To schedule Bill Federer for a speaking engagement Click here!
Christopher Columbus took four voyages looking for a sea route to India and China because 40 years earlier Muslims conquered Constantinople cutting off land routes.
On his FIRST voyage (1492-1493), Columbus used knowledge of "the trade winds" to make the longest voyage ever out of the sight of land.
He encountered the new world and met peaceful Arawak natives with gold trinket.
His ship Santa Maria wrecked and he left 40 sailors in a make-shift fort named La Navidad.
On his SECOND voyage (1493-1496), a frustrated Columbus was saddled with 1,200 mostly get-rich-quick Spaniards who were shocked to find that the sailors left at La Navidad were dead.
Spanish settlers grew disillusioned and impatient at having to obey an Italian from the city of Genoa.
Columbus yielded to their demands, allowing them to setup mayorazgo feudal plantations which unfortunately led to mistreatment of natives.
Columbus left his brothers Diego and Bartholomew in charge and he sailed for Spain. On his THIRD voyage (1498-1500), Columbus barely made it across the southern Atlantic's windless "doldrums."
He was the first European set foot on South America.
 He arrived at Santo Domingo to find that the Spaniards had rebelled against his brothers.
Columbus sent a plea for help to the King.
To his dismay, a replacement Governor Bobadillo arrived who arrested Columbus and his brothers, and sent them back in chains.
Columbus had been continually undermined in the royal court by a jealous Spanish Bishop Fonseca, who thought the Monarchs should not have given authority to an Italian.
Columbus set sail on his FOURTH voyage, MAY 12, 1502, from Cadiz, Spain.
He was forbidden to visit Santo Domingo, but upon reaching the Caribbean he noticed a hurricane brewing.
He risked warning Santo Domingo and seeking shelter in its harbor.
He found Bobadillo was preparing to set sail for Spain with 24 ships of gold, heading directly into the hurricane.
 Columbus' warning was spurned, as he had become a persona-non-grata, and he was ordered to leave the harbor.
The hurricane destroyed Santo Domingo. The ships that set sail, including the one carrying Bobadillo, sank.  Only one ship survived. It was the slowest and had not cleared the mangroves when the hurricane hit.
When it reached Spain, to everyone's amazement, it was found to be the ship carrying Columbus' portion of the gold, per his agreement with the Monarchs.
 The providential nature of this incident vindicated Columbus, but he did not find out for years, as he was blown around the Caribbean by tropical storms.
Columbus recorded:
"The tempest arose and wearied me so that I knew not where to turn, my old wound opened up, and for 9 days I was lost without hope of life; eyes never beheld the sea so angry and covered with foam."
Columbus continued:
"The wind not only prevented our progress, but offered no opportunity to run behind any headland for shelter; hence we were forced to keep out in this bloody ocean, seething like a pot on a hot fire. The people were so worn out that they longed for death."
After a day and a half of continuous lightning, Columbus' 15-year-old son, Ferdinand, recorded that on December 13, 1502, a waterspout passed between the ships:
"...the which had they not dissolved by reciting the Gospel according to St. John, it would have swamped whatever it struck...for it draws water up to the clouds in a column thicker than a waterbutt, twisting it about like a whirlwind."
 Columbus' biographer, Samuel Eliot Morrison described:
"It was the Admiral who exorcised the waterspout. From his Bible he read of that famous tempest off Capernaum, concluding, 'Fear not, it is I!'
Then clasping the Bible in his left hand, with drawn sword he traced a cross in the sky and a circle around his whole fleet."
 Get the book, American Minute-Notable Events of American Significance Remembered on the Date They Occurred.
Columbus briefly landed in Panama, after which he was shipwrecked for a year on Jamaica.
He finally made it back to Spain on November 7, 1504, and died a year and a half later.
Though unsuccessful as a governor, Columbus was one of history's most renowned explorers.
Get the eye-opening book, Change to Chains-the 6,000 Year Quest for Global ControlRead PAST American Minutes in the Achives Watch Faith in History
|
