Dr. Price’s team from the University of Wisconsin-Madison is continuing their studies of the crew members of Christopher Columbus. If further research confirms their initial findings then this could have major implications for genealogical research. It would push back by over one hundred years the date when the first Africans arrived in the New World. It would also suggest that not all Africans arrived in the New World as slaves. This would provide another potential avenue of exploration for anyone tracing their African American roots.
Some Interesting Genealogy Facts about Christopher Columbus
• Although Columbus sailed for Spain, he was in fact from Genoa in northern Italy. He was born in Genoa in 1451 to a father who was a middle-class wool weaver.
• Columbus was thought to be unusually tall and strong for his times. Some historians estimate his height at 6 feet (or possibly taller) at a time when the average male height was around 5 feet 5 inches. He also had unusual red or auburn hair that turned white at a young age.
• Columbus had three brothers: Bartolommeo, Giovanni Pellegrino and Giacomo. All four brothers worked together to attempt to secure the family fortune in the New World. For example, Bartolommeo who had trained as a cartographer (mapmaker) accompanied Columbus to various royal courts. They pitched the idea of sailing westward from Europe to reach the coast of Asia (instead of traveling overland on the long and dangerous spice route through India and China).
• Columbus had trouble selling his ideas to the royal courts of Europe. For example, he tried the king of Portugal twice before visiting the Spanish court. Royal cartographers realized that Columbus had seriously underestimated the circumference of the earth (they knew the earth was round, only the peasants thought the earth was flat). At the time, there was no ship large enough or capable enough of making the long voyage from the west coast of Europe to the east coast of Asia. It never occurred to Columbus or others that there might be another continent in between the two. Even Spain realized Columbus was wrong about the sailing distance to Asia, but they agreed to fund the voyage in part because they did not want Columbus to go to the English court of King Henry VII, their enemy.
• Columbus turned out to be a horrible administrator in the New World. He was despised by the local Indian tribes (whom he tried to kill or enslave), his own crew (several of whom he had tortured and killed for supposed insubordination), the Catholic Church (who accused him of not converting local Indian tribes to Catholicism so that he could enslave them) and ultimately the Spanish court (who eventually arrested him and stripped him of his Governorship and all his titles and powers in the New World). The same came to be true of two of Columbus’s brother who accompanied Columbus overseas to the New World. Over time, the Spanish court came to view the Columbus brothers as being essentially incompetent and dangerous administrators.
• Columbus had a son named Diego, who spent most of his life trying to regain the family fortune and many of the titles and powers granted to his father that had been stripped away by the Spanish court.
• Columbus’s main legacy was to establish a permanent European presence in the New World. The name Columbia derives from Christopher Columbus. Columbia is a common name for towns, cities, rivers, etc. across the United States as well as being the name of a country in South America.
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