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Columbus

[kuh-luhm-buhs]

Columbus, Christopher, Ital. Cristoforo Colombo, Span. Cristóbal Colón, 1451-1506, European explorer, b. Genoa, Italy.

Early Years

Columbus spent some of his early years at his father's trade of weaving and later became a sailor on the Mediterranean. Shipwrecked near the Portuguese coast in 1476, he made his way to Lisbon, where his younger brother, Bartholomew, an expert chart maker, lived. Columbus, too, became a chart maker for a brief time in that great maritime center during the golden era of Portuguese exploration. Engaged as a sugar buyer in the Portuguese islands off Africa (the Azores, Cape Verde, and Madeira) by a Genoese mercantile firm, he met pilots and navigators who believed in the existence of islands farther west. It was at this time that he made his last visit to his native city, but he always remained a Genoese, never becoming a naturalized citizen of any other country. Returning to Lisbon, he married (1479?) the well-born Dona Filipa Perestrello e Moniz.

By the time he was 31 or 32, Columbus had become a master mariner in the Portuguese merchant service. It is thought by some that he was greatly influenced by his brother, Bartholomew, who may have accompanied Bartholomew Diaz on his voyage to the Cape of Good Hope, and by Martín Alonso Pinzón, the pilot who commanded the Pinta on the first voyage. Columbus was but one among many who believed one could reach land by sailing west. His uniqueness lay rather in the persistence of his dream and his determination to realize this "Enterprise of the Indies," as he called his plan. Seeking support for it, he was repeatedly rebuffed, first at the court of John II of Portugal and then at the court of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. Finally, after eight years of supplication by Columbus, the Spanish monarchs, having conquered Granada, decided to risk the enterprise.

Voyages to the New World

First Expedition

On Aug. 3, 1492, Columbus sailed from Palos, Spain, with three small ships, the Santa María, commanded by Columbus himself, the Pinta under Martín Pinzón, and the Niña under Vicente Yáñez Pinzón. After halting at the Canary Islands, he sailed due west from Sept. 6 until Oct. 7, when he changed his course to the southwest. On Oct. 10 a small mutiny was quelled, and on Oct. 12 he landed on a small island (Watling Island; see San Salvador) in the Bahamas. He took possession for Spain and, with impressed natives aboard, discovered other islands in the neighborhood. On Oct. 27 he sighted Cuba and on Dec. 5 reached Hispaniola.

On Christmas Eve the Santa María was wrecked on the north coast of Hispaniola, and Columbus, leaving men there to found a colony, hurried back to Spain on the Niña. His reception was all he could wish; according to his contract with the Spanish sovereigns he was made "admiral of the ocean sea" and governor-general of all new lands he had discovered or should discover.

Second Expedition

Fitted out with a large fleet of 17 ships, with 1,500 colonists aboard, Columbus sailed from Cádiz in Oct., 1493. His landfall this time was made in the Lesser Antilles, and his new discoveries included the Leeward Islands and Puerto Rico. The admiral arrived at Hispaniola to find the first colony destroyed by the indigenous natives. He founded a new colony nearby, then sailed off in the summer of 1494 to explore the southern coast of Cuba. After discovering Jamaica he returned to Hispaniola and found the colonists, interested only in finding gold, completely disorderly; his attempts to enforce strict discipline led some to seize vessels and return to Spain to complain of his administration. Leaving his brother Bartholomew in charge at Hispaniola, Columbus also returned to Spain in 1496.

Third Expedition

On his third expedition, in 1498, Columbus was forced to transport convicts as colonists, because of the bad reports on conditions in Hispaniola and because the novelty of the New World was wearing off. He sailed still farther south and made his landfall on Trinidad. He sailed across the mouth of the Orinoco River (in present Venezuela) and realized that he saw a continent, but without further exploration he hurried back to Hispaniola to administer his colony. In 1500 an independent governor arrived, sent by Isabella and Ferdinand as the result of reports on the wretched conditions in the colony, and he sent Columbus back to Spain in chains. The admiral was immediately released, but his favor was on the wane; other navigators, including Amerigo Vespucci, had been in the New World and established much of the coast line of NE South America.

Fourth Expedition

It was 1502 before Columbus finally gathered together four ships for a fourth expedition, by which he hoped to reestablish his reputation. If he could sail past the islands and far enough west, he hoped he might still find lands answering to the description of Asia or Japan. He struck the coast of Honduras in Central America and coasted southward along an inhospitable shore, suffering terrible hardships, until he reached the Gulf of Darién. Attempting to return to Hispaniola, he was marooned on Jamaica. After his rescue, he was forced to abandon his hopes and return to Spain. Although his voyages were of great importance, Columbus died in relative neglect, having had to petition King Ferdinand in an attempt to secure his promised titles and wealth.

Historical Perspective

Columbus was not the first European mariner to sail to the New World—the Vikings set up colonies (c.1000) in Greenland and Newfoundland (see Leif Ericsson and Thorfinn Karlsefni)—but his voyages mark the beginning of continuous European efforts to explore and colonize the Americas. Although historians for centuries disputed his skill as a navigator, it has been proved that with only dead reckoning Columbus was unsurpassed in charting and finding his way about unknown seas. During the 1980s and 90s the long-standing image of Columbus as a hero was tarnished by criticism from Native Americans and revisionist historians. With the 500th anniversary of his first voyage in 1992, interpretations of his motives and impact varied. Although he was always judged to be vain, ambitious, desirous of wealth, and ruthless, traditional historians viewed his voyages as opening the New World to Western civilization and Christianity. For revisionist historians, however, his voyages symbolize the more brutal aspects of European colonization and represent the beginning of the destruction of Native American peoples and culture. One point of agreement among all interpretations is that his voyages were one of the turning points in history.

Bibliography

See J. M. Cohen, comp., The Four Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1969); biographies by S. E. Morison (1942), E. D. S. Bradford (1973), H. Koning (1982), and F. Fernández-Armesto (1991); J. Axtell, Beyond 1492 (1992); W. D. and C. R. Philips, The Worlds of Christopher Columbus (1992); M. Dugard, The Last Voyage of Columbus (2005).

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Licensed from Columbia University Press

Columbus

Columbus. 1 City (1990 pop. 178,681), seat of Muscogee co., W Ga., at the head of navigation on the Chattahoochee River; settled and inc. 1828 on the site of a Creek village. The second largest city in the state, Columbus is a port of entry situated at the foot of a series of falls that extend more than 30 mi (48 km) and provide extensive water power. An important industrial and shipping center with many giant textile mills (the first was built in 1838), it also has ironworks and food-processing plants. Factories produce lumber, chemicals, furniture, hospital equipment, concrete, and wood, rubber, paper, and metal products. Columbus was a busy river port until the arrival of the railroads in the 1850s. Its river traffic has been revitalized with the completion of a series of locks and dams that provide access to the Gulf of Mexico. During the Civil War, Columbus was captured by Union troops one week after Lee's surrender at Appomattox. Its industry grew with the development of 20th-century hydroelectric power plants. Many antebellum homes and Columbus College are in the city. Fort Benning is to the south.

2 City (1990 pop. 31,802), seat of Bartholomew co., S central Ind., on the East Fork of the White River; inc. 1821. Its many manufactures include transportation equipment, pharmaceutical and medical devices, food and beverages, plastics, and electronics. In the Civil War, Columbus served as a depot for Union armies. The city is known for its outstanding architecture, with many buildings designed by world-renowned architects from the late 1930s onward.

3 City (1990 pop. 23,799), seat of Lowndes co., NE Miss., on the Tombigbee River; inc. 1821. It is the trade, processing, and shipping center of a cotton, livestock, dairy, and timber area, and has marble and granite processing and diverse manufacturing. Franklin Academy, the first free school in the state, was opened in 1821. Mississippi State Univ. for Women and Columbus Air Force Base are there. The city has many beautiful antebellum homes. Tennessee Williams was born there.

4 City (1990 pop. 632,910), state capital and seat of Franklin co., central Ohio, on the Scioto River; inc. as a city 1834. Ohio's largest city, it is a transportation, industrial, and trade center in a fertile farm region. Its manufactures include consumer goods, aircraft, engines, transportation equipment, glass, food, textiles, and primary metals. Government agencies and many research and educational centers are central to the economy, which expanded rapidly from the 1940s. Columbus is the seat of Ohio State Univ., Capital Univ., Ohio Dominican College, Franklin Univ., state schools for the deaf and blind, and Battelle Memorial Institute (for industrial research). Landmarks include the state capitol; the state office building and its library; Ohio State Univ.'s huge Ohio Stadium; the Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts; the Center of Science and Industry, a science museum designed by Arata Isozaki; the postmodern convention center designed by Peter Eisenman; the library and museum of the state archaeological and historical society; the headquarters of the American Rose Society, with one of the world's largest rose gardens; Camp Chase Confederate cemetery, with the graves of soldiers who died in the Civil War prison camp there; and the vast state fair grounds. Also in the city are U.S. Fort Hayes (est. 1863) and a state penitentiary. The Griggs, O'Shaughnessy, and Hoover reservoirs are the center for park and recreational activities. The city also has a professional hockey team (the Blue Jackets), racetracks, and a variety of annual cultural events.

Columbus was laid out as state capital in 1812 but did not take over the government from Chillicothe until 1816. Its growth was stimulated by the development of transportation facilities—a feeder canal to the Ohio and Erie Canal, which was opened in 1831; the National Road, which reached the city in 1833; and the railroad, which arrived in 1850.

See G. E. Condon, Yesterday's Columbus (1977).

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Licensed from Columbia University Press

Langdell, Christopher Columbus

(born May 22, 1826, New Boston, N.H., U.S.—died July 6, 1906, Cambridge, Mass.) U.S. legal educator. He studied law at Harvard (1851–54) and practiced in New York City until 1870, when he accepted a professorship and then the deanship at Harvard Law School (1870–95). His case method of teaching law, in which students read and discussed original authorities and derived for themselves the principles of the law, eventually became dominant in U.S. law schools. His Selection of Cases on the Law of Contracts (1871) was the first case-method textbook.

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