brendan may be the most famous - if least credited - visit of the Irish to America, but it was not the only one. When Norsemen arrived there in 982 they spoke of a colony called Hvitramannaland, White Man's Land, where monks had established a settlement there prior to the arrival of the Norse.

The other name for this colony was Great Ireland.

[Trollheart]

WALES



Madoc, um, someone: may be our man, may not (read on below)

You Lucky, Lucky Bastard! Madoc becomes yet another to discover America before you-know-who

Somewhat like our friend Abubakari, this prince of Wales also got tired of constant wars and fighting, and decided to take to the seas. Truth to tell, the fact that he was illegitimate and people likely (not) hailed him as "How's it going, your Bastard Highness?" or "Madoc, you old bastard!" may have influenced his decision. Authenticating his story though has proven difficult, to say the least, in part because of there being so many Madocs - six in all - which researchers down the centuries have gotten all mixed up and muddled into one figure. The true Madoc, son of the King of Wales, is said to have been Madoc ab Owain Gwynedd, and another factor in his buggering off to find America might have been his exile to Lundy Island. Why he was exiled is uncertain: it couldn't have been because he was illegitimate, as his father the king had at least two dozen children, few if any of them born within wedlock. It's possible, I suppose, that His Majesty  dear old dad may have grumped "Not another fucking bastard! Right you, I've just about had it now. Off to Lundy with ya, and let me hear no more about ye!"

Or not. But anyway on his death there was the usual scramble for power and riches, land and of course the throne, but for whatever reason (maybe because he had no real claim to it) Madoc was not interested. He instead turned to the stories of the Norse sagas and Leif Erikson's discovery of Vinland, which I already wrote about. There had been a Norse settlement on Lundy, to which he was exiled, since the ninth century, and there Madoc may even have met one who is mentioned in the sagas and who had travelled with Leif to that new world. Madoc also more than likely had heard of the bould Saint Brendan's voyage, and possibly thought, I could do that. So in 1170 he did just that, heading off with one of his brothers to seek out Vinland and see what all the fuss was about.

Sadly, it seems his brother's ship sank, but Madoc continued on and it's believed he ended up somewhere in Alabama, around the Gulf of Mexico, rather distant from where Vinland itself was said to be, but never mind, it's a hell of a large continent. Unfortunately no written account of his voyage survives, leading our good friends the eternal skeptics to shake their heads and pour cold water (sorry) on the possibility of the Welsh reaching America, but Madoc's exploits are rendered in story and song, and even in an account read to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth in 1580. Which reads  "The Lord Madoc, sonne to Owen Gwynedd, Prince of North Wales, led a Colonie and inhabited in Terra Florida or thereabowts... ." Note: It's pretty cool that they used the phrase terra florida (which I assume means land of flowers or something - oh right, I checked it: bay land. Well anyway) and that there was later a state named after it.

Oddly enough, even the Great Navigator himself seems to have confirmed Madoc's being there first, as he has on his maps marked "these are Welsh waters." Hard to see how that could have been covered up, but I guess it was. More evidence comes in letters held in the library at Chicago, one of which details a conversation between the founder of Tennessee, John Sevier, and a Cherokee chief, who, when asked who had built the fortifications that he had discovered on his land, replied that they "were a people called the Welsh and that they had crossed the Great Water and landed first near the mouth of the Alabama River near Mobile and had driven up to the heads of the waters until they arrived at Highwassee River." These forts - or the ruins of them - lie not only in Tennessee but also Georgia and Alabama.

If he was there, Madoc did not remain to establish his colony, but left others behind to do that while he sailed back to the land of his fathers. It's believed he then organised a second, larger expedition around 1190 and set sail, but that's the last anyone knows of him. Whether he ever made it back to America, perished at sea or ended up somewhere else, that's the last we hear of him. But it wasn't the last the Spanish heard of him, to their chagrin. When they arrived in America they kept coming across evidence that the Welsh had been their first, including natives who could speak the language (how, being Spanish, they knew it was Welsh I don't know, but maybe their links with Ireland due to a shared faith and a common purpose against Henry VIII in the name of their religion had familiarised them with Celtic languages?) and their government began a search - which they hoped, a hope which was realised, would turn up nothing - for evidence that the leek-eaters had been there first. England finally put up her hands and said "It's all right lads. Fuck the Welsh, we hate them anyway. Look, you were there first, so let's just put a pin in it and say it's yours, all right?" That was in 1670, which is significant as it means that the "Welsh question", if you like, had been going around annoying Their Most Catholic and Bloody Frustrated Majesties for nigh on two centuries before it was finally and quietly put to bed, presumably without bothering the Welsh.

Life though does not really recognise the power of treaties, and the Welsh presence continued to stubbornly persist, with multiple stories of men meeting Indians who spoke Welsh and who seemed to be descended from them. President Thomas Jefferson walked a typical political tightrope when he addressed the possibility: "I neither believe nor disbelieve where I have no evidence," he said. Daniel Boone was more equivocal, claiming he had definitely seen "blue-eyed Indians" who he believed were Welsh. The most likely candidates for this tribe were the Mandans, who "were pale-faced, some grew beards, and the oldest ones had gray hair, which was unknown among Indians. Their homes were made of logs and covered with soil and were arranged in villages that were laid out in streets and squares. They depended largely on agriculture rather than hunting, unlike other Indian tribes. Vérendrye's account was corroborated by subsequent travelers, many of whom took special note of the blue eyes, fair skins, and light-brown hair of the lovely Mandan maidens."

Their close-harmony male singing might have been a giveaway too. Nah, just kidding. But if they had had any coal mines at that time... all right, I'll stop now.

[Trollheart]

Phoenicians, Carthaginians and Libyans, oh my!

Ancient Lebanese, the Phoenicians were one of the world's first sea explorers (see my journal The Men Who Drew the Map of the World) and settled the port of  Cádiz in the ninth century B.C. They were regarded as the greatest mariners of their time, and the purple cloth they made was highly prized in the ancient world, nowhere more so than wherever royalty sat. No king or queen worth their salt would be seen dead in anything other than purple, so there was a roaring trade in the cloth. So these sailors par excellence were often commissioned by various rulers to undertake voyages of trade for them, and the evidence suggests that one of these may have taken them to North America.

Halfway up a mountain in New Mexico is an inscription in the Phoenician language which, when translated by scholars in the tongue, turns out to be nothing less than the Ten Commandments from the Bible. The writing has been dated to approximately the ninth century BC again. Seems everyone who was anyone was heading to America in the ninth century BC. And not only North America. Here's what it says on a stone found on a plantation in Brazil in 1872: "We are Sidonian Canaanites from the city of the Merchant King. We were cast up on this distant land, a land of mountains. We sacrificed a youth to the celestial gods and goddesses in the nineteenth year of our mighty King Hiram and embarked from Eziongeber into the Red Sea. We voyaged with ten ships and were at sea together for two years around Africa. Then we were separated by the hand of Baal and were no longer with our companions. So we have come here, twelve men and three women, into 'Island of Iron.' Am I, the Admiral, a man who would flee? Nay! May the celestial gods and goddesses favor us well!"


(The Pharaoh Necho: he will not be impressed if you try to dip him in cheese.)

This is believed (by some) to refer to an expedition which set out from Egypt around 600 BC in an attempt to scout for the possibility of digging a canal from the Nile to the Red Sea, ordered by the Pharaoh Necho (no not Nacho) to circumnavigate Africa to see if it could be done. If one of the ships was blown off course and ended up in the land of football, then it's estimated a date of around 531 BC would fit in. Needless to say, this, like almost every other instance of proof of the presence of civilisation in America before 1492 has been ignored and scorned by most of the scientific community. But the evidence mounts up, m'Lord: in Paraguay there's a cave with a Phoenician inscription describing a sea voyage.

Coins are another way of proving habitation, and in Kansas, Connecticut, Arkansas and Alabama coins have been found which were clearly minted in the ancient empire of Carthage. The Carthaginians were also known to be great explorers (again, see my journal on exploration) with Hanno, known as "the Navigator", one of their most famous icons. He himself is not known to have travelled to America - and in fact, there is no record of a Carthaginian expedition sent there - but as Shakira might possibly not say, coins don't lie, and the ones that have been unearthed have all been dated to the third or fourth century BC. With characteristic stubbornness and a refusal to accept the truth of their own eyes, many scientists have grumbled and insisted that all of these coins must have been - get this - lost by collectors from the modern age.

Yeah. Right. That's always happening to me. Out walking some farmer's field in Arkansas with my valuable third century BC coins and don't a few always slip through that hole in my pocket? Lord give me strength. These are probably the same people who demand to be taken seriously when they proclaim that Jesus was a white man.

Chile is the site of the discovery of writings by ancient Libyans, who claimed Santiago "for the King of Egypt, for his queen, and for their noble son, running a course of 4,000 miles, steep, mighty, mountainous, on high uplifted. August, day 5 regnal year 16." Then there's this, from just down the road in Ecuador: "The elephant that supports the Earth upon the waters and causes it to quake." Um, yeah. Guess that long sea voyage had some unexpected side effects on the mariners. The Libyan alphabet and language seems to have found its way into that of Native Americans, particularly the Zuni Indians of southern California, and another inscription is found deep in the heart of Texas that says "A crew of Shishonq the King took shelter in this place of concealment." A less stoned crew than the ones in Ecuador, it would seem.

Of course, in matters like this there will always be the hoaxers, the frauds and the outright scammers who, for reasons of their own, want to make it seem as if ancient people visited their state, city or town. I suppose it could help with the tourism anyway, or it could be an effort to make fools out of those who make these claims in other parts of the country. That's why it's always advisable to have a genuine clever clogs on board when investigating these finds, and so we run into our mate Professor Barry Fell again. Still not a verb, nor, this time, a repeat of the event.

Still, last time we spoke of him we knew little about who he was, so apart from some gentle mockery of his surname, there wasn't much I could tell you about him. So let's correct this now. He's a lot more interesting than most academicians you might read about. Bit of a maverick, by all accounts.

Professor Fell is one of the biggest names in the field which has become known as epigraphy, that is, reading and translating, dating and authenticating (or not) ancient inscriptions, be they on cave walls, carved in rock or anywhere else. He has suffered a lot at the hands of the scientific community, many of whom dismiss him as a fraud himself, but in recent times more esteemed figures have begun to take notice of him, and to slowly give credence and respectability to his theories.

He has mixed feelings about artifacts uncovered at a burial site in Davenport, Idaho, which was believed to be a hoax - with someone actually coming forward to take the blame - but which he has reservations (sorry) about. Much of this hinges on the fact that the supposed hoaxer was only nine years old at the time, and even a prodigy would have difficulty faking ancient languages and symbols, to say nothing of how he would have sealed the tablet in the mound and managed to put it all back together without its looking as if it had been disturbed. As well as this, Professor Fell notes there are three different languages on the tablet, and though one of them - Egyptian hieroglyphs - makes no sense, the other two do. However he's prepared to admit when he gets it wrong, which for me makes him the more believable.

One such occasion took place in Nevada, where a rock he had come to examine looked, to him, as if it had a map of America carved on it. After careful examination though he realised this was just a crack in the natural material of the rock, and the words he had thought referred to the Pacific Ocean were just some ancient prayer, local in origin. This wasn't actually a hoax or a fraud, just an good illustration of how sometimes simple things could be taken to have greater meaning than they have, and that not every rock with squiggly lines on it is a discovery or proof of the existence of ancient Americans. Sometimes, I guess, squiggly lines are just squiggly lines.

And yet, despite these few false trails, the evidence that feet other than those of Native Americans trod the soil of that land goes on, from Quebec and New Hampshire to New York and Pennsylvania, and indeed Fell believes that many of the visitors became permanent residents of America, that the likes of the Libyans and the Iberian Celts settled down, ran schools and farmed, becoming quite possibly the second true Americans after the Indians. There is some evidence of this, but like virtually every other hypothesis he suggest and every theory he advances, it has been met with scorn, derision and alternative explanations. And maybe they're right; who is to say? After all, we're dealing here with people who may (or may not) have been here long before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. That's a long time back, and the passage of the ages tends to erase any markers left by these people, if they were here.

Fell's theories do get a little shall we say, out there, though, when he suggests that those Iberian Celts actually set up banks in America (I bet the First Bank of America would have something to say about that!), conclusions he bases on the discovery of, well, here: I'll let our old mucker Patrick Huyghe explain it in Fell's words, as I'm tired of typing: " He believes the great number of circular designs adorning a series of rock faces at the Castle Garden site near Moneta, Wyoming, represents one such "bank." The common assumption is that these pictographs and petroglyphs are Indian shield designs. But Fell eventually recognized the petroglyphs as simplified renderings of Roman, Celtic, and Italian bronze coins that were in circulation beginning about 20 b.c. "These pictorial presentations of current coin in ancient America," Fell explains, "were evidently intended to familiarize the fur trappers and others doing business with the Iberian banks as to the relative values of coins in terms of one another and in terms of skins.

One inscription at the site turned out to be the bank's shingle. To the left of a central design are Iberic letters spelling the old Gaelic word for "money changer." On the right is an old Gaelic word that Fell translates as "No usury." The central illustration uses Greek letters to form a rebus, or design, of an upturned moneybag dropping its coins onto a plate. And the word that these letters spell means "the first to come here." If you put it all together, says Fell, what you are left with is something on the order of the First National Bank of Iberia in Wyoming."

I have to say, that sounds more than a little difficult to believe, and I'm sure it was manna from Heaven to his detractors, who would have - possibly metaphorically, possibly literally - pointed and jeered at such notions. I'm kind of tempted to do so myself, but what do I know? You do get the idea though that Professor Fell is seen, among the archaeological community, as a sort of Erich Von Daniken (remember Chariots of the Gods?) or that guy who's always appearing on memes and attributing everything to aliens, the most famous (and funny) being "I don't know therefore aliens." He gets vilified, with one eminent scientist lambasting his first book as "rubbish" in the New York Times (I say! Steady on there, old boy!) and others calling him the "Typhoid Mary of popular prehistory." Ouch.

Maybe they're just jealous that he gets it and they don't. Maybe they're unwilling to admit they might have missed what he discovered. Or maybe they just see him for the fraud they believe he is. I have no idea whether he's genuine or not, but there certainly is a lot of hostility directed at him. Huyghe however does note that most if not all of this vitriol comes from within Fell's own country, and that in Europe, particularly in Spain, Wales and Ireland, his theories have been supported and applauded. Well now in fairness, they would do wouldn't they? After all, Fell is making the case for the presence of their people in America long before Columbus, so they're going to be more likely to support that, as they have a vested interest. Well, given that they financed Columbus's voyage, the Spanish might be in two minds about that.

The converse of that though is that the ridicule piled upon Fell by American archaeologists may have its own agenda, may be rooted in the politics and even racism of ensuring that the narrative that has been in place for over five hundred years now remains the only side of the story told, particularly in American schools. The fact that these people refuse to listen to him, laugh at him and do their best to discredit, or if they can't then best ignore his findings, points to a desire to kowtow to the establishment, ensure Columbus continues to be feted as the discoverer of America, and that a white man retains his historical - if inaccurate, possibly erroneous - position in American history.

Nevertheless, you can only ignore reality for so long, and even deeply-opposed Americans are beginning now to see things Fell's way, with one Canadian, respected anthropologist David Kelley, championing his cause.

[Trollheart]

POLYNESIANS

While the Phoenicians may have been regarded as one of the first sea-faring races in human history, the almost universally acknowledged greatest mariners in the world came from the islands of the Pacific, Polynesia. Over four thousand years they crossed the Pacific almost end to end, settling in Hawaii and New Zealand as well as Easter Island and, just possibly, America. They navigated by wind, waves, stars, clouds, birds and, um, pigs. Yeah. Not so much horsepower as pigpower. Sorry. I don't quite understand it, but they apparently used to have pigs on board their ships and used them to smell out land. How? Search me. I assume, pigs being pigs, the porkers would have been trying to catch the scent of food of some sort, or at least something they could eat, even if that turned out to be natives, friendly or not. But why they wouldn't just smell the food on board is beyond me. Who knows?

What is clear though is that the kind of skeptic who likes to throw cold water on the theories of visits to America prior to the Big C, the kind of suggestions made by our friend Barry Fell and his ilk, are stymied by the adventures of the Polynesians. Not only is there plenty of evidence of their habitation, at least in South America, but many efforts to reconstruct their voyages (pigless or not I don't know) have been successful, so there's little doubt they were capable of sailing across the Pacific and into the New World. Even die-hard holdouts have to agree to this. Unlike many of the peoples we've discussed previously, the Polynesians seem to have deliberately set out on voyages of colonisation; where the Japanese or Chinese might have been blown off course or fled from persecution, the Africans merely curious and the Norse trading, these lads actually set up and provisioned boats with their livestock and families, ready to head to "a new world" and make their home there. In that, they were perhaps the first true combination of explorers, mariners and colonists in the world.

The presence of the sweet potato in Polynesia, when the tuber is native to South America, points to the transplanting of this vegetable from one to the other, and as the Native Americans are known to have had no ocean-going vessels and, further, no interest in sea exploration if they had, the transfer could only have effected by the Polynesians who, having come to the continent, took the sweet potato back home with them when they left, or sent it on.

ITALY (Yes yes I know, but apart from him)

It might sound counterintuitive to say Italians discovered America before Columbus - wasn't he, after all, an Italian? Well yes he was, but that doesn't mean that one of his countrymen couldn't have made landfall on the shores of America before him. It wasn't intentional - a lot of the voyages that ended up in the New World were not - and Nicolò Zeno, having set sail in 1390 for England, got blown off course. To add possible insult to injury, Zeno was a Venetian, and Venice had been at war with, and had just defeated Genoa (birthplace of Columbus). A great storm arose and Zeno's galley was pushed towards the Faroe Islands, where the natives were less than friendly. Zeno was saved by an Englishman who was visiting, the Earl of Orkney, Henry Sinclair.

The two got on well and given that Nicolò's brother Carlo had led the fleet that had defeated the Genoans, the earl asked him to be captain of the fleet he was launching against the Shetland Islands (honestly, who would bother? Surely there are more sheep there than humans?) and when victory was won, knighted him. His brother, Antonio, joining him a year later, was promoted to admiral of his fleet on the passing of Nicolò. Some years later, following the tale of a fisherman who said he had returned from America (though he called it Estotiland) Antonio and Sinclair arrived - after having been again caught in a storm; things must have followed the brothers around!) - in Newfoundland, but less than welcome he had to travel on, and came to what has been more or less identified as Nova Scotia. The year was 1398.

Sinclair decided to build a settlement there, but Antonio and most of his men were more eager to get home, so they headed off while he stayed there with a few men. Nothing more is definitely known of him (though some estimates have been made that he returned and may have died in a British invasion of the Orkneys - what was it with the British invading tiny islands nobody cares about? Teach those sheep who's boss, huh? Sorry? The Falklands what?) and Antonio died soon after returning home, all of which, say the ever-present critics, deniers and naysayers, points to the whole thing having been a fabrication, an attempt by jealous Venusians sorry Venetians to get one over on the smug people of Genoa, who were soon afterwards touting that their local boy had done good.

He had, certainly, but not as good as they wished to claim.

PORTUGAL

So what do you do when you're the king of the country that turned away and refused to bankroll the supposed discoverer of the new world? Well, go and see if any of your subjects beat him to it. And how sweet if you could prove that they had done so a mere twenty years before him! João VAz Corte-Real claimed to have made this journey in 1472, which might sound a little suspicious that it was exactly twenty years before Columbus, but then just about everything about this story smells funny. First of all, there's no corroborating evidence that any expedition was launched by the Portuguese on or around 1472, even though it's supposed to have been financed by two kings, Portugal's own Alfonso V and Denmark's Christian I. A land grant given to Corte-Real later makes no mention of any discovery.

Despite this, he is hailed - in Portugal alone, tellingly - as the discoverer of America, which the tale (tale indeed, it would seem) says he named Terra Nova de Bacalhau (New land of the codfish - that "cod" could also be telling; we Irish use the term to describe someone who is having you on, ie you're codding me! Or you could say con I guess) and which, if the story is to be given any credence, was Newfoundland. The problem is that this story is told by a notorious liar and exaggerator known, rather appropriately, as Gaspar Frutuso, his being the only account of it. Nevertheless, Portuguese people proudly accept the flimsy tale, and there is a plaque in Lisbon commemorating the "great discoverer of America."

And so it goes on. Both the Poles and the Danes claim nationality for Johannes Scolvus, who is said to have discovered America even closer to the famed date than Corte-Real, in 1476, a mere sixteen years before the Spanish claimed it. This story seems to have a little more in the way of support as historians from Spain, England and Netherlands all seem to agree that Scolvus reached Labrador around this time. The waters however have been muddied (sorry) by attempts to, for some reason, historically place two notorious pirates and the abovementioned Corte-Real in the same ship as Scolvus, and the whole thing has sort of dissolved into hysterical and sarcastic laughter.

Back in the - more or less - real world, the English claims are a bit more feasible, with their Bristol crews searching the oceans for a land off the west coast of Ireland which they named "The Isle of Brasil" (no, not that one) and which first took place in 1480, but due to adverse weather the search had to be abandoned as the ship was driven to the coast of Ireland. A year later they tried again, but there's no proof that ship even left port. Nevertheless, a letter from English merchant John Day to possibly Columbus himself mentions the possibility, even the probability, of the English having discovered America first when he writes in about 1496 that  "It is considered certain that the cape of the said land was found and discovered in the past by the men from Bristol who found 'Brasil,' as your Lordship well knows. It was called the Isle of Brasil, and it is assumed and believed to be the mainland that the men from Bristol found." Unlike our friend Gaspar above, Day is a very credible source and his letter is widely believed to tell the truth, though there aren't enough specific details to allow England a reliable claim to the discovery of America.

[Trollheart]

Chapter IV: Oh, Just One More Thing: I Did Discover America!

Uh, no you didn't, Chris. We've proven that conclusively in the previous chapter. In fact, you were a long way down the pecking order. However, to be completely fair, Columbus was the first to, as it were, send out the fifteenth century equivalent of a press release on his "discovery", whereas the likes of Leif Erikson just sort of shrugged and went back home, so in terms of Europe learning about what would quickly become known as, with staggering originality, the New World, it's all on him. Unfortunately, his "discovery" (I'm going to stop putting quote marks around that word now; it should be understood that I don't accept Columbus's arrival in what became America as any sort of discovery, but for the sake of ease I'll just refer to it as such) would also open the way to slavery, destruction of natural resources, murder and the almost genocide of an entire people, so historically that sucks for him. In fairness to the guy though, America was going to be discovered one way or another. You just couldn't expect one of the largest landmasses on Earth to remain hidden, especially as ships began to forge further and further out across the world's oceans.

And you can bet that, had he not discovered it, whoever did is almost certain to have reacted in the same way he did. It's kind of not fair, I think, to place all the blame for the way the Native Americans were treated at Columbus's door. He was, after all, merely a product of his times, and the idea of white supremacy and indeed Christian supremacy (before the advent of Protestantism) was hard-coded into the DNA of Europeans; their "manifest destiny", their "holy mission" or "crusade" to bring the Word of God to the "heathen savages" a thing every single man, woman and child took to be their birthright and even their duty. Not to mention that kings and queens were hungry for new territories, as kings and queens always were back then, and remained so for hundreds of years, and the almost literal interpretation of "finders keepers" seems to have informed the royal, military and trade policy of the European powers. So had some Dutch sailor or some guy from France discovered America, I can't see it having gone any better for the natives.

But history is history, and we recognise the discovery of America by Columbus as all but the starting point for the widespread practice of slavery in Europe, and of course once you reduce another race to the status of slaves, or savages, exterminating them is all the easier. In fact, to some of the twisted minds back then, it could have been seen almost as a sacred duty. The phrase "conform or die" was not born in the fifteenth or sixteenth century, nor indeed the word holocaust, but both certainly applied to the exploitation, exploration and conquest of the land which would become known to the world as America, and later the United States of America.

So there's plenty to blame Columbus for, but a lot to admire him for, too. Remember, to Europeans, what this mariner from Genoa was  trying to do seemed impossible. His own crews believed myths that had come down to them about dragons living in the sea, and huge sea-monsters which could crush ships or swallow them whole (these may in part have been based on sightings of whales or giant squids) and nobody believed there even was land that far west. So Columbus wasn't at the time trying to discover where America was, but that it even existed. He faced ridicule, prejudice and many predictions of either his total failure or his being lost at sea. Few people expected him to come back; fewer expected that he would have actually accomplished his mission. And yet, for all the fame and glory he should have garnered from basically achieving what was seen to be impossible, a fool's errand, his discovery all but ruined his life, as we'll see later.

First, though, I've always wondered why it was that an Italian had to go to the courts of Spain to get his financial backing for the voyage. Did his own king, the Italian - or, I assume, Genoan, since Italy was at this time a series of principalities and kingdoms - not have faith in him? Or was the price tag too high for such a risky venture? Italy of course now claims Columbus as its own and proudly states it was an Italian who discovered America, but so too does Spain, as without the patronage of Ferdinand and Isabella Columbus would have been going nowhere. Is it a source of quiet shame in Italy that they turned their back on the man who would turn out to be, apparently, one of the greatest explorers of his age? Have they glossed over this, excused it, explained it? When Italian children ask in school - if they do - why Columbus was bankrolled by the Spanish, what do the teachers say?

To try to get my own answers to this question, I want to look into both how his home country was structured at the time Columbus lived, and how much, if any, influence its king had. It may be that Genoa was ruled by a sort of underking, who might have had little real power, but even if that's so, then whoever was in power - Florence or Milan or whatever city Genoa was part of in terms of monarchy - should have been surely able to raise the capital. More than likely it wasn't a case of being short of cash, I would imagine, and more one of lack of belief that the voyage could be undertaken successfully. I mean, what king would really pass up the chance at, to quote It Bites, a whole new world? Did Genoa - and all of what became Italy - want to be looking on enviously as their man was feted at the Spanish court and, more to the point, the Spanish king and queen took the New World as one of their colonies, with all its resources, land, slaves and trade routes? Does that look good on any king's CV? So who was king? Well, before we get to that, what was the deal with Italy in the fifteenth century?

State of the Union(s): Italy and Spain - two emerging world powers at the time of Columbus

Italy: E Pluribus Unum, or Something


The map above shows the state of Italy - okay, okay! The states of Italy! - just around the time Columbus would have been setting sail for the New World. It's clear that the country was made up of a lot of small kingdoms and states, of which Genoa was one, but not a large one. Far, far larger than Genoa were states like the Duchy of Milan, the Republic of Florence, the Republic of Venice, the Duchy of Savoy and of course the Papal States, where Rome was. Then there was the biggest of them all, taking up most of the toe and the lower foot, as it were, the Kingdom of Naples. I count fourteen states in all, some very tiny, some huge. Given the relative size of Genoa to, say, Milan or Florence, it seems abundantly clear to me that this would not have been a rich kingdom, or state, and may in fact not have had its own king at all, being so close to one of the much larger ones, the Republic of Florence. So, did the Florentine king hold power over Columbus's home state, and therefore his future?

Well, no. It seems that Italy at this time was not in fact ruled over by kings or queens, but by princes, who were not royal princes but the scions of wealthy families: powerful bankers, patrons of the arts such as the Medici and the Borgia, influential and rich dynasties that had built up their power through trade and finance. Kings in all but name, really, but Genoa did have its own ruler, and was a power in and of itself. A port city, it had well-established trading links with other countries and was the centre of two of Europe's largest banks. Under the control of the French until about 1409, it was wrested from them and thereafter, with slight gaps, ruled by the powerful Visconti family of Milan, of whom I do not know if Tony is one. Showing how religious and secular power were all but one and the same at this time, the Visconti dynasty began with Archbishop Ottone in 1277, when he wrested control of Milan from the Della Torre family. Originally Lords and then Dukes, the Visconti ruled Milan for over 150 years.

When the rival Della Torres sided with the French Count of Anjou and fought with him against the Sicilian King in 1263, Charles remembered their support, and crowned the new King of Sicily, allowed the Della Torres to rule Milan. The death of  Pope Clement IV in 1268 allowed the Visconti to mount an army and take on the Della Torres, whom they decisively defeated in 1277. Through intermarriage the Viscontis then extended their rule to Bologna and Genoa, but at the time Columbus was floating (sorry) his idea for a voyage to, as he saw it, the west indies, the Viscontis were no more. It wasn't that they had been defeated in battle or executed like their old enemies the Della Torres, oh no: this change of rule came about due to one of those old bugbears that constantly dogged monarchies: the heir to the throne.

It seems the remaining heir to the Duchy of Milan was Bianca Maria Visconti, and married at age twenty-five to Francesco I Sforza, she passed on the title to him. He ruled Milan, then, as the first of the Sforza dynasty, for sixteen years. He was acknowledged both as a skilled military tactician and a man of peace, who with Cosimo de Medici drew up the Treaty of Lodi and established the Italian League, a multi-state agreement which saw peace reign over Italy for forty years. Unfortunately his son, Galeazzo Maria, was a far different proposal. The man was twisted, warped, petty and cruel in a way possibly not seen since the reign of Calligula. The atrocities he committed are related by the Renaissance historian Bernardino Corio: "he tells him capable of torturing even his friends to the point of madness, as he did with Giovanni Veronese, his favorite, to whom he cut off a testicle. The twenty-two-year-old Ambrogio instead, in order to escape his flattery (Galeazzo was in fact bisexual), castrated himself. He had the young Pietro Drego buried alive and out of jealousy he had both hands amputated by Pietrino da Castello, slandering him as a forger, since he had caught him conversing with his mistress. When he surprised a farmer who had caught a hare against the hunting ban, he forced him to swallow it whole with all his skin until he suffocated. Since an astrologer priest had predicted the date of his death, Galeazzo had him walled up alive and wanted to see him starve. He had the habit of raping both men and women, and of appropriating the wives of others, and even worse, once he had finished, he had them raped in turn by his favorites, reason that was the basis of the conspiracy that crushed him in 1476. The lightest punishment of all went instead to his barber, the Travaglino, who, having cut it by mistake, received four lashes. The Corio also describes him as greedy, and imposer of unusual taxes."

When, in 1471, his sister Ippolyta asked a Franciscan friar in Naples - perhaps Giovanni della Marca - to pray for Galeazzo Maria, the friar refused to do so, saying: ""What do you want, madonna, that I pray to God for the Lord your brother, who fears God as much as that wall does?"

Probably not all that surprising then that he died by the assassin's knife. Well, I say assassin's but I should make that plural, as there were three. Well, four, including a servant, and about thirty-odd in the whole conspiracy.  Oddly enough, it wasn't his cruelty and sexual lusts, as such, that had convinced the three nobles to do him in. One had a beef with him about some land, one thought, or knew, that he had deflowered his sister, and another just didn't like his politics. Also of interest is the fact that the slaying took place in church (which you would assume, even at that time, would have been sacrosanct to such devout Catholics) and in ways looks to have mirrored the killing of Julius Caesar, bringing us back to Rome again. Amusingly, one of the assassins got himself caught up in some curtains or something and was arrested and killed, while again oddly, considering how brutal the man had been, there was a mob ready to tear the corpses apart when the rest of the conspirators were arrested and executed. Jeez! You're welcome, lads!

With the - very violent and more to the point sudden - death of Galeazzo Maria, his son, Gian Galeazzo, became the third Duke of Milan, but it seems as he was very young - only seven years old - coming to the throne on the assassination of his father, his uncle stood as regent, and it wasn't long before he took power and indeed may have been responsible for the death of the duke, at the age of 25. So in any real sense, this guy was in charge.



Ludovico Sforza (1452 - 1508)

Although as I say above he is known or suspected of poisoning his nephew the Duke Gian Galeazzo, it appears from the accounts I read that Ludovico was a peaceful and popular ruler. He has the title "Arbiter of Italy", and though I'm not going to be going into the entire history of Italy, nor even the rulers of Milan, he looks to have had his hands full when Columbus was doing the rounds. Now, all of this has been written with the clear understanding that I have not the first clue how these things worked. Maybe you had to go outside your own country to get the financial backing you needed. Maybe your own duke or prince would tell you to fuck off, he had more important things to worry about than your poxy flight of fancy, assuming you could even get an audience with him. In Milan, Venice, Florence and Rome I seem to remember you really couldn't get near the ruler - other than being in the family or court - without the help of a patron, and maybe our Chris had none. So he might never have bothered even setting foot in the duke's palace.

But even had he, it looks like he would have been given short shrift. From what I read, around this time old Ludo had a war to fight, as the Venusians sorry again always getting them mixed up Venetians were attacking him, and had the support of Genoa, so being a Genoese and going to the Duke of Milan to ask for financial backing seems like it would have been a really bad idea. Ludo was also in the throes of planning a wedding (or some say, or thought, avoiding it) so there was a lot to occupy his time, and fighting  wars is not a cheap occupation, so the coffers would not have been available to Columbus, had he requested an audience, which I'm beginning to increasingly think he did not. At any rate, what we can take from this - and it does satisfy at least my curiosity on the subject - is that had Columbus looked to Genoa (or Milan, really) for support he would almost certainly not have got it, and he probably knew that, and so did not try.

[Trollheart]

Spain: A Union of Equals Under Their Catholic Majesties

No, I am not jumping ahead. I have no intention of telling you here how it came about that the king and queen of Spain ended up being the ones who financed the Columbus voyage, that will come later. All I want to do here is see how things stood in Spain, and how and why he was able to go to the Spanish court and get the help he needed. And as always, for that, we need to go back in time a little and check out the situation in Spain and how it came to be where it was by the time of Columbus. And one thing I find amazing, which I certainly did not know, is that for over 700, nearly in fact 800 years, Spain and Portugal - known then as the Iberian Peninsula, or Hispania - were under Muslim control, part of what was called the Umayyad Caliphate, which at its height stretched from Syria in the Middle East to Egypt in North Africa, and covered over four million square miles, making it one of the largest empires in history. Interestingly, and perhaps at odds with current Islamic countries, both Christians and Jews were not only allowed practice their own religion in the Caliphate, but could also hold government positions.

Without getting too much though into the history, in 718 or 722 the Christian States began to invade, ostensibly to take back land they had lost to the Muslims, in what became known as the Reconquista, or reconquest, a period of wars that would last for over six centuries, and which would culminate, in one of those little quirks of history, in the very year Columbus would discover (yes, yes!) America, as Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castille took the last remaining kingdom in the Caliphate, Granada. In truth though the Caliphate had been smashed two hundred years earlier, with the major battles of Cordoba (1256) and Seville (1248) bringing all but Granada under the control of the Catholic monarchs. Bad news for the Jews, incidentally, who, having lived in relative peace under the Caliphate were expelled under the Alhambra Decree in 1492 unless they converted, and Muslims were equally treated, though the latter were then expelled anyway a century later. This draconian law was not revoked until the nineteenth century, and symbolically so another century later, in 1968.


As can be seen from the map above, Spain in the Middle Ages was made up mostly of two major kingdoms, these being primarily Aragon and Castille, with Leon, Navarra and Galacia, and as Castille in time absorbed Leon, Cordoba, Navarra and Seville, as well as  the other smaller  kingdoms they became known as the Crown of Castille. When Ferdinand married Isabella their union signified the joining of the two main kingdoms into one, which became espana, modern Spain. Rather than being known as king and queen of Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella were given by the Pope the title of "The Catholic Monarchs" in 1494, though they had married in 1469.


King Ferdinand II of Aragon (1452 - 1516)

Although born a prince of the blood, the second son of King John of Castille, Ferdinand was not the heir to the throne until the mysterious death - some say poisoning at the hands of his stepmother - of his elder brother Charles. A child prodigy, he was nevertheless respectful of the lower classes, ensuring he would, when he took the Crown of Castille, be loved by them, and when his mother died in only his sixteenth year he conducted the arrangements for her funeral (his father being away at battle) and then joined King John, a seasoned campaigner by seventeen. It's easy to take written accounts of the man as fawning, exaggerated or even politically motivated, but certain attributes seem to be common to all the ones I've read: smiling eyes, kindness, gentle handling of the poor, pious, moderate, humble, thoughtful - these are all mentioned in about seven different sketches of him by various authors, so there must be some truth in them. Few if any have a bad word to say about him.

His marriage in 1460 to Isabella of Castille was not smiled upon: her half-brother, Henry IV of Castille, had wished Ferdinand to marry instead the daughter of the Duke of Burgundy, Mary, and was so angry at the match that he disinherited Isabella in favour of his daughter Joanna. Once Henry died, Isabella turned the tables on her niece and took the throne of Castille for herself. Seems Ferdinand was a bit miffed at this, possibly (though I'm just guessing here) because he expected to be crowned king, and was only referred to as Isabella's "legitimate husband" (there's damning with faint praise if ever I heard it). So he returned hotfoot to Segovia, where his wife had set up court, and they had a right old ding-dong, thrashing it out just in time to face a challenge from Joanna's hubby, Alfonso V, king of Portugal, who wanted the throne for his wife and himself. Isabella thus claimed Portugal as hers, and war were declared.

Ferdinand of course brought Aragon in on her side, but her own people were divided, some of them rooting for the woman they believed to be the true heir to the throne, Queen Joanna of Portugal. France got involved - not surprisingly, on the side of Portugal, as Ferdinand had been in the middle of battling their forces when the news of Isabella's coronation had reached  him - while various other Spanish states, such as Navarre, Granada and Galicia, had enough troubles of their own with civil wars and said "you're all right, mate: you just continue on without us." The war raged on for four years, but in the end Ferdinand and Isabella were victorious, and in 1481, with the death of his father and his ascension to the throne of Aragon, Ferdinand merged his kingdom with that of Isabella, and Castille and Aragon became the foundation of what is today modern Spain.

So with the final annexation of Granada in 1492, it would seem Ferdinand and Isabella were powerful enough, jointly as rulers of the new Spain, to have considered gaining new territory, which may be (we will see) why they were prepared to back Columbus. Even so, you would imagine after such a costly war with the French and Portuguese, that they might not have been so quick to pony up the readies. However, I have read in passing that there was some form of financial trickery/compulsion used which ended up leaving Ferdinand's accountant personally responsible for shouldering much of the burden of the loan the Crown gave to Columbus. If so, then it was a pretty clever masterstroke.


Queen Isabella I of Castile (1451 - 1504)

The other half of the power double in Spain was of course Queen Isabella, monarch of Castile, but as already mentioned she was only third in line to the throne, her half-brother Henry being the heir when their father, John II, died, and she and her brother Alfonso being basically kicked to the curb, left to all but starve in a castle until summoned to court by the King of Portugal, who made sure they were looked after and educated. Alfonso died in 1458, leaving Isabella next in line to the throne. With a civil war going on in Castile, Henry tried to marry his sister off to various princes and nobles in order to secure alliances, but none succeeded. One such suitor, Charles of Berry, actually died on the way to meet his proposed new bride, who had prayed to God not to let the marriage take place. Guess God was quicker in those days!

In the end, the marriage between her and the man she had been originally betrothed to, and who would become King of Aragon, took place with quite a dash of romance. Isabella, fearing she would be prevented by her brother marrying Ferdinand, legged it from the palace while he met her disguised as a servant. The two eloped, basically, and were married in 1469. Ah, bless. They would soon become the two most powerful forces in the country, their twin kingdoms uniting to create modern Spain. Isabella was crowned Queen of Castile on the death of her brother five years later, but was immediately challenged by King Afonso V of Portugal, who believed Henry's daughter, Joanna, was the rightful heir, and they went back and forth till eventually Castile were able to claim the victory, and Isabella's reign was ratified.

She proved to be a more than competent ruler. In a time when England had yet to see its first (official) queen, and most of Europe was ruled by men, she grasped the political and economic realities with the acumen of any  man, and better than most. She re-established justice and law and order throughout Castile, sorted out the finances and grew to be a well-liked monarch

[Trollheart]

Okay, well that's the background researched. Time to return to the man about whom this whole article is being written.

Oh, you were wondering when we'd get back to him, were you? Well, had to set the scene, and now that we've done that, back we go.

And I mean back.


Christopher Columbus (1451 - 1506)

Though little is really known of Columbus's birth or even his early life, most seem to agree that he came from Genoa, one of the states of what would become Italy, and his father, Domenico, looks to have married into money, as he was a mere wool weaver who also ran a cheese shop on the side, whereas his wife, Susanna Fontanarossa (sounds like an Italian sports car!) was the daughter of a wealthy real estate developer in Corsica. Christopher was the first son of Domenico and Susanna, and three more would arrive along with the last, a daughter. One of his brothers, Bartolomeo, would go on to be a map-maker, and Christopher himself would study at the University of Pavia, though at age fourteen he would leave - whether this means he dropped out, graduated or was expelled we have no idea due to the scarcity, almost non-existence of records of his early life, but there is no mention made later of any disgrace, so it may reasonably be assumed, I would think, that he either completed his studies or that the call of the sea proved too strong for him to remain in education. What exactly contributed to his interest in the life of a mariner I have no clue; there was no history of either naval service or exploration or even trade on his father's side, and his mother came from a line of realtors, so it's doubtful there was any wanderlust in the Fontanarossas either.

It could of course have been the simple desire to see beyond his own country that drew Columbus to the sea. In a time where the only way to see other lands was to take passage on a ship, it's possible he just decided he wanted to see more of the world. Perhaps his studies (geography and navigation were among the subjects he took at the university, perhaps underlining how common it might be for young men to become sailors) gave him the spur; perhaps learning about other countries, and also how to handle and navigate a ship, might have instilled in him a desire to put that knowledge into practice and make a name for himself. And, of course, he was brought up in a port town. Watching all those ships sailing in from strange places, a bit like Marco Polo two centuries before him, must have stirred the blood and stiffened the sinew, or something. It's probably likely - almost certain, one would assume, at that age - that he started as a cabin boy on some ship and, literally, learned the ropes, until he was able to captain his own ship. And then of course there were always wars, and wars need ships and ships need captains. Columbus was involved in the war between Genoa and Venice from 1461- 1463, and commanded a fleet of galleys near Cyprus.

"In 1477," he says, in one of his letters, "in the month of February, I sailed more than a hundred leagues beyond Tile." By this he means Thule, or Iceland. "Of this island the southern part is seventy-three degrees from the equator, not sixty-three degrees, as some geographers pretend."

But here he was wrong. The Southern part of Iceland is in the
latitude of sixty-three and a half degrees.

"The English, chiefly those of Bristol, carry their merchandise, to this island, which is as large as England. When I was there the sea was not frozen, but the tides there are so strong that they rise and fall twenty-six cubits."

It could also have had to do with the attack on Constantinople, which changed Europe fundamentally.

The Fall of Constantinople (1453)

Constantinople was one of the great cities and centres of power of the medieval world. The hub of the mighty Byzantine Empire, and named after the first Roman emperor to legalise christianity, Constantine the Great, the city had stood for over a thousand years, and despite two attacks and sieges by Arabs, in 674 and 717, and Christian Crusaders in 1204, it was still standing by Columbus's time. However, successive attacks by Latins, Bulgarians, Serbs and Ottoman Turks had reduced and weakened the city, and the arrival of the Black Death in 1346 did not help matters, wiping out nearly half of the city's population, and leaving it ripe, once Europe had recovered from the Plague, for conquest. By 1450, the once-great city had shrunk to a few walled villages, the Byzantine Empire was on its last legs, and Constantinople was really nothing more than a shaky house of cards, just waiting for one push to bring it all down.

The ones to provide that push were the Turks of the Ottoman Empire.

Their new young ruler, Mehmed II, knew the history of his people and he wanted Constantinople back. He of course knew too how weak the ancient centre of the Byzantine Empire had become, and was eager to prove himself. He built a second fortress on the Bosphorus Strait, to complement the one built there decades ago by his great-grandfather, and effectively blocking off any potential aid which might come from Greece, where the brothers of Constantine XI, now ruling in what was left of Constantinople, held sway. Constantine turned to western Europe for help, but apart from there being bad feeling between him and the Pope, most of the European powers had just ended major wars, such as the Hundred Years War between France and England and the Reconquista, which had taken up most of Spain's military and financial resources, so in effect Constantinople met the threat of the Turks without allies.

And they needed them. A force of about 7,000 defended the city, with the Turks mustering up to ten times that many, according to various estimates. Even the lower estimate though reckons their strength to have been 50,000, so at least seven to one. Plus they had cannon, about 70 of them, while the garrison had only a few old outdated and pretty low-powered pieces of artillery. The Ottomans had massive cannon which, though slow to reload - three hours - and unreliable were nevertheless devastating, and no doubt struck fear into the defenders when they saw them being hauled towards the city.

In the end, the Siege of Constantinople lasted 53 days, the city finally falling on May 29 1453, as the power of the Ottoman Empire was turned against Christendom. I suppose in twenty-first century terms the Fall of Constantinople might be equated, in terms of shock and disbelief, to the attack on the Twin Towers. It was a black day for Christianity, and though they hoped one day the city would be recovered it never was, as Istanbul, as it became known, is now the capital of Turkey, a Muslim nation.

What has all this to do with Christopher Columbus, I hear you ask? Well to be honest, I don't know, but I imagine it must have had some effect upon his desire to explore and also to find new territories for the Spanish Crown in the face of the growing Muslim threat from the east. At any rate, we pick up the story of Columbus as he reaches his thirties, and marries Philippa de Perestrello, the daughter of another mariner, an ex-Portuguese governor,  in 1477. It was from Lisbon that he began trying to solicit interest in his plan to reach Japan (known in Marco Polo's famous travel book as Cipango) which he believed to be the closest point to Europe, and as he was in Portugal it only made sense to hit up the Portuguese King, John II, who had already authorised the voyage of Bartholomew Diaz to Africa, where the navigator had discovered the Cape of Good Hope.

At this time, it was still believed the only way to get to the East Indies was to sail east, down along the African coast, while Columbus's idea was that if you sailed west, and the world was round, as most believed it was (though it had yet to be conclusively proven beyond doubt shut up Flat Earthers nobody cares) then the Indies could be reached that way, which would be a much shorter and quicker route. Mostly though, what he was offering was trade advantages. Spices, silks, carpets, drugs were all imported from India, and very popular. If they could be transported faster and more conveniently by his proposed route, the monarch who cornered that enterprise would stand to become rich as, well, a king, but a very rich king. Perhaps several. Not to mention the prestige that would accrue to him.

However now we come to the crux of the matter. Columbus explained his vision to King Alphonso V, but he rather inconveniently died in 1481 and passed the throne to his son, John II, who nodded and smiled as Columbus explained his plan, then went and gave it to another mariner to try out, before he shelled out the readies. Sadly for this sailor, and the king, but not for Columbus, the big girl's blouse got scared of an iddy-biddy massive storm and fucked off back home. John hadn't let on about his "test run", but when the fleet came back into Lisbon harbour trailing a brown streak in the sea, he knew which was the wind blew (well he would, wouldn't he, being a sailor and all?) and told John exactly where he could stuff it, and in high dudgeon (no point being in low dudgeon; might as well not be in any dudgeon at all if you're not going to be in high) he sodded off to Spain, where history was about to be made, leaving John II of Portugal most likely slapping his forehead and muttering "Fuck."

So, although he hadn't actually asked the Duke of Milan for help, being an Italian that was technically Italy and now Portugal down.

Third time's the charm.

[Trollheart]

Spanish Gold: Their Catholic Majesties Bankroll the Voyage

It seems pretty incredible to me that at this point Columbus is believed to have been about fifty years of age. Remember, this was the fifteenth century, when human life expectancy was much lower than it is today. Columbus would have been considered well past middle age and perhaps heading into old age, and for a man of such "advanced years" to undertake a grand enterprise like this must have added to the doubts of those who believed it pure folly. He also had a son by now, Diego, and with the passing of his wife had taken a mistress in Castile, Beatriz Enriquez de Arana, who would give him a second son, Fernando. Columbus first gained the attention and interest of two dukes, the Duke of Medina Celi and the Duke of Medina Sidonia, with the former so enthused that he was ready to provide a small fleet for the Genoan, but had second thoughts at the last minute, believing the project required royal backing.

And so he introduced Columbus to Ferdinand and Isabella, and the proposal was made. Since Constantinople had fallen, the usual access route to the Indies, the famous Silk Road, had been closed, making travel east even more difficult and more dangerous. Columbus told the two Spanish monarchs (it's not recorded if Isabella was present when he had his first audience with her husband, but she was brought in later) that it was his hope to convert the "Indians" to Christianity, and that the proceeds of trade which would result from the discovery, and conquest of the New World would enable Ferdinand and Isabella to mount a campaign to take back Jerusalem from the Muslims. For two such deeply Catholic monarchs - so much so that they had, as mentioned, been titled as such by the Pope - such an opportunity was not to be missed.

The monarchs convened a council, this perhaps showing how both were prepared to listen to others and let them make the arguments and ask the questions about which they themselves knew little or nothing; Ferdinand has already been noted as having been a pious and humble man, and while Isabella certainly had a firebrand streak, both monarchs knew that there were those in Spain who were better placed to make a judgement on this man's proposal. Much was discussed, including religious scripture, the actual distance to the West Indies - which it turned out Columbus had very much underestimated - and of course the cost and its potential return to the Crown. In the end, no decision was reached, but Columbus was kept at the Spanish court, mostly, presumably, to prevent him offering the idea to other kings. He did receive an invitation to return to Portugal and again make his proposal to King John, though it doesn't say whether or not he accepted, and I think not; he sent Bartholomew to England to talk to King Henry VII, but a run-in with pirates delayed his brother's arrival on England's shores by a year, only arriving in 1491.

In January of the next year, which would be forever remembered in history - incorrectly - as the year America was discovered - Columbus tired of waiting around for an answer that seemed no closer in coming, and headed off to see if the King of France might be interested. On the way towards the seaport of Palos, he and his son stopped at the convent of St. Mary of Ribada, where the abbot, Juan Perez de Marchena, begged him to try once more with the Spanish monarchs before petitioning the French one. He had in fact been Isabella's confessor, and so was well in with her, and when he convinced Columbus to send a messenger, the queen received him favourably and told him Columbus should return to the court for an audience.

He arrived with, it would seem, the stars aligning for him, as Spain had finally taken back Granada and thus pushed the last Muslims out of their land, destroying the last remnants of the Umayyad Caliphate, so one obstacle which had been presented to him previously was removed. However he ran into problems with the new Archbishop of Granada, who thought it scandalous that Columbus should demand one-tenth of all the revenues from the voyage. Isabella's confessor, Luis de St. Angel, could see how things were going and at this impasse realised Columbus was again frogbound, and anxious that Spain not lose the glory of supporting this voyage he interceded. Isabella listened to his counsel and agreed. Thunderbirds were, so to speak, go.

What I find a little odd about this is that Ferdinand was the original of the two monarchs Columbus approached, and Isabella was apparently not there, but then she seems to have completely taken over the negotiations, her husband not even at court when she made her decision. I mean, sure, later he would have looked back and said "Good call, babe", but would he not have been a little ticked off to have had such a huge decision made by his wife without consulting him? Guess he was busy somewhere, though it doesn't say where.

The problem was, though, there was no cash. Spain had, as I've said already once or twice, just come out of a costly war to take back its lands from the Muslims, and the cupboard was bare. Isabella apparently pledged her own jewels as collateral, making the voyage really more under her patronage than that of Ferdinand, and also giving her a larger role in the administration of the New World, which would be considered really more Castilian than Spanish. The funds were actually advanced though by the confessor, St. Angel, from  the ecclesiastical revenues.

[Trollheart]

First Voyage

Columbus had of course no problem securing crew for the three caravels (old sailing ships) he had been granted for the voyage. Every able-bodied man was ready and eager to face the unknown, sail into uncharted seas and brave the monsters of the deep, spend years away from their families in search of a land which might not even exist, and if it did, might very well be hostile. The prospect of dying at sea filled the sailors with... well, you know where I'm going with this, don't you? There was in fact fierce resistance to and reluctance for the voyage, and it was only through the efforts of his main supporters and friends, the Pinzon brothers, respected sailors and merchants who announced they would personally travel on the voyage, that doubts were removed.

The three ships are known to history as having been the Santa Maria, Columbus's flagship and the largest of the three, the Nina and the Pinta. It seems the Santa Maria was originally called Gallego, but Columbus had its name changed (thought that was something superstitious sailors avoided, believing it was bad luck?) and the entire crew of 120 men set sail on the morning of August 3, Columbus marking the beginning of the great voyage in his log:

"Friday, August 3, 1492. Set sail from the bar of Saltes at 8 o'clock, and proceeded with a strong breeze till sunset sixty miles, or fifteen leagues south, afterward southwest and south by west, which is in the direction of the Canaries."

As an aside, this really was the answer to the sixty-four thousand dollar question, as it seems that is the equivalent in today's money as to how much the Crown shelled out for the enterprise. First port of call was to be the Canaries, and as it happened they had to pull in here anyway as the rudder of the Nina broke, believed to be sabotage by its owners, from whom it was taken by the Crown as a fine, or possibly the sailors themselves, afraid of the voyage. Either way, it was repaired and the small fleet set out again on September 6 for a six-week voyage west. On September 16 they arrived in what would become known as the Sargasso Sea, where large clumps of green seaweed floated, Now that they were out in the unknown, Columbus worried about mutiny if his crew were to discover how far from home they actually were, and so he fudged the figures, writing one distance travelled in the log, another, the true one in his personal journal. So he would write in his journal, "Travelled fifty-five leagues, wrote only forty-eight." A dangerous game to play, if his crew should discover he was lying to them.

He may have been made Admiral of the Oceans by Isabella, but while he had travelled widely Columbus's blunders were many. He notes that they must be near land on September 20, as he spots a whale and considers they always stay near the coast, which is of course about as far from the truth as you can get. Two days later the trade winds, which had continued to push them west, changed, overtaken by a headwind which helped slow them down, his crew fearing perhaps they would sail off the edge of the world, or at least never see home again, having been blown so far from Spain. However, proving that it was not only the Admiral who could make a knob of himself, Martin Pinzon, in charge of the Pinta, shouted out on September 25 that he had spotted land, and headed towards it, only to find it was in fact a bank of fog.

Nevertheless, increasing flocks of seabirds showed them they were in fact coming closer to land, though Columbus believed this to be the coast of Asia, or the islands around it, when in fact it was the Bahamas. On October 10 the event which has been called in history the mutiny on board Columbus's ship took place, but according to his own journal it was never anything close. Sure, the men were scared and fed-up, not having sighted land despite their captain's constant assurances, but he doesn't seem to have had any real fear that there would be any sort of mutiny. He writes:

"The seamen complained of the length of the voyage. They did not wish to go any farther. The Admiral did his best to renew their courage, and reminded them of the profits which would come to them. He added, boldly, that no
complaints would change his purpose, that he had set out to go to the Indies, and that with the Lord's assistance he should keep on until he came there."

The very next day, they sighted land. Again, from his journal:


"Oct. 11, course to west and southwest. Heavier sea than they had known, pardelas and a green branch near the caravel of the Admiral. From the Pinta they see a branch of a tree, a stake and a smaller stake, which they draw in, and which appears to have been cut with iron, and a piece of cane. Besides these, there is a land shrub and a little bit of board. The crew of the Nina saw other signs of land and a branch covered with thorns and flowers. With these tokens every-one breathes again and is delighted. They sail twenty-seven leagues on this course.

The Admiral orders that they shall resume a westerly course at sunset. They make twelve miles each hour; up till two hours after midnight they made ninety miles. The Pinta, the best sailer of the three, was ahead. She makes signals, already agreed upon, that she has discovered land. A sailor named Rodrigo de Triana was the first to see this land. For the Admiral being on the castle of the poop of the ship at ten at night really saw a light, but it was so shut in by darkness that he did not like to say that it was a sign of land. Still he called up Pedro Gutierrez, the king's chamberlain, and said to him that there seemed to be a light, and asked him to look. He did so and saw it. He said the same to Rodrigo Sanchez of Segovia, who had been sent by the king and queen as inspector in the fleet, but he saw nothing, being indeed in a place where he could see nothing.

After the Admiral spoke of it, the light was seen once or twice. It was like a wax candle, raised and lowered, which would appear to few to be a sign of land. But the Admiral was certain that it was a sign of land. Therefore when they said the 'Salve,' which all the sailors are used to say and sing in their fashion, the Admiral ordered them to look out well from the forecastle, and he would give at once a silk jacket to the man who first saw land, besides the other rewards which the sovereigns had ordered, which were 10,000 maravedis, to be paid as an annuity forever to the man who saw it first. At two hours after midnight land appeared, from which they were about two leagues off.

It was in fact an island, and it wasn't long before they caught sight of people, natives, the first to encounter Europeans, or at least, Europeans who were about to enslave, annihilate or forcibly convert them. Although land was sighted on October 11, they did not reach it till the next day, therefore the actual discovery day is taken as being October 12, 1492. After Columbus, the two Pinzons and a landing party (sorry) had taken possession of the new land - which he called San Salvador, and by which name it is still known today - for Ferdinand and Isabella, the rest of the story is best described by the Admiral himself.

"So that they may feel great friendship for us, and because I knew that they were a people who would be better delivered and converted to our Holy Faith by love than by force, I gave to someof them red caps and glass bells which they put round their necks, and many other things of little value, in which they took much pleasure, and they remained so friendly to us that it was wonderful. Afterwards they came swimming to the ship's boats where we were. And they brought us parrots and cotton-thread in skeins, and javelins and many other things. And they bartered them with us for other things, which we gave them, such as little glass beads and little bells. In short, they took everything, and gave of what they had with good will. But it seemed to me that they were a people very destitute of everything.

They all went as naked as their mothers bore them, and the women as well, although I only saw one who was really young. And all the men I saw were young, for I saw none more than thirty years of age; very well made, with very handsome persons, and very good faces; their hair thick like the hairs of horses' tails, and cut short. They bring their hair above their eyebrows, except a little behind, which they wear long, and never cut. Some of them paint themselves blackish (and they are of the color of the inhabitants of the Canaries, neither black nor white), and some paint themselves white, and some red, and some with whatever they can get. And some of them paint their faces, and some all their bodies, and some only the eyes, and some only the nose.

They do not bear arms nor do they know them, for I showed them swords and they took them by the edge, and they cut themselves through ignorance. They have no iron at all; their javelins are rods without iron, and some of them have a fish's tooth at the end, and some of them other things. They are all of good stature, and good graceful appearance, well made. I saw some who had scars of wounds in their bodies, and I made signs to them (to ask) what that was, and they showed me how people came there from other islands which lay around, and tried to take them captive and they defended themselves. And I believed, and I (still) believe, that they came there from the mainland to take them for captives.

They would be good servants, and of good disposition, for I see that they repeat very quickly everything which is said to them. And I believe that they could easily be made Christians, for it seems to me that they have no belief. I, if it please our Lord, will take six of them to your Highnesses at the time of my departure, so that they may learn to talk. No wild creature of any sort have I seen, except parrots, in this island."

All these are the words of the Admiral, says Las Casas. The journal of the next day is in these words:

Saturday, October 13. "As soon as the day broke, many of these men came to the beach, all young, as I have said, and all of good stature, a very handsome race. Their hair is not woolly, but straight and coarse, like horse hair, and all with much wider foreheads and heads than any other people I have seen up to this time. And their eyes are very fine and not small, and they are not black at all, but of the color of the Canary Islanders. And nothing else could be expected, since it is on one line of latitude with the Island of Ferro, in the Canaries.

They came to the ship with almadias,(*) which are made of the trunk of a tree, like a long boat, and all of one piece—and made in a very wonderful manner in the fashion of the country—and large enough for some of them to hold forty or forty-five men. And others are smaller, down to such as hold one man alone. They row with a shovel like a baker's, and it goes wonderfully well. And if it overturns, immediately they all go to swimming and they right it, and bale it with calabashes which they carry.

(*) Arabic word for raft or float; here it means canoes.

They brought skeins of spun cotton, and parrots, and javelins, and other little things which it would be wearisome to write down, and they gave everything for whatever was given to them. And I strove attentively to learn whether there were gold. And I saw that some of them had a little piece of gold hung in a hole which they have in their noses. And by signs I was able to understand that going to the south, or going round the island to the southward, there was a king there who had great vessels of it, and had very much of it. I tried to persuade them to go there; and afterward I saw that they did not understand about going.

I determined to wait till the next afternoon, and then to start for the southwest, for many of them told me that there was land to the south and southwest and northwest, and that those from the northwest came often to fight with them, and so to go on to the southwest to seek gold and precious stones.

This island is very large and very flat and with very green trees, and many waters, and a very large lake in the midst, without any mountain. And all of it is green, so that it is a pleasure to see it. And these people are so gentle, and desirous to have our articles and thinking that nothing can be given them unless they give something and do not keep it back. They take what they can, and at once jump (into the water) and swim (away). But all that they have they give for whatever is given them. For they barter even for pieces of porringus, and of broken glass cups, so that I saw sixteen skeins of cotton given for three Portuguese centis, that is a blanca of Castile, and there was more than twenty-five pounds of spun cotton in them. This I shall forbid, and not let anyone take (it); but I shall have it all taken for your Highnesses, if there is any quantity of it.

It grows here in this island, but for a short time I could not believe it at all. And there is found here also the gold which they wear hanging to their noses; but so as not to lose time I mean to go to see whether I can reach the island of Cipango. Now as it was night they all went ashore with their almadias."


Sunday, October 14. "At daybreak I had the ship's boat and the boats of the caravels made ready, and I sailed along the island, toward the north-northeast, to see the other port, * * * * what there was (there), and also to see the towns, and I soon saw two or three, and the people, who all were coming to the shore, calling us and giving thanks to God. Some brought us water, others things to eat. Others, when they saw that I did not care to go ashore, threw themselves into the sea and came swimming, and we understood that they asked us if we had come from heaven. And an old man came into the boat, and others called all (the rest) men and women, with a loud voice: 'Come and see the men who have come from heaven; bring them food and drink.'

"There came many of them and many women, each one with something, giving thanks to God, casting themselves on the ground, and raising their heads toward heaven. And afterwards they called us with shouts to come ashore. But I feared (to do so), for I saw a great reef of rocks which encircles all that island. And in it there is bottom and harbor for as many ships as there are in all Christendom, and its entrance very narrow. It is true that there are some shallows inside this ring, but the sea is no rougher than in a well.

And I was moved to see all this, this morning, so that I might be able to give an account of it all to your Highnesses, and also (to find out) where I might make a fortress. And I saw a piece of land formed like an island, although it is not one, in which there were six houses, which could be cut off in two days so as to become an island; although I do not see that it is necessary, as this people is very ignorant of arms, as your Highnesses will see from seven whom I had taken, to carry them off to learn our speech and to bring them back again. But your Highnesses, when you direct, can take them all to Castile, or keep them captives in this same island, for with fifty men you can keep them all subjected, and make them do whatever you like.

And close to the said islet are groves of trees, the most beautiful I have seen, and as green and full of leaves as those of Castile in the months of April and May, and much water. I looked at all that harbor and then I returned to the ship and set sail, and I saw so many islands that I could not decide to which I should go first. And those men whom I had taken said to me by signs that there were so very many that they were without number, and they repeated by name more than a hundred. At last I set sail for the largest one, and there I determined to go. And so I am doing, and it will be five leagues from the island of San Salvador, and farther from some of the rest, nearer to others. They all are very flat, without mountains and very fertile, and all inhabited. And they make war upon each other although they are very simple, and (they are) very beautifully formed."

It's rather amusing that he seems to have wanted to protect these people, but would end up being the agency of their doom. Of course, one of the first things Columbus wanted to do, once they had landed and spoken with the natives (presumably after a fashion, since it's certain neither could speak the other's language) was to find gold. After all, Ferdinand and Isabella would be delighted with the new territories, but first and foremost they would want gold. And as he had noticed the "savages" wearing gold, Columbus knew it was available. He didn't manage to find any though, and continued his exploration of the islands, making friends, it would seem, with just about all the natives, who were entranced by these strange foreign men, and may very well have taken them to be gods.