In 1485, Columbus made an appeal to King John II of Portugal to fund his voyages. Along with this request he also asked to be made a "Great Admiral of the Ocean", be made the Governor of all the lands he would discover and be given a tenth of the revenue from these lands. This proposal was considered by the experts of the court and was rejected.
In 1488 he made another appeal, but in vain. He also appealed to Genoa and Venice, but returned empty handed from both these places.
He had also made an appeal to Henry VII of England via his brother. But before Henry VII’s agreement to the plans could reach Columbus, he had already committed himself to Spain.
King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile had married and united the two largest kingdoms of Spain and were ruling it together. He appealed to them in 1486 and they too submitted his ideas to the court experts. These experts also judged his distance calculations to be far too short. But in order to retain Columbus, they endowed him with an annual annuity and a letter that ordered all the Spanish cities and towns to provide him with free lodging and food.
Finally in 1492, he succeeded in getting the agreement of the King and Queen to proceed on his voyages. The contract between them made Columbus the "Admiral of the Seas" and made him the Viceroy and Governor of the new lands. He would also get an option to buy one-eighth of the interest in any commercial venture with the new lands and get one-eighth of the profits.
On the 3rd of August, 1492, Columbus finally departed for his voyage in 3 ships named: Santa Maria, Pinta and Santa Clara. He then sailed to the Canary Islands, restocked his provisions and made repairs. The voyage continued. In October, an island was sighted and named San Salvador. This is the present day Bahamas. He then came to Cuba and Hispaniola. The Santa Maria ran aground at Hispaniola on Christmas Day. He was forced to spend a week in Lisbon due to a storm and finally returned to Spain in 1493. He then proceeded to make extravagant descriptions of the islands that he had discovered in the court.
His second voyage began on the 24th of September, 1493 and he set sail from Cadiz. This time, he had 17 ships containing about 1200 men to colonize the islands he had discovered. This time too he stocked up at the Canary Islands before he moved on. He named the Dominica in November 1943, landed at Santa Maria la Galante, then sailed past Les Saintes, and arrived at Guadeloupe. He then turned his course northwards, sighted and named Montserrat, Antigua, Redonda, Nevis, Saint Kitts, Sint Eustatius, Saba, Saint Martin, Saint Croix, and the Virgin Islands. In 1493, he landed at Puerto Rico.
Columbus then returned to Spain via Hispaniola, Cuba, Jamaica and Hispaniola again.
On the 30th May, 1498, he undertook his third voyage with 6 ships and sailed from Sanlucar in Spain. He then went to Porto Santo, Madeira, Canary Islands and then to Cape Verde. In July, he landed on the island of Trinidad and in August in the Gulf of Paria. After exploring the mainland of South America, he set sail to Margarita Island from where he sailed to Tobago and Grenada. In August he returned to Hispaniola to find his Spanish settlers discontented. They had discovered that they had been misled by Colombo’s exaggerated versions of the riches prevalent on these islands.
He even hanged a few of his crew members for disobedience. Upon his return to Spain, several settlers complained against him and his brothers for mismanagement.
13 years ago
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