re: Columbus and Nationality (Alice Whealey, US)

Alice Whealey responds to Hernán Grimberg’s post of 24 October:

Since Corsica was part of the city state of Genoa in 1492 (Genoa had ruled Corsica since the 14th c. after seizing it from Pisa), it is possible for Columbus to have been both Corsican and Genoese. Pre-modern Italian city states sometimes included even more far-flung maritime possessions. In the late medieval period the Genoese also ruled some parts of the erstwhile Byzantine Empire. Las Casas says that Columbus was born in “some place or other in the ‘provincia’ of Genoa,” which does not necessarily mean the city of Genoa itself. The “provincia” could conceivably have included Corsica. All of which indicates how anachronistic it is to think of modern nationality when speaking of Columbus’s–or any other early modern European person’s–so-called “nationality” (a point Guity Nashat was also trying to make on 27 October, I think).

re: Columbus: Catalan and Jew? A Greeting (Estelle Irizarry, US)

On 24 October, Jordi Molins i Coronado wrote about the latest book by Estelle Irizarry, El ADN de los escritos de Colón [The DNA of Columbus's Writings]. In response to Jordi’s note, Estelle sends the following, which I post with her permission:

I remember you [JE] volunteering to proof, and especially your article on William H. Prescott that I was delighted to have in Hispania during my final year as editor. I had occasion to correspond cordially with Prof. Hilton on several occasions. I wish you continued success at Adrian and in your responsibilities as moderator of WAIS.

Please let your readers know that there is an English version also (my translation) available directly from the publisher, Ediciones Puerto in San Juan, Puerto Rico, that can be ordered by phone (787) 721-0844 or email (edicionespuerto@gmail.com).

The book really took off; the newspapers that picked up the ADN de los escritos de Colón from the wire services ranged all over the map, even in languages I couldn’t recognize.

JE comments: I am very happy to hear from Estelle Irizarry, one of Hispanism’s finest and most gracious scholars, for the first time in several years. Regarding Columbus’s DNA, unfortunately I’m back to square one, having received notice from Amazon yesterday that they cancelled my book order. I’ll get on the phone (see number above) today or Monday to order directly from the publisher.

re: Columbus: Catalan and Jew? (Guity Nashat, US)

re: Columbus and Madariaga (David Gress, Denmark)

David Gress follows up on his post of 25 October:

I am not sure the Estelle Irizarry theory about Columbus being an Aragonese or Valencian is new. I seem to recall having read something similar before. In any event, it seems well documented that his written Italian (of which samples apparently survive) was not terribly idiomatic, showing Castilian or Valencian traits. (Valencian and Catalan were, at least ca. 1500, distinct idioms.)

The question then, of course, is how the tradition that he was Genovese originated.

I am glad to know that Ronald Hilton knew Salvador de Madariaga. Apart from the latter’s biography of Columbus, I would draw attention to his magnificent historical novel of the Mexican-Spanish encounter, El Corazón de Piedra Verde. I recommend it particularly to Jordi Molins, because he seems rather taken with the current PC version of the conquest, that the Spaniards were all devils and the Indians all victims.

JE comments: Is it “PC” to take such a stance on the Conquest (Spanish, French, Portuguese, English and otherwise)? Granted, European navigational technology had developed to the point that it was inevitable that the Americas would have been “discovered” even had Columbus stayed home. However, one does not need to subscribe to the Black Legend to question the excesses of the “Requerimiento” (your land is now our land) or the “Encomienda” (you are now subjects of the crown and serfs on our estates). These institutions, mixed with disease and simple greed, unleashed a demographic decline in this hemisphere that in terms of numbers makes the Holocausts of the 20th century pale in comparison. To the Spaniards’ credit, a passionate debate went on about the morality of their actions (Bartolomé de las Casas et al.), something that cannot be said about subsequent colonizing endeavors of the French and the English.

re: Columbus: Catalan and Jew? (David Gress, Denmark)

David Gress responds to Jordi Molins i Coronado’s post of 24 October:

Columbus was not responsible for any mass murder, least of all that of many cultures and peoples in the Americas. So relax, Jordi. (And why feel all this guilt anyway?)

Second, I can make no sense of your assertion that Catalans were not allowed before 1714 to trade with the Americas. Evidence, please.

I will, in the next few months, be reading don Salvador de Madariaga’s biography of don Cristóbal Colón. I’ll be back.

Saludos a todos.

JE comments: Spanish trade with the Americas was monopolized during the first centuries in the Casa de Contratación, located in Seville and later Cadiz. All ships leaving for the New World were required to depart from these ports, which discouraged non-Castilians (or non-Andalusians) from participating. “Extranjeros” were not allowed to ship out, officially, though this rule was frequently abrogated–it is unclear at that time whether Aragonese/Catalans/Valencians counted as foreigners or not. Certainly many non-Castilian Spanish subjects played major roles in the Conquest, beginning with Luis de Santángel, from Valencia, who was the Catholic Kings’ Treasurer and the addressee of Columbus’s 1493 “Carta de descubrimiento”–the first written testimony in Spanish (or was it Catalan?) on the Indies.

Prof. Hilton knew Salvador de Madariaga well; I believe they coincided at Oxford in the early 1930s. Madariaga was one of the Spanish intellectuals most admired by our Patriarch. Regarding Columbus, I have Estelle Irizarry’s new book on order, and will report back in the next month or so.

re: Columbus: Catalan and Jew? (Tim Brown, US

Tim Brown responds to Jordi Molins i Coronado’s post of 24 October:

An interesting and, of course, politically important addition to the centuries-long discussions of Columbus’s provenance between and among those wishing to claim him as a native son, essentially a discussion parallel to the one alluded to by JE about where he first made landfall in the New World (might it not have been Navassa?).

But it’s my understanding that Aragon and Navarra are Basque provinces and pre-Spain were Aragonese, not Catalan. My wife’s paternal ancestry dates back to 15th century Pamplona, Navarra and is proudly Basque, although this doesn’t account for her second name being famously Moorish as in “Yo me era mora Moraima morilla de la bel catar.” [from an anonymous medieval Romance--JE]

Might not the way Columbus wrote Spanish be a product of how he learned to write it, not where he was born? I myself now routinely draw a line through my 7s even when writing in English.

The ability to write, whether in a native or acquired tongue, is acquired at the third level of socialization not the genetic first or familial second level, and is a phenomenon of education not birth.

As to Cristobal Colon, the Duque de Veragua, himself, I once had a delightful lunch-time conversation with him about his continuing claim to the Americas. He said he’s still pursuing his claim still in the courts (surely one of the world’s longest running court cases). He was charming, erudite and loved fajitas. He even gave me his calling card with just his name on it since, he commented, everyone knows who he is without adding anything else other than, as I recall, XXV.

JE comments: A wonderful anecdote! Cristóbal Colón the 25th was referring to the lawsuit begun by his famous ancestor, and most energetically pursued by his son Diego, to regain his rightful claim to the “Indies”–Isabel and Fernando, in the “Capitulaciones,” had granted Columbus the newly discovered lands. My question: who and where exactly would he sue? The World Court?

On the Dukes of Veragua, see this Wikipedia article (in Spanish):

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ducado_de_Veragua

re: Columbus: Catalan and Jew? (Hernán Grimberg, Argentina)

Hernán Grimberg responds to Jordi Molins i Coronado’s post of 24 October:

After reading the post about the real place of birth of Columbus, or as we call him, Cristobal Colón, I was surprised when I read that one of the possibilities was that he was born in Corsica. I instantly made the connection with what Jordi was saying that he used to write in Catalan. For what I remember Sardinia was a Catalan colony. I use to have a classmate at my university who was from Sardinia and his dialect was something very similar to Catalan. Nowadays, some Sardinians go to study to Barcelona instead of to continental Italy due to the similarity of their languages. Actually the north part of Sardinia, in fact the city of Alghero, was a Catalan colony and they speak a dialect that is amost Catalan. So was Columbus born in Corsica? Sardinia is not so far… another island where (on the north and facing Corsica) they speak a dialect of Catalan.

Well, these are just speculations. I’ve always thought he was born in Genoa and that he was a Jew. Genoans at that time where very good sailors and traders. His idea of reaching India going the shortest and fastest way was a wish that many Genoan traders had at that time…

JE comments: Desiring a micro-history of Sardinia before posting this note, I of course checked Wikipedia. I did now know that the Italian Marxist cultural theorist Antonio Gramsci (who described the concept of cultural hegemony) was a native Sardinian.

Columbus: Catalan and Jew? (Jordi Molins i Coronado, Catalonia)

Jordi Molins i Coronado writes:

According to the Daily Telegraph:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/6326698/Christopher-Columbus-writings-prove-he-was-Spanish-claims-study.html

“Estelle Irizarry (…) a linguistic professor at Georgetown University in Washington has published new findings following an exhaustive study of documents written in his hand.

“Estelle Irizarry studied his language and grammar and concluded that Columbus was a Catalan-speaking man from the Kingdom of Aragon, an inland region of north-eastern Spain at the foot of the Pyrenees.

“The findings published this month in a new book The DNA of the Writings of Columbus explain that although he wrote in Castilian it was clearly not his first language and his origins can be pinpointed to the Aragon region because of the grammar and the way he constructed sentences.”

Several Catalan historians had already argued in the past Columbus was Catalan, and not Genoan. Their arguments were of a different nature: while Estelle Irizarry bases her argumentation on punctuation (Columbus wrote with a punctuation sign, /, that was only present in Catalan writings, and not in Spanish ones). some Catalan historians had based their thesis on grammatical grounds: in Columbus’s writings one can find typical Catalan words and expressions that had no meaning in Spanish at all.

Of course, these arguments had to be balanced against a possible nationalist bias: Catalan historians may, inadvertently or not, introduce their own biases and personal wishes into their research. However, Estelle Irizarry has apparently no connection whatsoever with Catalonia, so her arguments may be accepted in an easier way under strict research and review.

Apart from asking other WAISers, especially those versed in Hispanist studies, their opinion about this particular issue, I would like to stress three different ideas:

1. Is the nationality of Christopher Columbus important at all? On one side, one could consider that it is definitely relevant in the prestige of a given country (either Italy, Spain or Catalonia.) On the other side, I could argue that I would feel uncomfortable, as a Catalan, to know that the man responsible of the destruction and annihilation of many people and cultures in America was a Catalan. Up to now, I considered Catalans were not responsible for that holocaust, since only Castilians were allowed (at least up to 1714, when we Catalans were defeated by Castilians, assimilated to Castilian law and, as a consequence, considered as Castilians and consequently allowed to trade with the Americas) to trade with the Americas. However, this new finding could force us to rethink the whole issue.

2. What can this issue teach us about us, today ? First, the necessity we Catalans have to reassure us, and to construct and reassess our past and history. Second, the realization that, after the Italians, the Spanish Nationalists are the stronger supporters of the Genoan origin of Columbus. It is odd they prefer Columbus being a foreigner rather than a “Spaniard” (even though from a “rebel” region).

3. The whole argument, Columbus being Catalan and Jew, if true would be consistent with the fact Columbus never said where he came from: it was better, in such an environment as the highly repressive Castilian court, not to stress his Catalanity and, above all, his Jewishness.

JE comments: New theories on Columbus’s origins crop up from time to time. Just last week I received an e-mail from a nonWAIS reader of our website arguing that Columbus was Portuguese. Most of these (such as a Corsican birth) can be dismissed as far-fetched. Estelle Irizarry is a different story–a prolific and very serious scholar. Though we’ve never met personally, Estelle and I worked together for several years on the journal Hispania (she was editor, I was proofreader), and Estelle even occupies a link in the causality chain of why I’m now WAIS E-i-C: Prof. Hilton asked me to join WAIS after he came across an article I published in Hispania on the US historian William H. Prescott. So in a word: thank you, Estelle!

I’ve purchased El ADN de los escritos de Cristóbal Colón (I believe there’s no English edition), and will make a report to WAISdom in a few weeks.

Then we might tackle the issue of where Columbus is buried. Three cities claim this distinction: Seville, Santo Domingo, and Havana.