{"id":7070,"date":"2023-11-15T05:25:14","date_gmt":"2023-11-15T10:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/?p=7070"},"modified":"2023-11-15T05:25:17","modified_gmt":"2023-11-15T10:25:17","slug":"original-letter-from-columbus-announcing-discovery-of-america-goes-on-sale-for-first-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/2023\/11\/15\/original-letter-from-columbus-announcing-discovery-of-america-goes-on-sale-for-first-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Original letter from Columbus announcing \u2018discovery\u2019 of America goes on sale for first time"},"content":{"rendered":"

The explorer is widely thought of as an exploiter today, and didn\u2019t know east from west. But a version of his boastful missive is expected to fetch up to \u00a31.2m at auction.<\/h3>
<\/div>

Donna Ferguson<\/a> The Guardian –<\/em><\/strong> <\/a>In 1493, Christopher Columbus wrote a letter that would change the landscape of the modern world. \u201cI sailed to the Indies with the fleet that the illustrious King and Queen, our sovereigns, gave me, where I discovered a great many islands, inhabited by numberless people,\u201d he wrote after his return to\u00a0Europe<\/a>\u00a0to royal treasurer Luis de Sant\u00e1ngel. \u201cOf all, I have taken possession for their Highnesses.\u201d<\/p>

The events relayed in the letter<\/a> were \u201cthe first report of a voyage that really did change the world\u201d, says Columbus biographer Professor Felipe Fern\u00e1ndez-Armesto.<\/p>

Now a rare 1493 Latin translation of this letter, printed on an early printing press to swiftly convey news of Columbus\u2019s \u201cdiscoveries\u201d to elite Europeans, is expected to fetch up to \u00a31.2m ($1.5m) at a Christie\u2019s auction this month.<\/p>

\u201c[In current times] Columbus has lost his former status as an honorary all-American hero and quasi-founding father, but notoriety rarely hurts one\u2019s market value, especially in the US. Witness Donald Trump,\u201d <\/em>says Fern\u00e1ndez-Armesto.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>

Columbus had no idea that, at the time, he was the first European since the Vikings<\/a> to encounter North America \u2013 he thought he had travelled to islands near Japan. But his voyage created, for the first time, \u201ca viable, commercially exploitable route\u201d across the Atlantic and opened up communications between long-sundered cultures on either side of the ocean, Fern\u00e1ndez-Armesto says.<\/p>

The letter praises the rich natural assets of the islands Columbus encountered, and he portrays the \u201cextraordinarily timid\u201d native people he met there as \u201cso unsuspicious and so generous\u201d they are \u201clike fools\u201d. It is now seen by historians as a piece of propaganda that heralds the start of the European colonisation of the New World.<\/p>

By exploiting the resources of this apparently \u201cnew\u201d hemisphere, European countries would finally start to catch up with China, Islamic nations and India in power and wealth \u2013 while also enslaving and exploiting people all over the globe. \u201cLike him or not, you can\u2019t deny Columbus\u2019s importance,\u201d Fern\u00e1ndez-Armesto says.<\/p>

\"Columbus
A master of \u2018self-promotion and propaganda\u2019: Columbus depicted by the artist Emile Lassalle in 1839. Photograph: Famoso\/Alamy<\/figcaption><\/figure>

The document has been in a private Swiss collection for nearly a century and is described by Christie\u2019s as \u201cthe earliest obtainable edition of Columbus\u2019s letter\u201d, whose international publication triggered one of the first \u201cmedia frenzies\u201d for the printed word.<\/p>

“The significance of the letter is its wide diffusion, thanks to the printing press”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>

\u201cThe significance of the letter is its wide diffusion, thanks to the printing press,\u201d says Professor Geoffrey Symcox from the University of California, Los Angeles. Using what was then cutting-edge technology, the Spanish crown sent copies to the courts of Europe to stake Spain\u2019s claim,says Symcox. \u201cThe news circulated rapidly, not just through diplomatic channels but mercantile channels as well.\u201d<\/p>

The impact of the text demonstrates just how good Columbus was at public relations, according to the Cuban-American medieval historian Professor Teo Ruiz: \u201cHe made sure everybody knew what he had done: that he had reached the islands of the Indies [a collective term for India and the Far East] by sailing westwards. Which, of course, was not true.\u201d<\/p>

Earlier explorers had been unwilling to sail west because they didn\u2019t dare risk being unable to return home. But Columbus, who was the son of a weaver and self-taught as an explorer, had made a series of wild calculations without standardising measurements, and concluded the world was 25% smaller than it is. He then convinced the Spanish monarchs, King Ferdinand II and Isabella I, to provide him with a fleet of ships so he could sail west and find a new sea route to Asia, which would prevent Portugal from having a monopoly on the spice trade.<\/p>

He just bumped into these islands. He did not know and could<\/em> not even imagine they were there<\/em><\/p>Professor Teo Ruiz<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>

In a classic case of\u00a0confirmation bias<\/a>, as soon as he reached land, he claimed to be in the far east. In fact, he had arrived in the West Indies. Then he visited Cuba, Haiti and San Domingo. \u201cHe just bumped into these islands. He did not know and could not even imagine they were there,\u201d says Ruiz<\/p>

An intrepid sailor, Columbus had managed to capitalise on the Earth\u2019s prevailing winds by charting a south-western course to the American continent via the Canary Islands. In doing so, he unwittingly demonstrated how following winds offered new opportunities for long-range navigation and trade, initiating what became known as \u201cthe Columbian Exchange\u201d: the irreversible transfer of people, flora, fauna, diseases, ideas and commodities across the Atlantic.<\/p>

\u201cWhat he did achieve, he didn\u2019t recognise he\u2019d done,\u201d says Professor William Phillips, a Columbus expert at the University of Minnesota. As for Columbus\u2019s letter, \u201cit was self-promotion and propaganda\u201d \u2013 a 15th-century example of fake news.<\/p>

It also marks one of the earliest appearances of the \u201cnoble savage\u201d archetype. Columbus\u2019s letter, Symcox says, portrays the naked Indigenous people he meets as \u201cguileless innocents living a simple life in the forest \u2013 and thus ripe for the civilising mission that Europeans took upon themselves in their dealings with peoples in the\u00a0Americas<\/a>\u00a0and Africa\u201d.<\/p>

Later, as a brutal colonial governor and viceroy, Columbus would systematically exploit the Ta\u00edno people of the Caribbean, forcing them to mine gold and deliver quotas on pain of harsh punishment. Hundreds were enslaved by Columbus and shipped to Spain to be sold, and others were massacred or subjected to extreme violence and cruelty<\/a>.<\/p>

Some also caught deadly diseases such as smallpox and measles, brought by the Spaniards. It is estimated that, within a few decades of Columbus\u2019 arrival, most of the Ta\u00edno had died from enslavement, massacre or disease.<\/p>

Now the darker side of the European intrusion into the Americas is better known, Phillips says, Columbus has come to be seen by historians as \u201cthe first of the exploiters rather than the first of the explorers\u201d.<\/p>

In the US, Columbus statues and monuments have been torn down and vandalised, and many states no longer recognise Columbus Day, a federal holiday, choosing instead to celebrate Indigenous Peoples\u2019 Day.<\/p>

Read more here<\/a><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The explorer is widely thought of as an exploiter today, and didn\u2019t know east from west. But a version of his boastful missive is expected to fetch up to \u00a31.2m at auction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7071,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1641,1639,1640],"class_list":{"0":"post-7070","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-auction","9":"tag-columbus-original-letter","10":"tag-letter-discovery-americas"},"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Columbus-letter.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7070"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7072,"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7070\/revisions\/7072"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}