Christopher Columbus False Identity

Christopher Columbus’s Identity Crisis and the Ongoing Spread of False Columbus News

by Manuel Rosa[1]

 

 

Christopher Columbus’s Identity Crisis and 

the Ongoing Spread of False Columbus News

by Manuel Rosa

 

The news was astounding! Famous India was discovered just a month’s sailing across the Atlantic, proclaimed the first-ever International Press Release, dated Lisbon, March 4, 1493.

The outrageous assertion addressed to Luis de Santángel (clerk of Ración de la Corona de Aragón,) begins, “Sir: Since I know that you will rejoice with the glorious success that our Lord has given me in my voyage, I write this to tell you that in 33 days I sailed to the Indies,” wrote Don Cristóbal Colón; the newly created Admiral of the Ocean Sea, Viceroy and Governor of the Indies.

Commonly known today as Colón’s First Letter, the published newsflash was so extraordinary that it spread like wildfire amongst the population of Europe.

You may have never heard of the noble knight named Don Cristóbal Colón that discovered the New World on October 12, 1492, because historians gave the discovery fame to another man. The man historians chose was Cristoforo Colombo, a peasant weaver from Genoa, Italy, whom the English call by the Latinized name of Christopher Columbus. 

PART I
WHAT’S IN A NAME: COLUMBUS’S MISTAKEN IDENTITY

For the last 100 years, Italians have celebrated their Genoese Christopher Columbus, and professors still teach this Christopher Columbus fairytale in schools all around the globe. Historians mixed up the noble navigator Cristóbal Colón with a peasant weaver Cristoforo Colombo, giving the wool-weaver the glory that did not belong to him. Many contemporary documents in Spain, Portugal, and Italy prove that the Genoese weaver Christopher Columbus was not the explorer Don Cristóbal Colón. The investigation of the Columbus biography documents are published in COLUMBUS-The Untold Story (2016).

How did such a mistake come to be? It was not just a simple case of mistaken identity.

How Printing Press Mistakes Lead to a Mistaken Christopher Columbus Identity

To understand how researchers took the wrong road to Genoa, we must recognize the labyrinth of misinformation created initially by the printing press in 1493. Also imperative to this story is a 30-year-long Spanish Inheritance Lawsuit initiated in 1578. Aside from the false news published in the European Press of the day, forged documents were introduced by Italians during the Inheritance Lawsuit to support the Genoese Christopher Columbus.

As soon as Admiral Colón anchored in Lisbon on March 4, 1493, he sent the now-famous letter to Santángel who, not only helped to convince Queen Isabel to sponsor him but had lent money to the Spanish Crown to finance the 1492 voyage. It is unclear how the Barcelona printer Pedro Posa managed to get his hands on the missive sent to Santángel. Still, during its printing, Posa gave the discoverer the surname of Colom. Posa’s final sentence reads, “This letter was sent by Colom to the Escrivano de Ración about the islands discovered in the Indies, contained in another letter to Their Highnesses,”^[2] (Figure 1). 

This minor misspelling by Posa was probably an innocent mistake. Using an m instead of an n was the first misinformation step. A more considerable error arose just a few weeks later when Posa’s publication was translated by Aliander de Cosco into Latin and republished in Rome on April 29, 1493. This Roman news pamphlet further corrupted the name Colom into Columbo, gaining the infamy of being the first publication to give the false name of Columbo to Admiral Colón, as shown in Figure 2. 

Ever since Cosco’s 1493 publication, the mistake of changing Colón into Colombo spread to all non-Spanish-speaking nations. Colón’s propaganda letter was such a sensation that 11 editions were published in 1493 alone. Between 1494 and 1497, six more editions were published, spreading the news of the discovery to the four corners of Europe. The unaware public never knew they were being communicated false information about Don Cristóbal Colón.[3]

 

Figure 1: Last page of the Barcelona Letter printed in April 1493 by Pedro Posa, ending with, “This letter sent Colom...” not Christopher Columbus - colom means pigeon in Catalan. (Source link: The New York Public Library)

Christopher Columbus’s Identity Crisis and the Ongoing Spread of False Columbus News by Manuel Rosa

 

Figure 2: Section of the news release printed in Rome, showing the printing error of Colón’s name as “Columbo” from where Christopher Columbus came from. (Source link: Library of Congress, Control Number: 46031077)

Christopher Columbus’s Identity Crisis and the Ongoing Spread of False Columbus News by Manuel Rosa 

Those who contended that the navigator’s surname was Colombo were people outside of Spain, living far from the events and alien to the truth. Hence all places outside Spain started to know Admiral Colón by the wrong name of Colombo/Columbus. 

However, Colombo and Columbus were not the only wrong versions of the Admiral’s surname. Various publications show no agreement on the surname with variations such as Christofori Colom, Christophorum Coloni, Christoforo Colûbo, Christophoro Colõbo, Christofano Colombo, Xpõfano Cholonbo, among others - see Figure 3.

This false portrayal of the mastermind of the epic 1492 voyage as Columbo instead of Colón was a mistake that grew and grew over the centuries and tricked historians into investigating and writing about the wrong person. The error continued until the present day and has been impossible to correct.

The Voyage from Cristóbal Colón into Christopher Columbus

We can now comprehend how from 1493 until today the media, (authors, printers and translators,) have been altering the facts about Admiral Colón’s life. First, they distorted the name of Colón to Colom in Catalan, and then to Columbo, Columbus, Colombo, Kolomb, and so on. The rest, as they say, is history, albeit erroneous.

Had Cristóbal Colón’s voyage taken place just a few decades earlier, before the establishment of the printing press in Europe, he would not have garnered so much worldly fame, and less confusion would have been created around his identity. The errors would not have spread so far and wide.

Don Hernando Colón, Don Cristóbal’s son, wrote in his Historie[4] that the Latin form of his father’s name was Christopher Colonus; thus, not Columbus – see Figure 4. This explanation was necessary because countless people were already calling his father by the wrong name during Hernando’s lifetime. Don Hernando even explained that the name Colón came from the Greek kōlon, meaning member in that language. The same word where the English language got its colon and semicolon from.

Contrary to the Portuguese language, where Colom corresponds to a Portuguese form of the Spanish Colón, unfortunately, the word colom in Catalan means pigeon. Thus, the Catalan colom in Posa’s printing is equivalent to the Italian colombo and the Latin columbus, all meaning pigeon, which are not the same as the Greek kōlon. 

Figure 3: Various versions of Colón’s letter where the name appears according to the printer’s taste Christopher Columbus is a misnomer. (Author compilation) 

Christopher Columbus’s Identity Crisis and the Ongoing Spread of False Columbus News by Manuel Rosa 

Figure 4: Page 3 of Don Hernando’s Historie where he wrote Christopher Colonus and not Christopher Columbus. (Source link: archive.org)

Christopher Columbus’s Identity Crisis and the Ongoing Spread of False Columbus News by Manuel Rosa

 

Nevertheless, historians insisted, contrary to Hernando Colón’s clarifications and many of Cristóbal Colón’s own documents, that his name was Colombo with the meaning of pigeon in Italian. Aside from discounting Don Hernando’s statements, the researchers asserted continuously and incorrectly that Don Hernando had lied about this father’s name and identity. They even named him falsely Hernando Colombo when printing his Historie in 1571.

The Spanish documents show that the correct name is Cristóbal Colón, never Colombo. Colón is the surname the discoverer used while living in Spain - see Figure 5. Colón has been the name for him and his descendants in Spain and all Spanish-speaking nations for 530 years. Colón is the surname by which his Spanish descendants are presently known. 

Obscuring the Truth

Many authors, including those of the famous 1892 Raccolta Colombiana, used the names Colón and Colombo indiscriminately and interchangeably as if they were the same name. Treating both surnames as the same caused even more confusion. They would certainly not have done so innocently, but to remove obvious doubts that exposed the Genoese weaver Colombo as not being the Iberian navigator Colón. 

“Not a single document from the Raccolta proves the Italian origin of Colón or clarifies the mystery of his birth and childhood,”[5] declared Ezquerra Abadía in 1966, and we totally concur.

Contemporary Spanish writers who knew the navigator in person referred to him as Colom or Colon. For example, “Don Christoual Colom was the first discoverer and Admiral of these Indies,” wrote Oviedo (1478-1557) at the beginning of his second book Historia general de las Indias.[6]

Figure 5: The title page from Don Cristóbal Colón’s Book of Privileges prepared by the discoverer in 1502 reads Cartas Previlegios Cedulas y otras Escrituras de Dõ Xpõval Colon Almirãte Mayor del Mar Oceano Visorey y Governador de las Islas y Tierrra Firme [Letters, Grants, Bonds and other Documents of D. Cristóbal Colón, Admiral Major of the Atlantic, Viceroy and Governor of the Islands and Continent.] As shown the name was not Christopher Columbus. (Source: University of North Carolina at Chapell Hill, Rare Books Collection, RBC folio E114.S84c.1.)

Christopher Columbus’s Identity Crisis and the Ongoing Spread of False Columbus News by Manuel Rosa

 

Andrés Bernáldez (1450-1513), in his Historia de los Reyes Catholics Don Fernando y Doña Isabel wrote “whom they called Christobal Colon, a man of very high ingenuity."[7] Pedro Matire de Anghiera, the chaplain to Queen Isabel, wrote “Cristophorus Colonus” in his book De orbe nouo…[8]

Colón in Spanish is not a translation of the Italian word Colombo, which is palomo in Spanish.

The merging of the two surnames into one happened either because biographers wrongly accepted that Colón and Colombo were the same person, or possibly because it is evident that they were not the same person and some authors were intent in falsifying the story, just as they have.

This fact caused Afonso Dornelas to write that “Colón certainly never imagined that confusion could arise between Colombos and Colóns.”[9]

This grave translation error, however, continues to be accepted by academics of today and has proven to be impossible to correct. For instance, when trying to translate the Latin word columbus into Spanish, dictionaries give us Colón and not palomo. In the same way, when we search for the translation of Colón into English, Lithuanian or any other language, we get the mistranslation as Columbus, Kolumbas, Kolumb, Colomb, Colombo, just to mention a few, and not the Greek κῶλον nor the Latin colon.

Today, it is clear that the discoverer’s name was not Colombo but Colón and that he was not the Colombo weaver from Genoa. 

Don Cristóbal Colón was a high nobleman who married a Portuguese dame, daughter of the Captain of Porto Santo in 1479. Colón’s marriage is the first fact which denies that the navigator was an ordinary peasant from any place. 

Noble dames were not allowed to marry peasants in Portuguese society of the 15^th century.

Misguided authors who accepted the peasant Christopher Columbus from Genoa as the nobleman navigator have written incessantly that the peasant Columbus had married a Portuguese dame to gain nobility and get connected to the Portuguese court. The impossibility of this fairytale proposition makes it laughable. Nothing could be further from the reality of 1470s Portuguese society.

In that society, marriages were arranged by the bride’s family, by the Lord of the territories they lived in, or by the crown. Women were not free to marry who they wanted. If a noble lady went against the family’s wishes and married a peasant, the couple would be slaughtered by the bride’s noble relatives.[10]

This fact is proven out by Portuguese noble marriages where the noble groom was not approved by the bride’s family and who were killed. If a bride’s family would murder a nobleman who married her, can one imagine if she had married a peasant, what would the consequences have been?

Furthermore, if a noble lady actually married a peasant and her family spared their lives by some miracle, her peasant husband would not become noble. Instead, the noble wife would become a mere peasant because women had no power to change their status or the status of their husbands.[11]

Colón’s wife, Filipa Moniz, was not just any noble dame. She was so connected to the Portuguese court that she had three cousins who were countesses and one who was a marquise. Filipa was so connected to the Portuguese court that one uncle was Captain of the crossbowmen of the king’s chamber. She further had one brother-in-law who was a royal guard, one cousin who was Captain of the royal guard for King Afonso V, another cousin who was captain of King João II’s royal guard, and King João II’s Lord Chamberlain since 1475 was yet another of Filipa’s cousins.

Filipa Moniz herself, is documented as an elite Comendadora[12] in the All-Saints Commandery[13] in Lisbon belonging to the Portuguese Military Order of Santiago, whose leader was King João II. When Don Cristóbal Colón got married in 1479, he married into a family so connected to the Portuguese court that they were directly involved with two kings of Portugal. This family was no place for any peasant, as Figures 6 and 7 show.

Historians invented a whole fairytale life for their peasant weaver Christopher Columbus but have no compatible documentation to prove it. This invention goes against the social norms of the time and even denies the navigator’s own documents.

Still, how could researchers accept and graft the peasant Colombo weaver into the noble Colón’s story?

 

 

Figure 6: The children of Branca Dias Perestrelo were nephews of Bartolomeu Perestrelo. They were royal blood, legitimized in 1444, and integrated into the court of Kings Afonso V and João II. As cousins of Filipa Moniz, they were connected to Don Cristóbal Colón and to the House of Bragança as well. Source links: Archbishop Pedro de Noronha, Diego Colón, Admiral of the Indies.

Christopher Columbus’s Identity Crisis and the Ongoing Spread of False Columbus News by Manuel Rosa

 

Figure 7: The Moniz Magros, uncles of Filipa Moniz, were connected to royalty like the Count of Odemira, the Kings of Portugal, the Kings of Cyprus, and Don Cristóbal Colón. Source link: Gil Aires Moniz

Christopher Columbus’s Identity Crisis and the Ongoing Spread of False Columbus News by Manuel Rosa

 

 

PART II 
COLUMBUS LIES, DOUBLE-DEALINGS, AND FORGERIES

The false propaganda and rumors had a way to overwhelm the truth. Yet Colombo families in Genoa did not believe they were related to the famous Colón from Spain.

In 1578, when Colón’s great-grandson, Don Diego Colón, died without an heir, all the discoverer’s great-grandchildren fought for the posts, titles, real estate, gold, and lands, some of which were considerable territories in the New World. This inheritance lawsuit lasted until 1609; 30 years of litigation 

When the Italian Colombo families learned of this inheritance, some decided to try and steal it for themselves. However, since they were not related to the Spanish Colón family, they needed to forge documents to present to the Spanish Tribunal. The forgeries were not only done by the Colombo pretenders but also by the Genoese government itself in the attempt to inherit what would be, perhaps, the wealthiest inheritance at the time:

In 1582, arrived Don Baltazar Colombo, Lord of Cuccaro in Italy, in Monferrato, but residing in Genoa. In 1588, another Italian, Don Bernardo Colombo, arrived ... But this litigator was forced to withdraw because it was demonstrated during the litigation the falsity of the documents on which his claim was based.[14]

In the 1580s, not one Colombo was found in Genoa who believed himself related to the Colón family from Spain. Bernardo Colombo, one false pretender who fought for the opportunity to be named the heir to the Spanish House of Colón, was from Cogoleto and not Genoa. 

The other false pretender, Baltazar Colombo was a nobleman who could afford to prepare a better deception. But he too failed to prove that Colón was a noble Italian, not from Genoa, but from Baltazar’s land of Cuccaro.

Baltazar supported the defense of his cause through purchased witness testimony, including a monk who claimed under oath to remember the birth of the Colón brothers in the Castle of Cuccaro. Knowing that Admiral Colón was born circa 1455 and that the monk’s testimony was written around 1580, how could he swear that he remembered something that had happened 125 years earlier?  

Nevertheless, this second Genoese pretender persevered and fought for Colón’s inheritance for nearly three decades. With so much documentation forged in the lawsuit, it became difficult for the judges of the Tribunal to decipher where the truth was. Still, lucidity persevered, as the transcripts from the lawsuit show:

Notoriously excluded [...] is the aforementioned Don Baltazar [Colombo], for not belonging, as he claimed to belong, to the same family of the [...] founder [Don Cristóbal Colón] [...] Don Baltazar is not, nor proved to be, a relative of the founder [...] [the 1498 Last Will that he presented was] neither legitimate, nor public, nor authentic, nor solemn [...] after analysis by all the judges of the investigative Council, it proved to be nothing more than a simple paper.[15]

What is clear is that a pretender who did not belong to the Colón family would have to forge all of his documents to have any chance of entering the inheritance lawsuit. And among the papers presented by Baltazar Colombo is a Last Will of 1498. In it, one can read, “I was born in Genoa.” The 1498 Last Will was suspected at the outset as not authentic, thus fraudulent, and duly rejected:

And because it was said, explicitly and openly, that the aforementioned Baltazar had previously presented the aforementioned Last Will, which he considers authentic, along with other writings, Your Majesty should not accept the fraud that may result, because what Baltazar previously presented was supposed to correspond only to a missing page of the [true] Last Will of 1502.[16]

Do The Forgeries Say It All?

When we saw this 1498 Last Will at the Archivo General de Indias in Seville in 2003, we knew instantly that it was a forgery. The first word of the document reads, “Tresaldo,” which means copy, yet the document is signed “El Almirante,” The Admiral. In other words, this supposed copy is signed by the Admiral, who was already dead. Furthermore, the date on the document is 1598, but someone wrote a 4 over the 5 to make it look like 1498, as shown in Figure 8. The Last Will of 1498, claiming Colón was born in Genoa and utilized today by so many in their false claims that Colón was the Genoese Colombo, was reviewed and rejected as a forgery by the Spanish Tribunal in the 16th century.

 

Figure 8: The fraudulent 1498 Last Will’s first page on the left has as its first word Treslado. The last page on the right shows the signature “El Almirante” instead of a name such s Christopher Columbus, and the date 1598 corrected to 1498, as seen on the inset. (Arquivo Geral de Índias, PATRONATO, 295, N.101.)

Christopher Columbus’s Identity Crisis and the Ongoing Spread of False Columbus News by Manuel Rosa

 

Only 72 years had passed since the death of the First Admiral of the Indies on May 20, 1506. Still, no person in Genoa, and not even the Genoese government, seemed to know that the famous Don Cristóbal Colón was supposed to be the Cristoforo Colombo weaver from that city. Genoa’s Senate chose instead to support a false Bernardo Colombo pretender from Cogoleto to go to Spain and try to steal the inheritance from the navigator’s legitimate descendants. 

This episode shows how no one in Genoa believed that Don Cristóbal Colón was Genoese, despite the publications and searches for relatives of the navigator carried out by the Senate of Genoa. The best they could locate were two postulants, Bernardo of Cogoleto and Baltazar of Cuccaro, both without any blood ties to the famous Spanish Colón.

Since Don Cristóbal Colón never belonged to a Colombo family and considering that he was not born in Genoa, as it appears he was not, all Genoese documents become suspicious of being fraudulent and should be discarded as not being part of Don Cristóbal Colón’s story.[17]

The puzzle of Don Cristóbal’s identity became much more complicated because of Baltazar’s false documents that historians later accepted as authentic and continue to be accepted nowadays. They also claim falsely that the surnames Colón and Colombo were the same. Baltazar Colombo appears as Baltazar Colon in several of the lawsuit documents,[18] something intolerable to accept because, as we have shown, the two surnames are very different in meaning, and the two families were unrelated. 

How was it that the Tribunal of the Indies rejected the 1498 Last Will as “not authentic” and this deception by Baltazar came to be accepted as authentic by historians who then presented it as the only Iberian proof of Colón’s Genoese birth?

The Assereto Document Age Discrepancy

The last document utilized in the fraud of the Genoese Columbus, and the last one we will discuss here (since they are discussed in detail in our book) is called the Assereto Document. Another counterfeited document supposedly from 1479 claiming that a Cristoforo Colombo from Genoa was sent to Madeira Island by Paulo Di Negro to buy sugar without money. The Assereto describes Cristoforo Colombo as being 27 years old in 1479.

Even if we choose to ignore all the physical irregularities of the document that make it suspect, we are left with the following unlikely scenario. That Colombo was sent by Di Negro to buy sugar at the end of the world, since Madeira and the Azores, in 1479, were the known end of the European world to the west, but Di Negro did not give him money to make the purchase![19]

Would any commercial agent act with such incompetence by sending a buyer so far to buy sugar without giving him the money?

Perhaps no more evidence is needed than the year of birth to prove that Colombo was not Colón. Don Cristóbal Colón wrote several times that he was 28 years old in 1484. Therefore, the navigator was born in 1455 or 1456. However, the Colombo from the Assereto was born in 1451. Unlike words and opinions, the math does not lie. A person cannot be 27 years old in 1479 and then be 28 years old in 1484. The only explanation is that Colón and Colombo were two different people.

Two Very Different Men

Not only by his 1479 marriage to a Portuguese high noble dame, but also in all of his writings, deeds, relations with the nobility, and connections to the courts, shows Cristóbal Colón to be a very cultured person, full of authority, immersed in matters of the sea since his childhood; a person who studied throughout his youth, who never worked a day in manual labor, and who, in his own words, told us he started his seafaring career at a very young age.

Even if we set aside the fact that the navigator’s name was never Colombo and that he was not a peasant, we can still show that the weaver was not the mariner. 

Two of the three primary documents supporting the weaver theory are scientifically unacceptable. There is not a single piece of documentary evidence today to maintain that the two men, the weaver and the navigator, were one - The Last Will of 1498 is a forgery not written by Colón, the Assereto Document gives that Colombo as born in 1451; yet Don Cristóbal Colón was born in 1455/56 because he wrote several times that he was 28 years old in 1484 when he entered Castile.[20]

While the Italian documents show that weaver Cristoforo Colombo spent his youth behind a loom in Genoa, Don Cristóbal Colón spent his youth in school. Among the expertise his studies provided him are the languages of Portuguese, Castilian, and Latin, in addition to familiarity with Greek and Hebrew[21] - but he did not know the Italian language.[22] In the sciences he was educated in geography, cosmography, geometry, cartography, theology, mathematics, advanced navigation techniques, and even encryption. We know Bobadilla confiscated secret encrypted letters that Don Cristóbal wrote to his brother Don Bartolomé. 

Don Bartolomé Colón himself was not far behind Don Cristóbal because he wrote at least Castilian and Latin aside from encryption. Don Bartolomé was so well educated in Cartography and Navigation that he equaled his brother. In 1493, following written instructions left by Don Cristóbal, Don Bartolomé captained a fleet of ships directly to Haiti without ever having sailed there. Friar Las Casas wrote, “not less educated in Cosmography and what pertains to it, and in making of, or painting, of navigation charts and globes and other instruments of that art, than his brother.”[23]

Like Don Cristóbal, Don Bartolomé was a man of the sea, and not a wool weaver, to whom Don Cristóbal entrusted essential tasks like the governance of the New World in his absence or the preparing of the ships, as he declared, “the Lord Lieutenant already left with the ships for careening in the old town.”[24]

It is virtually impossible to investigate history and retell a correct version of it, especially for those events buried deeper in the past and less detailed in the contemporary sources. But in the navigator’s case, it becomes even less possible to do so when the sources themselves testify that there is doubt in the information they are writing down. 

Such is the account by friar Bartolomé de Las Casas (1474?-1566), who, after claiming that Colón was Genoese, writes that “where he was born or what was the name of the birthplace, it is not factually known.”^[25]

We know very little about him personally and about his previous life outside of Castile. In 1484, when he was 28 years old,^[26] he moved from Portugal to Castile, where he began to propose his western voyage. He had lived, sailed, and married in Portugal, but we still have no idea where he was born and who his parents were. His wife had many noble relatives entrenched in the Portuguese court. Some of these Portuguese noble relatives moved to Castile at the same time as Don Cristóbal did due to their involvement with Queen Isabel in a plot of treason against King João II. Don Cristóbal was a prominent figure in his day, trusted by the court of Castile to lead four fleets, including one with 17 ships and 1500 men, a feat not for the faint of heart. 

He was granted titles and posts of authority over Castilian nobles. However, he was not naturalized as a Castilian citizen, nor had he sworn vassalage to the crown of Castile. As admiral, governor and viceroy, he had absolute authority over the New World since 1493. Nevertheless, he was arrested and deposed by a crown inquisitor in 1500. 

He achieved great fame and glory. Yet, when he died, he was battling King Fernando to reinstate all the prerogatives he had worked for and that the crown had taken away. Colón’s descendants had to continue the fight against the crown for decades and eventually settled for a lot less than the crown had agreed to in 1492. The chroniclers informed us about his great deeds but often misinformed us about the man himself. Were they misled? Or were they misleading us? It’s not an easy question to answer. 

It is incredible to see the power that a mythical Genoese weaver had over so many history researchers to influence the way that they chose to interpret the available documents. Some investigators put themselves through contortions in an attempt to connect facts, which were not related, and tried to pass them off as if they were linked. Not only was the lack of evidential support apparent, but forged documents were utilized to support the weaver’s tale. 

Amazingly, this perspective is not new. Critiquing Prospero Peragallo’s book, published in the 19^th century in Lisbon,^[27] Fernández Duro wrote:

Peragallo does not at all convince the reader that reason is on his side, especially when considering the hypothetical points of Colón’s foggy life; homeland, age, youth, nautical initiation, arrival in Portugal, marriage, coming to Spain, being hosted by the Duke of Medinaceli, etc., etc., asserts his own opinions, based only on reasoning. It seems to him evident and clear as daylight, for example, that Genoa was the birthplace of the navigator, and yet the printing ink is still fresh on other books that advocate different localities as his birthplace.^[28]

 

Putting together all the documental evidence available today, we can declare that, contrary to what was stated from ancient chronicles to modern history books, the actual surname of the Admiral and Viceroy Don Cristóbal Colón was never Colombo nor Columbus. The Spanish and Portuguese documents are enough proof that Don Cristóbal Colón was not Christopher Columbus (Cristoforo Colombo), and he was not a “peasant weaver” from Genoa, or any other place.

Many biographers admitted that some documents in Genoa and Spain, which support the narrative of the weaver theory, are suspicious.^[29] Yet, the manifest oddity of a marriage between a peasant and a noble is still conveyed by scholars as correct.

Those writers who attempted to convince their readers that the Cristoforo Colombo from Genoa was the Don Cristóbal Colón from Iberia have done so with invented details not found in Colón’s documents.

Occam’s logic tells us that if we are going to doubt any of the documents, we must start by doubting those which are foreign to the Admiral. We must question those written by other people who lived in another world and, thus, separated from the events by time and space before we choose to put in doubt the documents written by the subject about his own life.

What we know today for certain about the discoverer is that he lived in Portugal and sailed for the kings of Portugal before moving to Castile; that he married Filipa Moniz in Portugal and had a Portuguese-born son who inherited his titles and posts in Spain; that he was an expert navigator on par with the great Portuguese navigators of his day, such as Bartolomeu Dias, Vasco da Gama and Duarte Pacheco Pereira; that he had received an extensive education and had personal connections with various scientists in many kingdoms who lauded him,[30] revered him and offered their assistance in various tasks; that he was put in charge of captaining four fleets which he led across the Atlantic, having been responsible for the planning, provisioning and choosing the sailing routes of those same fleets. 

The first fleet had 3 ships, the second 17, the third 6, and the fourth 4. Much of his life’s story is still not known, and the first 28 years of his life outside of Spain have certainly been purposefully obscured and sidestepped.

We must not fall into the same mistakes as the past investigators and discard the words of a noble Admiral and Viceroy to impose facts that do not fit his life. We must demand the truth, by every means possible, and not allow ourselves to accept as truth documents that are clearly fraudulent, composed of uncertainties, and not even related to the person whose life we are scrutinizing.

Today, nobody knows who Don Cristóbal Colón actually was because we have spent centuries investigating and writing about the wrong guy. Furthermore, DNA tests currently underway at the University of Granada planned to be released in October 2021, will likely fail to give us a final identity for the famous Admiral. Out of all the candidates from the various theories whose DNA is being compared by Professor José Lorente, there is not one who fits the profile of the great navigator. 

In our latest book we have presented a mountain of irrefutable evidence in support of the Polish-Portuguese prince born on Madeira Island, including a DNA test from a living descendant of André Alemão, noble companion of Henrique Alemão (King Wladyslaw III)[31] and wait access to the bones in Wawel Cathedral for future DNA testing. 

Therefore, we are certain that this ongoing “Christopher Columbus” Identity Mystery will take a long while yet to solve. We are only at the beginning of the truth!

 

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[1] Manuel Rosa is a PhD candidate in Insular and Atlantic History (15th-20th Centuries) at the University of the Azores. He has spent 30 years investigating the life of the discoverer, took part in DNA testing and advised UNESCO and the Haitian Government on matters of Colón lost ship the Santa Maria. As an expert on the life of Christopher Columbus he published several notorious academic books including COLUMBUS. The Untold Story (Outwater Media, 2016), Portugal e o Segredo de Colombo (Alma dos Livros, 2019) and Rozwiazana tajemnica Kolumba, syna Warnenczyka (Exemplum, 2021). His webpage is located at www.Manuel-Rosa.com.

^[2] Señor: Porque se que aureis plazer de la grand vitoria que Nuestro Señor me ha dado en mi viaje vos escriuo esta por la qual sabreys [...] Pero cori aqui en este puerto de Lisbona oy que fue la mayor marauilla del mundo adonde acorde escriuir a Sus Altezas [...] Esta carta enbio Colomal Escriuano de Racion de las yslas halladas en las Yndias, contenida a otra de Sus Altezas (Source Link: NY Public Libary)

[3] La CARTA DE COLON fué traducida al latín, (de cuya versión se conocen nueve ediciones diferentes; tres de ellas impresas en Roma, 1493; una en Amberes, 1493; una en Basilea, 1493; tres en París, 1493; y una en Basilea, 1494). También se tradujo al italiano y versificada en octava rima por Giuliano Datí, de cuya versión conocemos cinco ediciones: Roma, 15 de Junio 1493; Florencia, 25 Octubre 1493; 26 Oct. 1493; 26 Oct. 1495; y otra edición distinta a la anterior y también del 26 Oct. 1495. Finalmente citamos la traducción alemana de Estrasburgo, 1497. En el mismo año 1497 apareció una segunda edición en castellano. SANZ, Carlos, La carta de Colon: anunciando el descubrimiento del Nuevo Mundo 15 Febrero-14 Marzo 1493, Talleres Hauser y Menet, Madrid, 1956, 23.

 [4] Historie del S. Don Fernando Colombo: nelle quali s'ha particolare, & vera relatione della vita, & de' fatti dell'Ammiraglio Don Christoforo Colombo, suo padre: et dello scoprimento, ch'egli fece dell'Indie Occidentali, dette Mondo Nuovo, hora possedute dal Sereniss. Re catolico: FERNANDO COLÓN; ALFONSO DE ULLOA; RAMÓN PANÉ, In Venezia, MDLXXI: Appresso Francesco de' Franceschi Sanese, [1571].

[5] Ningún documento de la Raccolta prueba el origen itálico de Colón o aclara el enigma de su nacimiento y niñez. EZQUERRA ABADÍA, Ramón. La nacionalidad de Colón: Estado actual del problema. Sep. de Vol. 4 del XXXVI Congreso Internacional de Americanistas, Sevilla, 1966, 417.

[6] OVIEDO Y VALDÉS, Gonzalo Fernández de, Historia general de las Indias, 1525, Libro Segundo, iii.

[7] BERNÁLDEZ, Andrés, Historia de los reyes católicos Don Fernando y Doña Isabel, Cap. CXVIII.

[8] ANGHIERA, Pietro Martire d’, De orbe nouo Petri Martyris ab Angleria Mediolanensis protonotarij C[a]esaris senatoris decades, Logart Press, 1530, iii, iiii.

[9] DORNELAS, Afonso, Elementos para o estudo etimológico do apelido Colon, Centro Tipográfico Colonial, Lisboa, 1926, 10.

[10] Per razom destes casamentos se seguiam dapnos a essas molheres, casando aas vezes com taaes que as nom mereciam, ficando ende alguâs defamadas … e demais recreciam muitas mortes, e omizios antre os parentes dellas, e aquelles que casavam. Ordenações Afonsinas, Livro Quinto, Título XIII: Do Que Casa Com Molher Virgem, Ou Viuva, Que Esta Em Poder De Seu Padre, Ou Madre, Avoo, Ou Tetor Sem Sua Voontade, 46.

[11] He verdade que a mulher Nobre casando-se com marido plebeu perde, e derroga a sua qualidade, e segue a condição e a fortuna do marido ... Não succede assim ao marido por lhe não competir o gozar da Nobreza da mulher. Ella pelo casamento sahe do Patrio poder, e passa da familia de seus pais para a do respectivo cônjuge; fica sujeita ao poder deste, e segue em tudo a condição do mesmo: por isso está tão longe de o nobilitar, que se elle for plebeo, a mulher fica plebea. OLIVEIRA, Luiz da Silva Pereira, Privilegios da nobreza, e fidalguia de Portugal, Na nova officina de João Rodrigues Neves, 1806, 30.

[12] Torre do Tombo, Convento de Santos-o-Novo, Doc. 477. Convento de Santos[-o-Velho], 4-1-1475.

[13] Comendador/a [Commander (English)] was a knight/lady of a military order who held a commandery. A Commandery was a district or a manor with lands and tenements appertaining thereto, under the control of a member of an order of knights who was called a commander; also called a preceptory. Preceptory was historically the regional seat of any of the various orders of Knights within a given geographic area. A preceptor or commander, who answered to the Grandmaster of the respective order, governed these areas. A preceptory's main properties, which could be vast holdings, would be its house of worship, accommodations for the brethren and income producing lands, buildings, grants and privileges.

[14] GANDÍA, Enrique de, História de Cristóbal Colón. Análisis crítico de las fuentes documentales y de los problemas colombinos, Buenos Aires, 1942, pág. 52.

[15] CANOVA, Scipion e MARTUCHO, Carlos, Por Don Baltasar Colombo, contra Don Nuño de Portugal, y consortes, sobre el Almirantazgo de las Indias, Ducado de Veragua, y Marquesado de Iamayca…, 1601

[16] Idem.

[17] In this list of letters are: Letter of Don Cristóbal Colón al Sr. Nicolao Oderigo, March 21, 1502, NAVARRETE 283. Letter of Don Cristóbal Colón al Sr. Nicolás Oderigo, December 27, 1504, NAVARRETE – 303. And letter of Colón to the Bank of S. George of Genoa, April 2, 1502, HARRISSE, Christopher Columbus and the Bank of Saint George, New York, 1888, 5.

[18] Idem.

[19] Centurione had given Di Negro 1290 ducats for this purpose, but Di Negro gave Colombo only 103½ ducats. MORISON, Samuel Eliot, Admiral of the Ocean Sea, Time Incorporated, New York, 1962, 33.

[20] In 1484 Castile and Leon was an independent kingdom that later joined with Aragon and other territories to form what we call Spain today.

[21] Yo no hallo ni jamás e hallado escriptura de latinos ni de griegos que certificadamente diga al, sino en este mundo, del Paraíso Terrenal. COLÓN, Cristóbal and VARELA, Consuelo, Cristóbal Colón Textos y documentos completos: relaciones de viajes, cartas y memoriales,Alianza Editorial, 1989, 215.

[22] Sorprendente anomalía lingüística de Cristóbal Colón era su ignorancia del italiano [...] nunca supo escribir el italiano, RUMEU DE ARMAS, Antonio, El “Portugués” Cristobal Colon en Castilla, Ediciones Cultura Hispanica del Instituto de Cooperacion Iberoamericana, Madrid 1982, 42.

[23] Un hermano suyo, que se llamaba Bartolomé Colon. Este era hombre muy prudente y muy esforzado, y más recatado y astuto, á lo que parecia, y de menos simplicidade que Cristóbal Colón; latino y muy entendido en todas las cosas de hombres, señaladamente sabio y experimentado en las cosas de la mar, y creo que no mucho menos docto en cosmografía y lo á ella tocante, y en hacer ó pintar cartas de navegar, y esferas y otros instrumentos de aquella arte, que su hermano, y presumo que en algunas cosas destas le excedía, puesto que por ventura las hobiese del aprendido. Era mas alto que mediano de cuerpo, tenia autorizada y honrada persona, aunque no tanto como el Almirante. LAS CASAS, Fray Bartolomé De, Historia de las Indias, Imprenta de Miguel Ginesta, Madrid, 1875.T. II, 224.

[24] THACHER, John Boyd, Christopher Columbus: his life, his work, his remains, as revealed by original printed and manuscript records, New York and London, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1903-4, Vol. 3, 264.

^[25] Fué, pues, este varón escogido de nación genovés, de algún lugar de la provincia de Genova; cual fuese, Donde nació ó qué nombre tuvo el tal lugar, no consta la verdad dello [...] Una historia portuguesa que escribió un Juan de Barros, portugués que, llamó “Asia” en el lib. III , cap. 2.° de la primera década, haciendo mencion deste descubrimiento no dice sino que, según todos afirman, este Cristóbal era genovés de nación. LAS CASAS, T. I, 42-43.

^[26] Yo vine á servir de veintiocho años. COLÓN, Cristóbal, Relaciones y cartas de Cristóbal Colón, Librería de La Viuda de Hernando y C.ª, Calle Del Arenal, Núm. 11, Madrid, 1892, 380.

^[27] PERAGALLO, Prospero, Cristoforo Colombo e la Sua Famiglia, Lisboa, 1888.

^[28] No en toda convence al lector de que esté la razón de su lado, especialmente cuando en la consideración de puntos hipotéticos de la nebulosa de Colón, patria, edad, juventud, iniciación náutica, llegada a Portugal, casamiento, venida a España, hospitalidad del Duque de Medinaceli, etc., etc., sienta opiniones propias, fundadas solamente en el raciocinio. Parécele, por ejemplo, evidente y claro como la luz del día que Génova dio cuna al navegante, y sin embargo, fresca está aún la tinta de imprenta de otros libros en que se aboga por distintas localidades. FERNÁNDEZ DURO, Cesáreo, Nebulosa de Colón según observaciones hechas en ambos mundos; indicación de algunos errores, Est. tip. Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, 1890, 15.

^[29] El verdadero mayorazgo no se conoce en la actualidad, que la copia presentada en el pleito tenía el valor de “un papel blanco” según el Almirante de Aragón. GANDIA, Enrique de, Historia de Cristobal Colon Análisis crítico de las fuentes documentales y de los problemas Colombinos, Buenos Aires, 1942, 51.

[30] I will always defer to the correction of those that know and understand more than I, especially the Admiral of the Indies [Cristobal Colón],who time existing in this matter more than anyone else knows, because he is a great theoretical and admirably practical, as his memorable works manifest. NAVARRETE, Martín Fernández de, Colección de los viajes y descubrimientos que hicieron por mar los españoles desde el fin del siglo xv, de Orden de S. M. Madrid en la Imprenta Real, 1825, T. II, 101.

[31] Enough evidence has been located and published in Rozwiązana Tajemnica Kolumba Syna Warneńczyka (2021) to support that Henrique Alemão was the alias of King Wladyslaw III. (Amazon Kindle) ( Paperback )

Christopher Columbus’s Identity Crisis and the Ongoing Spread of False Columbus News by Manuel Rosa

REFERENCES

ANGHIERA, Pietro Martire d’, De orbe nouo Petri Martyris ab Angleria Mediolanensis protonotarij C[a]esaris senatoris decades, Logart Press, 1530.

BERNÁLDEZ, Andrés, Historia de Los Reyes Católicos Don Fernando Y Doña Isabel, Sevilla, 1870.

CANOVA, Scipion e MARTUCHO, Carlos, Por Don Baltasar Colombo, contra Don Nuño de Portugal, y consortes, sobre el Almirantazgo de las Indias, Ducado de Veragua, y Marquesado de Iamayca…, 1601.

COLÓN, Cristóbal, Relaciones y cartas de Cristóbal Colón, , Librería de La Viuda de Hernando y C.ª, Calle Del Arenal, Núm. 11, Madrid, 1892, 380-381.

COLÓN, Cristóbal and VARELA, Consuelo, Cristóbal Colón Textos y documentos completos: relaciones de viajes, cartas y memoriales, Alianza Editorial, 1989, 215.

COLÓN, Fernando, Historie del S. Don Fernando Colombo: nelle quali s'ha particolare, & vera relatione della vita, & de' fatti dell'Ammiraglio Don Christoforo Colombo, suo padre: et dello scoprimento, ch'egli fece dell'Indie Occidentali, dette Mondo Nuovo, hora possedute dal Sereniss. Re catolico, In Venezia, MDLXXI: Appresso Francesco de' Franceschi Sanese, [1571].

DORNELAS, Afonso, Elementos para o estudo etimológico do apelido Colon, Centro Tipográfico Colonial, Lisboa, 1926, 10.

EZQUERRA ABADÍA, Ramón. La nacionalidad de Colón: Estado actual del problema. Sep. de Vol. 4 del XXXVI Congreso Internacional de Americanistas, Sevilla, 1966. 

FERNÁNDEZ DURO, Cesáreo, Nebulosa de Colón según observaciones hechas en ambos mundos; indicación de algunos errores, Est. tip. Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, 1890

GANDÍA, Enrique de, História de Cristóbal Colón. Análisis crítico de las fuentes documentales y de los problemas colombinos, Buenos Aires, 1942.

HARRISSE, Christopher Columbus and the Bank of Saint George, New York, 1888

LAS CASAS, Fray Bartolomé de, Historia de las Indias, Imprenta de Miguel Ginesta, Madrid, 1875, 

MORISON, Samuel Eliot, Admiral of the Ocean Sea, Time Incorporated, New York, 1962

NAVARRETE, Martín Fernández de, Colección de los viajes y descubrimientos que hicieron por mar los españoles desde el fin del siglo xv, de Orden de S. M. Madrid en la Imprenta Real, 1825.

OLIVEIRA, Luiz da Silva Pereira, Privilegios da nobreza, e fidalguia de Portugal, Na nova officina de João Rodrigues Neves, 1806

Ordenações Afonsinas (Livro Quinto, Título XIII): http://www.ci.uc.pt/ihti/proj/afonsinas.

OVIEDO Y VALDÉS, Gonzalo Fernández de, Historia general de las Indias, 1525.

PERAGALLO, Prospero, Cristoforo Colombo e la Sua Famiglia, Lisboa, 1888.

POSA, Pedro, Letter of Columbus to Luis de Santangel, 1493. New York Public Library. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/7fbc3989-f804-30a9-e040-e00a18067752/book#page/1/mode/2up.

Raccolta di documenti e studi pubblicati dalla R. Commissione colombiana, MINISTERO DELLA PUBBLICA ISTRUZIONE, Roma, 1892-1896.

ROSA, Manuel, COLUMBUS. The Untold Story, Outwater Media, Garfield, 2016.

—    Portugal e o Segredo de Colombo, Alma dos Livros, Lisbon, 2019.

—    Rozwiazana tajemnica Kolumba, syna Warnenczyka, Exemplum, Poznan, 2020.

RUMEU DE ARMAS, Antonio, El “Portugués” Cristobal Colon en Castilla, Ediciones Cultura Hispanica del Instituto de Cooperacion Iberoamericana, Madrid 1982

Torre do Tombo, Convento de Santos-o-Novo, Doc. 477. Convento de Santos[-o-Velho], 4-1-1475

SANZ, Carlos, La carta de Colon: anunciando el descubrimiento del Nuevo Mundo 15 Febrero-14 Marzo 1493, Talleres Hauser y Menet, Madrid, 1956.

THACHER, John Boyd, Christopher Columbus: his life, his work, his remains, as revealed by original printed and manuscript records, New York and London, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1903-4.

Christopher Columbus’s Identity Crisis and the Ongoing Spread of False Columbus News by Manuel Rosa

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