Christopher Columbus: Ten Facts About Christopher Columbus

• Buffer
• Tweet

“In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue…” The story that Christopher Columbus first discovered North America in 1492 has become what most people consider a fact. Children learn this little bit of history in their first year of school. But did Columbus really discover North America? Many people know that history books often portray this inaccurately, especially those written for use in our public schools. Archaeologists have dated the early natives of North America to have been well established long before even the Vikings set foot in New England, which also predates Columbus’ voyage to the New World. In addition, Columbus never actually set foot upon American soil but instead landed on an island in the Bahamas. Want to know more about Columbus, read our A Timeline of the Life and Explorations or Christopher Columbus article.

Americans believe him to be a great hero who accomplished an amazing feat by sailing across the ocean with three ships, the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria, in search of new lands. Even the paintings that depict Christopher Columbus are not based on knowledge of what he really looked like, and it remains a mystery to this day. The way that Christopher Columbus is depicted and the stark truth about his life are drastically different. Here are some other facts about Christopher Columbus that are little known and surprising.

-Columbus first began his sailing career at the young age of fourteen. In 1476, he took his first sailing venture into the Atlantic Ocean aboard a vessel that was part of a fleet of five commercial ships headed to England. However, the fleet was attacked by French privateers, and both sides suffered the loss of several ships. Columbus was unfortunate enough to be aboard a ship that was burned, and he was left drifting in the ocean clinging to debris from the ruined vessel. He eventually made it six miles to the shores of Portugal, where he recovered from his ordeal. Soon thereafter he met and married a woman named Felipa and moved to the island of Madeira, where Felipa gave birth to a son named Diego. Shortly after his sons’ birth, Felipa died.

-It was not Christopher Columbus’ idea to sail across the ocean. The credit for this idea belongs to his brother, Bartholomew. He was a map maker who lived in Lisbon, Portugal. According to a personal diary belonging to Bartholomew, he shared his idea with his brother, who embraced it’s possibilities for fame and fortune. Columbus had dreamed of sailing across the world since he was a young boy, to see if one really would “fall off” the ends of the earth.

-Christopher Columbus was not the first person to dispute the belief that the world was flat, as was most widely believed. This great honor rightfully belongs to the scholar Aristotle, who showed that the earth casts a shadow upon the moon during an eclipse that is spherical in shape.

-The discovery of North America was not philosophical in nature at all, because Columbus’ intention was to find a faster trade route to China and India, in order acquire more economic status by shortening the route. Finding the Americas was purely an accident.

-Christopher Columbus was known to be a very cruel and brutal man, and was eventually arrested for his atrocious crimes against his people while he was governor of the colony Hispaniola. His cruelty caused him to be arrested and returned to Spain. For his brutalities to be considered worthy of arrest and trial (23 people testified against him), his actions had to have been extremely bad given the time period. He was found innocent, possibly because of his staunchest defenders, the King and Queen of Spain.

-He was an opium addict. Opium is the dried latex from poppies. It contains 12% morphine, and is the same drug that is chemically altered to produce heroin today. Opium use during the 1400s was not uncommon, in fact the King and Queen of Spain also indulged in this habit. It does however, cast more doubt on Christopher Columbus as being a great hero.

-It is written in many historical texts that Columbus and his men may have been responsible for introducing Syphilis to Europe. There is new genetic evidence supporting this theory. Columbus and his men are believed to have brought the disease, which is sexually transmitted, to Europe in 1493. An estimated five million people died in Europe as a result of a massive Syphilis epidemic.

-Columbus incorrectly estimated the circumference of the earth, as well as the distance from the Canary Islands to Japan. Many scholars followed this faulty train of thought, so it is likely that even these declarations made about distance were not original ideas that Columbus himself came up with. One such scholar that believed these ideas to be fact was geographer Paulo de Pozzi Toscanelli, and Columbus was thought to have maintained frequent correspondence with him.

-He had another son out of wedlock, with a woman named Beatriz Enriquez de Arana. He carried on a love affair with Beatriz for many years but never married her. His second sons’ name was Ferdinand, who accompanied his father on his last voyage to the Americas.

-It is commonly thought by many researchers that the original misconception that the American indigenous peoples were barbaric and unclean came from Christopher Columbus. This carried so much weight that all of Europe maintained this faulty belief upon settlement of the American colonies. No one ever attempted to learn the intricacies of the native cultures at all, but instead sought to eradicate the people. White men brought with them to the Americas many diseases such as Small Pox, Diptheria and Measles which wiped out entire populations of native people.

Much remains of what is less commonly known about the life of Christopher Columbus. It would be an insightful contribution to American history, especially in the public schools, for these less positive aspects of his life to come to light. History itself is full of the good and the bad sides of human nature, but if we are to fully understand our own origins, we need both sides of every story.

Resource by S.Henniman

I am an aspiring artist and writer from Phoenix Arizona. I enjoy golfing, skiing, college football, and hanging out with my two favorite girls (my wife and 4 year old daughter).

Related Research For Teachers, Students, and Kids