Please take just a moment to Email a brief note of appreciation to the 
author for this very favorable Columbus article.

Mark Zaloudek may be contacted at 
mark.zaloudek@heraldtribune. com. 
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FLORIDA WEST DOWN UNDER 

Columbus' successes didn't come easy 

Sarasota Herald-Tribune 
Mark Zaloudek 
14 October 2002

Say what you will about Christopher Columbus, he wasn't one to let obstacles 
stand in his way. 

His unwavering ability to trust his instinct and to persevere despite 
frequent setbacks are qualities worth remembering on this national holiday in 
his honor. 

Historian and former Harvard professor Samuel E. Morison, who profiled the 
15th-century explorer in a Pulitzer Prize-winning 1943 biography, makes it 
clear that Columbus' successes didn't come easily. 

Columbus was likely to become a wool weaver, like his father, but his 
fascination with the water in his hometown seaport of Genoa, Italy, changed 
the course of history. As a young man in the 1470s, he sailed among various 
European ports and taught himself Spanish and Latin to be more useful. 

The Age of Exploration whetted Europeans' appetite for a quicker route to the 
Indies (which meant India and the Orient at the time) for more gold, gems and 
spices, which had been tediously transported by land caravans. Columbus was 
able to sell the rulers of Spain on his idea of voyaging westward across the 
Atlantic, but only after several other rejections for sponsorship. 

King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella provided Columbus with his three ships and 
about 90 men, who became disenchanted and threatened a mutiny about two 
months after leaving Spain. Columbus, like many others at the time, knew the 
world was round, but he seriously misjudged its circumference. 

Bravely sailing across the Atlantic during the peak of the hurricane season, 
he quelled the near-mutiny by promising his crews on Oct. 10 to turn around 
in three days if they did not see land. 

On Oct. 12, 1492, he landed in San Salvador in the Bahamas. Believing he had 
reached an island near Japan or China, he planted the Spanish flag to stake 
his claim for his sponsor. 

During the next couple months, exploring the coastlines of Cuba and 
Hispaniola (also known as Haiti and the Dominican Republic today) cost 
Columbus his flagship, the Santa Maria. It wrecked on a shallow reef off 
Haiti on Christmas Day. 

His two remaining ships, the smaller Nina and Pinta, nearly sank during 
storms on their return voyage. Fearing he might not make it back alive, 
Columbus sealed an account of his discoveries in a cask and tossed it 
overboard. His battered ships, separated by storms, eventually returned to 
Spain in March 1493, where he was hailed a hero by the rulers. 

He continued the treacherous trek back to what he described as the "new 
world" three more times, exploring the coasts of Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, 
Cuba and Jamaica on his second voyage, and portions of Central America and 
South America on his third and fourth voyages. Some of the men who 
accompanied him from Spain were left behind to colonize the new lands. But 
they quickly became disgruntled by the lack of riches and, at times, hostile 
natives, whom the Europeans mistreated. 

During his fourth voyage, Columbus was marooned in Jamaica for nearly a year 
with several of his shipmates, who blamed him for their substandard living 
conditions and threatened a revolt. Columbus, knowing there would be a lunar 
eclipse on Feb. 29, 1504, saved the day, telling the natives that God would 
punish them by stealing the light from the sky if they didn't provide his men 
with adequate food. When the moon began to disappear in the Earth's shadow, 
the natives eagerly complied. 

He returned to Spain later that year and died two years later, at the age of 
54, with little to show for his accomplishments and still believing he had 
found a new route to the East Indies. 

Morison writes, "Columbus' voyage to America ranks among history's most 
important events. It led to lasting contacts between Europe and America and 
opened new windows to science and to knowledge. To few people in modern 
history does the world as we know it owe so great a debt as to Christopher 
Columbus."