Engl 48A
Christopher Columbus
“I did not sail upon this voyage to gain honor or wealthy; this is certain, for already all hope of that was dead. I came to Your Highnesses that if it plea God to bring me forth from this place…” (Norton 35)
“After five centuries, Columbus remains a mysterious and controversial figure who has been variously described as one of the greatest mariners in history, a visionary genius, a mystic, a national hero, a failed administrator, a naive entrepreneur, and a ruthless and greedy imperialist” columbusnavigation.com
Columbus in “from letter to Luis de Santagel regarding the first voyage” writes a letter to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella to describe the place he “found”. In this letter we can see that he starts writing about the beauty of the place and how fortunate there were to find this great island: “ All are most beautiful, of a thousand shapes” (Norton 333) making sure that the King and Queen were happy with this expedition.
However, later on he starts to describe and express his feeling about what he really sees in the place: “…found an infinity of small hamlets and people without number, but nothing of importance” (Norton 33) as if Columbus was trying to sell the idea of his expedition being great, but deep inside he was just hoping that they would find something there. But not yet…I also found very selfish of him to just get in the place that he does not know, and just name them (rename as he says)and just take it by putting their flag on the sand. As if there was a rule to steal lands with flags.
