The+origins+of+Christopher+Columbus

by Claudia Forte and Diego López toc

 Christopher Columbus’ origin is quite confusing; no one really knows where Columbus was born, neither the day nor the year because a lot of documentation has been lost. Many people make many different suggestions. To hinder even more the investigations people have manipulated documents or statements to prove Columbus was born in a determined place.

1.- When was he born?
About the year Christopher Columbus was born there isn’t any information at all. He was probably born around the year 1450 or the year 1451. About the date he was born there are many hypotheses, although they are not very accurate. It must have been a day between August 25th and October 31st.

2.- Where was he born?
The exact place where he was born is a complete mystery. In the fourth centenary of the Discovery of America there was a big commotion in Europe and everyone wanted to find out where Columbus was born. Obviously most people wanted to find out that he was born in their own country. People said he was from Portugal, Spain, Italy, Switzerland,France, England, Greece and even Norway.

2.1. Italy
The most accepted theory is that he was Genoese. But there are many discrepancies about the exact place of Genoa; some people say he was born in a small village near the city, such as Nervi, Cugureo or Bugiasco, other people say he was born in the city of Genoa or in Savona, a city near Genoa where he lived in the year 1470 because his father [|Domenico Columbus] worked in a tavern, but some say that is only to give him more prestige or a nobler origin. Columbus, in a document where he asks his eldest son to have a house and a wife in Genoa, says: “…I, being a Genovese myself, came here to serve Castile…” but it has been investigated and it was finally found to be a fake. Father Bartolomé de las Casas called Columbus a “foreigner” but there is a much confusion because in the 15th century, in the Iberian Peninsula, to be called a foreigner didn’t mean to be from another country. Because of the independence of the Crown of Castile and the Crown of Aragon, the inhabitants of one crown called the inhabitants of the other crown foreigners, even in the Balearic Islands people called the inhabitants from the Crown of Aragon foreigners. He also said that Christopher Columbus didn’t speak Spanish very well, but Columbus always wrote his letters and his diary in Spanish, although the person who receives the letter was Portuguese or Italian. In all the texts he wrote there is a Portuguese and Catalonian influence, but these only support the theory of his Genovese origin more strongly, because in this city they spoke Spanish mixed with Portuguese and Catalonian. In the 15th century people didn’t write in the Genovese dialect, it was only a spoken language so that can explain the difficulties of Columbus with the Spanish language when he talks but not when he writes. If he was born there or not, everyone agrees he spent his childhood near Genoa.

2.2 Spain
Another theory was that he was Spanish, but just as in the Genoa’s theory, they don’t agree which part of Spain he was born in. The most credible place is Catalonia or the Balearic Islands, but some people say he was from Galicia or from Extremadura, but this last theory can be just a confusion of names. In Italy, very near Genoa there’s a place called Piacenza, Plasencia in Spanish. In Extremadura, Spain, there and is also a city called Plasencia. This place, Piacenza, the Italian city, is where Columbus may have lived, to reinforce this last theory, it has been discovered that some relatives of Columbus lived in this city, Piacenza, and that there are some epitaphs with the surname of Columbus in that city too. Many historians think he was a Jew, Sephardi. His mother’s name, Susana Fontanarossa, is a Jewish name. And Spanish El Salvador de Madariaga to 1950 published the first book by stating that Columbus was Jewish (and Catalan) If Columbus was a Jew and he was born in Spain it can explain why he lived in Italy. Some years after Columbus was born, the Catholic Monarchs expelled the Jews from the Iberian Peninsula; they had to move to Italy, France and Morocco. If this theory is true it could also explain why he wrote in Spanish. Even though there are many reasons to believe he wasn’t jew.

2.3 Portugal
T his theory is not very accepted, it became famous in the year 1915 and it was popular until the year 1930 but nowadays historians have rejected this theory because they have found some letters he wrote with grammatical errors common in people who have learnt the language, not in someone who has Portuguese as their mother language. Columbus spent many years in Portugal; when he was 14 years old he went to the navigation school of Prince Henry, in Sagres, Portugal. He got married to a Portuguese woman, Filipa Moniz de Perestello.

2.4 Greece
This is another theory. S ome people say that Christopher Columbus was born in the Republic of Genoa. In this Republic there was an Island of Greece called Chios.So here´s another question: 'Was Christopher Columbus Greek?". But the most accepted theory by scientists is that Christopher Columbus was Italian.

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