Why America and not  Columbia?  (First Part)

History of a little known fraud

Danilo Anton

1) Stranded in a faraway Jamaican beach

It was the year 1504. For ten months, Columbus had been stranded in a beach on the Northern shore of Jamaica, lodged in the remains of two of his ships.

Ill and abandoned, he saw the approach of death. He was frustrated since he had not been able to find the passage to the Indian Ocean, and sad because of the ungratefulness of man.

In many ways, the fourth trip of the Admiral had been a disaster.

The kings had unwillingly supported his proposal. Arduous negotiations and a long wait were necessary. When he was finally able to depart from Seville, on April the 3^rd of 1502, the fleet was composed of four vessels, many less than the 17 that had formed his armada in the Second Voyage, or the 30 ships that, in that precise moment, were ready to leave Santo Domingo, under the command of Columbus’ archi-enemy Nicolas de Ovando, to carry the colony riches to the peninsula.

He was not even allowed to stop in Santo Domingo. His attempt to enter the port, in order to avoid the imminent arrival of a threatening hurricane, was frustrated because access was denied. Some hours later, the huge storm arrived. The presumptuous armada of De Ovando was completely destroyed, while Columbus’ humble flotilla survived unscathed thanks to the skill of the Admiral.

2) Columbus arrived to Amerrique

The worst events would happen later. The expedition arrived to the mainland in Honduras quite rapidly, but the plans were thwarted as a result of several weeks of tempests and contrary winds.

The vessels were attacked by teredo worms, making navigation still more difficult. Two ships had to be abandoned in the American coast and the last two finished their days as improvised beach houses in the Jamaican shores.

At the beginning of the year, half of the crew had revolted and withdrawn to the eastern zone of the island hoping to cross to Santo Domingo. Only a few faithful remained at Columbus’ side, while his health was getting frailer every day.

More than six months had elapsed since Diego Mendez and Bartolomé Fieschi had left for Santo Domingo in two canoes with six native rowers to get help from the Spaniards of the colony. They hadn’t had any news since then.

3) Columbus mission in life had not finished yet

In spite of all the problems and frustrations, the Admiral did not want to die yet, he felt his mission in life was still unfinished.

He had found golden lands in Cariari and Veragua, and more specially, a place of great riches called Amerrique, name that he had heard two years ago in a tavern of Triana, and that a few months before he had been able to verify.

Neither the name nor the location of Amerrique was mentioned in the confidential letter that Columbus sent to the Spanish monarchs in the hands of fellow sailo Diego Mendez. At that moment of his life, the old sea wolf did not trust anybody and had preferred to omit this information until he was sure that nobody else was going to use it.

A few months later the Admiral was able to return to Spain. However, his disease became more acute and he finally died in Valladolid in 1506, carrying to the grave his well kept secrets about the new lands of America and their riches.

4) The mysticism of Christopher Columbus

The Admiral was a difficult person. He was endowed of an acute geographic instinct, a great disdain for danger, and an uncommon perseverance. He managed to take advantage of his wide maritime experience, his life in the oceanic island of Porto Santo, and the data obtained from other seamen in the ships and harbours of Europe, Africa and the Atlantic islands. His aim in life was clearly focused to beat the challenge of the unknown ocean and the new worlds, not worrying much about the risks involved.

His imaginative mind wandered through a complex religious universe, trying to relate each passage of the Bible with the new and exuberant geography discovered in his travel.

Columbus was a mystical person, with a paradoxical personality. He did not like to enjoy his wealth through hedonistic activities, but, rather he preferred the austerity of the rigorous Franciscan monasteries.

He adopted a dictatorial and cruel behaviour as an administrator of the Indias following the Portuguese and Spanish styles in their recent conquests of Africa, Canary Islands and Andalusia.

At the end of his life he became a philosopher, developing his own cosmogony. In his mind, the Earth had the shape of a pear ending in a woman nipple in the proximity of Paradise. And that Paradise, which in some way, had also been his hell, was in these new American lands that he had discovered for Christianity, and whose recognition seemed to be forbidden for some unfathomed reason of destiny.

5) Columbus, good sailor, terrible administrator

Columbus’ first trip was a great success and created wide ranging expectations across the Spanish society. In the Indias there was gold, an exuberant nature and a docile population, a willing working force for the future colonizing enterprise.

With such a favourable scenario, the Crown did not spare neither efforts nor resources to organize a second expedition. On September 25^th, 1493, only six months after the return of Columbus, an enormous fleet of 17 vessels and 1200 men left Spain, with six month provisions and all the necessary implements for war and colonization.

Two months later, when the fleet arrived to the Haitian coast, serious problems started. Fuerte Navidad, built by Columbus during the first trip had been destroyed by the natives. Forty sailors who had remained at the fort had been killed.

The reprisal operations ordered by the Admiral, as well as the exploration and occupation of the large Taina island that continued, revealed that the original expectations of huge riches were excessive. There was very little gold and the production of food was limited to the day-to-day needs of the local population.

To get the riches that did no exist, Columbus forced the Taino natives to provide gold, fabrics and food, which they were not capable to produce and supply in the volumes he was requiring.

Being forced to work excessively to get the gold and feed the numerous Spanish colony, they started dying in large numbers.

Because Columbus was not able to obtain the wealth that he had promised to the monarchs, he decided to start exporting slaves to Spain. The initiative was a fiasco. Native Tainos did not resist neither the difficult trip, nor the Spanish climate. In a few months most of them had died.

Columbus was a good sailor but he was a very bad administrator. After a few months the complaints about his disastrous leadership reached the Spanish court.

From the books "Amerrique, Orphans of Paradise"  and "The Largest Fraud in History" of Danilo Anton, Piriguazu Ediciones