Talk:Christopher Columbus

October 2006 Peer Review

crude errors

there is no definite proof that Columbus was born in Genoa. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.82.223.105 (talk) 00:40, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Other than the fact that everyone who knew him in life said he was Genoese, including Las Casas, Bernaldez, Bishop Gerladini, Peter Martyr, Angelo Trevisan, and his own son Fernando Colon; and that he testified he was a citizen of Genoa; and that his bank was in Genoa; and that at least four contemporary Genoese identified him as a compatriot; I guess not. But if that's not definite proof in your mind, then it is clear there is no definite proof he was born anywhere else. Keithpickering (talk) 05:41, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Keith, you should not make deductions out to be facts. Most people who knew him DID NOT say he was Genoese. What they said was that "they heard say he was Genoese" others that he was Milanese, others that he was from Nervi, others that he was from Saona, others Ligur, etc... However the man himself NEVER stated where he came from other than in one letter to the Spanish Monarchs on March 4, 1493 where he called Portugal "my homeland". Furthermore, it is a lie to say that the Bank of St. George in Genoa was "his bank" do you have records of a single financial transaction between Admiral Colon and the Bank of St. George? Or even between the "weaver Colombos" and the Bank of St. George? Do you have proof that Admiral Colon EVER "testified he was a citizen of Genoa"? Unless you can show proof of your statements, I would refrain from passing them off as consecrated facts when they are nothing more than supposition and conclusions of faith without any documentation.Colon-el-Nuevo (talk) 05:23, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

John Cabot

Shouldn't John Cabot receive more mention here since he was the first to actually discover the continent of North America, rather than just islands? FunkMonk (talk) 02:35, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

He wasn't the first since the norsemen already mentioned beat him with ca. 500 years (not to mention the natives) furthermore he was 5 years after Columbus. He should of course be mentioned in an article about the early European explorers of the Americas. Not necessary in this article.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 02:38, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

That's what I meant. FunkMonk (talk) 02:47, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I assumed this was a good faith edit and might have a simple, though incorrect in context, explanation. That is why I simply reverted the edit, noting the later date for Cabot's first voyage to reach the Americas. The sentence in the Columbus article to which the addition of John Cabot was made is not limited to North America. It refers to explorers who preceded Columbus to "the Americas." The Wikipedia article on Americas states in the second sentence: "In the English language, the Americas refers to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions,...." Taking in both continents, islands, etc., the only European explorers proven to have gotten to the Americas before Columbus were Vikings. I agree with User:Maunus. John Cabot gets his due in a rather full article about him. He also gets some credit in Age of Discovery and is mentioned in European colonization of the Americas. He did not arrive in "the Americas" before Columbus. Donner60 (talk) 03:10, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Possible earliest birth date

The infobox says he was born between 22 August and 31 October, but the text gives the earliest date as 25 August. Which is correct, and why? -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 23:35, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

The earliest date is August 25. This is based on a document in the archives of Genoa dated August 25, 1479 in which Columbus (then visiting Genoa while living in Lisbon) stated in a deposition that he was born in Genoa and was "about" 27 years old. If his birth date were any earlier in August, he would have been 28 on that date. Thanks for noticing the infobox error, which I will correct. Keithpickering (talk) 22:54, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

You're welcome, Keith.

But I'm wondering if we can really be so definite about this earliest possible date, based purely on Columbus's statement. Being "about 27" on 25 August 1479 could have meant he was aged somewhere between 26.5 and 27.5, which means he was born somewhere between late February 1452 and late February 1453. And even that's very fuzzy. Yet we're giving the year as 1451 (August-October). The arithmetic of this just doesn't hang together, for my money. Maybe the dates we're giving can be justified, but if so, they need to be explained more clearly than is the case at the moment. Cheers. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 23:27, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

In fact, we don't give readers any explanation at all about how we came up with the date range August 25-October 31 or the year 1451. We really need to do this. That could mean providing a link to a reliable source. I hope so, because I hope it's not just something that Wikipedia editors have come up with on the basis of what they personally feel is plausible. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 01:21, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

The latest date, October 31, 1451, is derived from another legal document in the Genoese archives, dated October 31, 1470, in which Domenico Columbo and his son Chrisoforo, "above nineteen years of age", were ordered by the court to pay a debt. So Columbus must have been born before October 31, 1451 or he would not yet be 19 on that date. If you want a reference for this evidence, we could give either Morison 1942 (Admiral of the Ocean Sea), or Morison's source, Vignaud 1907, American History Review, XII, 270-279. The former is more accessible, the latter less secondary. Keithpickering (talk) 02:12, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

It's not so much what I want, but what WP policies require.

Assuming he was born on October 30, 1451 (the last possible date from the 1470 document): that would mean that on August 25, 1479 he was 27 and fast approaching 28. That would be consistent with "about 27". The earlier he was born before October 30, 1451, the further away he gets from "about 27". But what does "about 27" mean? Above, I gave it 6 months either side of exactly 27. But the infobox seems to give it 12 months, because it's saying his earliest birthdate was August 25, 1451, which would correspond to being exactly 28 on August 25, 1479. Now, Columbus probably didn't know his own birthdate or his exact age at any point in time, so his statements are prone to error. So, how can we be sure his error was no more than 12 months when he said "about 27"? I really don't think we have any right to be so categorical about the earliest date. We can say with confidence that he was born no later than October 30, 1451, and we can say we think he was probably born within a few months of that date, but we cannot pin it down any more definitely than that.

I would very much like to see a short discussion in the article about the sources that give us information about when he was born, what historians have gleaned from them, and what the current consensus is on the matter. And inline references to all the relevant sources. Cheers. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 04:34, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

It is not so simple as you make it. The Genoese Documents are not Trustworthy- The Assereto is a problematic document. "The notable Assereto document (pp. XIII, XIX, 137, 173) passes as an original until critical examination finds it to be an indifferent, uncertified copy of two documents, themselves perhaps un-authenticated." ( I suggest you read The Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 13, No. 2 (May, 1933), pp. 204-212 for unbiased facts: http://1492.us.com/assereto/CRITICAL_REVIEW_ASSERETO.pdf ) Written in two different handwritings and found as a loose leaf inserted into a notary book. The COLOMBO of the Assereto DOES NOT SAY who his parents are, therefore even if the Assereto was true and beyond doubts, that Colombo cannot be said to be the Admiral Colon of Spain. Nothing in the Genoese deeds tie de Colombo family to the Admiral Colon of Spain by blood relation. Nothing int he Spanish Admiral Colon's writings tie him to the Genoese Colombos. It is not true that Fernando Colon wrote that his father was born in Genoa. In fact ALL the Certainties sold over the last 120 years by the City of Genoa, has all evaporated in the last 6 years. The history of a weaver Colombo is now discredited.The fact is that there is not one document linking Colombos to Colons nor Colons to Colombos and the life of Admiral Colon in Portugal and Spain deny a peasant birth as his marriage to a high noble Filipa Moniz proves.Colon-el-Nuevo (talk) 19:00, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

I think it is important to differentiate between uncertainties about Columbus's birthdate and his nationality. It was only after Columbus became the most famous person in the world that anyone asserted he was born anywhere other than Genoa (and I refer here to Genoa as the city-state generally). Every person who knew him in life (and who commented on the matter) stated he was Genoese, Ligurian, or Italian. So if that's the argument we're going to have, the non-Genoese advocates will need to put up some impressive documentation.

That being said, I think it is completely fair to state that if we accept Columbus was indeed Genoese, then the existing documentation about his birthdate, rough as it may be, points to a date in the latter half of 1451. Personally, I'm completely fine with a (somewhat) expanded discussion of the birthdate question in the main article, including uncertainties. But I consider the nationality question to be settled. Keithpickering (talk) 08:20, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Keith, the nationality and the birthdate are tied together they cannot be removed one form the other. It is not true that everyone who knew the discoverer in Spain called him "genoese" in fact the court, who one would expect knew better than those who spoke from hearsay, called him "portuguese" in 1487 while they paid him the equivalent of $20,000 USD and this is the first nationality given to him and the ONLY nationality given to him by the court of Spain. Certainly you do not wish us to accept that the court did not know who they were paying? Fortunately for us, the Assereto is now fully viewable in high res online ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Documento_Assereto ) where one can see that it is written in several handwritings, inconstantly numbered and not an original deposition but it is "supposedly" a transcription o a non-existent original. I, for one, will accept only documents that are beyond suspicion and in the case of the Assereto it is highly dubious if not a blatant forgery. However the Assereto, to be used as proof of anything even if it was a "true" original lacks something very important. In it we have NO IDEA of the Christopher Colombo is. Yes, there is NOTHING to identify this Colombo with any family in Italy nor with any family in Portugal. If this is the keystone to the genoese argument, it is worthless for anyone who is objective and wants SOLID evidence not inventions.Colon-el-Nuevo (talk) 16:43, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Colon - unless you accept that the current very strong consensus in Historiography is that Columbus was genoese and stop using this talkbox as your private soapbox I am going to have to take steps to getting you topic banned from topics related to Columbus. In order to be able to edit here you must be able to set aside your personal ideas and preferences and write objectively about the field from the stand point of a disinterested reviewer. Unless you are able to do this you will not be able to cintriibute positively to this article, but only cause needless disruption. The next time I have to tell you this I will do so at ANI where I will request you to be topic banned.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:23, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Ignoring the Awarak problem

This article, while long and giving the appearance of completeness, almost completely omits Columbus' brutal treatment of the Arawak natives of Haiti, his enslavement of them for purposes of mining gold for Spain, the kidnapping of some of them to bring back to Spain as curiosities, and the fact that the Haiti Awawaks, estimated at 8 million strong on that island when Columbus landed, were essentially all gone within 50 years due to disease, brutal and violent treatment, and gross abuses by Columbus and the Spanish. It also ignores the fact that the European slave trade began not with Africans, but with Native Americans. They only started enslaving Africans when the peaceful Native American groups began dying en masse or the less-peaceful ones began fighting. Today, this behavior would be called genocide. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 18:57, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

To quote the article: "some analyses of the question of Columbus's legacy for Native Americans do not clearly distinguish between the actions of Columbus himself, who died well before the first pandemic to hit Hispaniola or the height of the encomienda system, and those of later European governors and colonists on Hispaniola." That seems to describe your comment quite well. Also the 8 million population is wildly inflated. Keithpickering (talk) 08:33, 7 March 2012 (UTC)