L | A
By Avi Abrams
Fleeing the Spanish Inquisition, some Jews took their chances and set sail into the unknown with Columbus.
Columbus Day is popularly celebrated in the United States and elsewhere as the moment when Christopher Columbus made landfall on the island of Guanahani in what is now the Bahamas on October 12th, 1492, thus discovering the Western Hemisphere otherwise known as the New World.
This event led to an age of discovery where European explorers mapped out the Americas and began a massive project of conquest, colonisation, settlement, and nation building in the New World.
While the milestone discovery is considered a major landmark in the history of human civilization, what many people don’t realize is that several members of Columbus’ crew were actually Jewish.
For about a century prior to the discovery of the Americas, Jews in Spain, which was the largest Jewish community in the world at the time, faced harsh persecution, antisemitic violence, and forced conversion.
While many Jews preferred death over apostacy, approximately 200,000 Jews, about half of Spain’s Jewish community at the time, converted to Christianity out of fear and under compulsion of death. Some feigned conversion only to practice Judaism in secret.
Many conversos, as they were called, achieved high positions within the Spanish state. Famous physicians within the royal court like Francisco Lopez, poets and writers like Juan de Mena, and bankers like Gabriel Sanchez, were all conversos whose new religion enabled new opportunities for them.
However, starting in 1478, the Inquisition was established in Spain and targeted conversos who were insincere to their new faith by maintaining certain Jewish traditions in private. It was not only uncomfortable to be Jewish in Spain, but even as a converso, life on the Iberian Peninsula was no longer safe.
On January 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus, an Italian merchant, navigator, and explorer, met with King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain to seek funding for a proposed voyage westwards across the Atlantic for the purpose of discovering a new sea route to India.
Luxury goods and spices from the east were in high demand in 15th century Europe, but ongoing warfare with the Ottoman Empire and Muslim warships in the Mediterranean blocked off European trade routes to India via the Middle East.
Although it was understood that the world was round by this time, transatlantic voyages were considered unfeasible due to the Gulf Stream, which would mean travelling against strong eastward winds over unknown periods of time and contending with severe storms and hurricanes at sea.
Due to the dangers and likelihood of financial loss, Queen Isabella was not convinced and turned down his request. This was not the first time Columbus failed in fundraising. He made an earlier attempt to convince the Spanish monarchy to support his mission back in 1486 and also tried to get funding from Portugal before that in 1484. Nobody seemed to think that Columbus could pull it off.
Leaving the meeting feeling dejected, Columbus gave up on the Iberian Peninsula and thought to perhaps seek support from other European powers further to the north, like France or England. Further rejections by other countries may have convinced Columbus to give up on his dream and thus the New World would not have been discovered until sometime later in history by someone else.
Columbus was already on his way to France when a converso of Jewish origin by the name of Luis de Santangel intervened to change the course of history. As the royal treasurer, Santangel had a considerable degree of influence and built a personal relationship with both the king and queen.
He advised Queen Isabella that Spain would lose out on a major opportunity for fame and glory if Columbus were to be successful in his mission through the backing of another country. He even offered to contribute towards the project through his own personal financing.
With that, Isabella relented and sent a messenger to retrieve Columbus and summon him back to the royal court. Columbus was finally given royal approval to initiate his transatlantic voyage with the backing of the Spanish Crown.
What was Santangel’s motivation in helping Columbus to the effect that he was willing to contribute large sums of money from his own pocket?
For nearly 800 years, Jews lived under Muslim rule in Spain, which was largely a long period of tolerance, religious freedom, and prosperity known as “The Golden Age”. Christian European forces never fully capitulated to Muslim rule and conducted a military campaign known as the “Reconquista” that slowly recaptured bits and pieces of Spanish territory over the centuries.
By the 15th century, the vast majority of Spain was now under Christian control. The last bastion of Muslim rule was over the city of Granada, but after a siege and a series of battles in 1491, the city finally surrendered on January 2, 1492, just ten days prior to the meeting between Columbus and the Spanish monarchs.
Word on the street, or in the palace, was focused on religious unity. Now that the struggle against the Muslims was over, the focus would soon shift to “the Jewish problem”.
Santangel might have outwardly looked Christian, but in his heart he was still Jewish. Rumors circulated of a coming decree to force the remaining Jewish population to choose between conversion or expulsion. Perhaps Santangel’s motivation in sending out Columbus was to find a new haven for the Jews of Spain, which would soon be urgently needed.
Indeed, on March 31st, 1492, the Alhambra Decree was signed that would effectively bring the practice of Judaism to a swift end in the Spanish kingdom. The Jews were given only four months to choose between a Christian life in Spain or a Jewish life in exile.
At the same time that the Jewish population was trying to sell their properties, collect their debts, and search for migration routes, Columbus was recruiting sailors and crewmen for his upcoming voyage. It’s no surprise that some Jews or conversos perceived such a voyage as a means to get out of Spain.
Among the 90 crewmen of Spaniards and Moors were also a few people of Jewish origin. They included two experienced sailors, Roderigo de Triana and Alfonso de la Calle, a physician, Maestre Bernal, a surgeon by the name of Marco, and Queen Isabella’s personal inspector, Roderigo Sanchez de Segovia.
Probably the most high-profile Jew on board who had recently converted to Christianity by force was Luis de Torres, an interpreter for the governor of Murcia. As a result of his knowledge of Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, and other ancient languages, Columbus thought his linguistic skills would be useful in communicating with the locals.
According to some accounts, Columbus was originally supposed to set sail from Spain on July 31, but because of the large number of Jews struggling to exit the country on the last day before the decree went into the effect, the harbor at Palos de la Frontera was overcrowded and the famous sea voyage was delayed for a few days.
Some Jews were paying Muslim sailors to take them to the shores of North Africa, others were getting picked up by Ottoman ships to facilitate their immigration to Turkey, and yet some had a different direction in mind…the West. Finally, on August 3rd, 1492, Columbus led his crew on a convoy consisting of the Santa Maria, the Nina, and the Pinta to pursue their historic mission.
After more than two months on the open sea with no land in sight, the crew started getting rowdy. On October 11, Columbus begged his crew members to remain vigilant for any sight of land both day and night and even offered higher wages as an incentive.
That night at around 2:00 AM while the rest of the crew were either sleeping or drinking, Roderigo de Triana, one of the Jewish sailors, spotted a faint light in the distance, a fire. That could only mean one thing: “Tierra, tierra! Land, land!” Thus, it was a Jewish sailor who became the world’s first European explorer to see the Americas.
Landing in the Bahamas, Columbus was sure that he had reached India. He therefore called the native population Indians.
Columbus and his crew would continue exploring this new world arriving in Cuba by the end of the month in what Columbus thought might be China. From the shores of northern Cuba, Columbus deployed his Jewish interpreter Luis de Torres to move inland and make contact with what he thought was the Emperor of China.
He ended up reaching a village of 1000 inhabitants who never encountered a European before and treated him as a Divine being3. (This wouldn’t be the first time a Jew was worshipped as a god.) It was in this village that Torres was introduced to the concept of smoking tobacco, which he later shared with his Spanish compatriots upon their return to Europe.
The next island to be discovered became known as Hispaniola (modern day Haiti and Dominican Republic). 39 crewmen including Luis de Torres settled there and thus the first colony in the New World known as La Navidad included at least one Jew.
Until 1492, for most of the Middle Ages, Spain was the global center of Jewish life, but as soon as that reality changed, seeds were planted for a new future home or safe haven. The Americas would be seen as a Jewish refuge from the Inquisition and later a refuge from other forms of persecution such as the pogroms and the Holocaust.
From the very early foundations of European exploration, Jews participated and even led the way for nation building in the Americas. As we remember Christopher Columbus, let’s also remember the Jews who made his celebrated voyage possible.
By Avi Abrams
Fleeing the Spanish Inquisition, some Jews took their chances and set sail into the unknown with Columbus.
Columbus Day is popularly celebrated in the United States and elsewhere as the moment when Christopher Columbus made landfall on the island of Guanahani in what is now the Bahamas on October 12th, 1492, thus discovering the Western Hemisphere otherwise known as the New World.
This event led to an age of discovery where European explorers mapped out the Americas and began a massive project of conquest, colonisation, settlement, and nation building in the New World.
While the milestone discovery is considered a major landmark in the history of human civilization, what many people don’t realize is that several members of Columbus’ crew were actually Jewish.
For about a century prior to the discovery of the Americas, Jews in Spain, which was the largest Jewish community in the world at the time, faced harsh persecution, antisemitic violence, and forced conversion.
While many Jews preferred death over apostacy, approximately 200,000 Jews, about half of Spain’s Jewish community at the time, converted to Christianity out of fear and under compulsion of death. Some feigned conversion only to practice Judaism in secret.
Many conversos, as they were called, achieved high positions within the Spanish state. Famous physicians within the royal court like Francisco Lopez, poets and writers like Juan de Mena, and bankers like Gabriel Sanchez, were all conversos whose new religion enabled new opportunities for them.
However, starting in 1478, the Inquisition was established in Spain and targeted conversos who were insincere to their new faith by maintaining certain Jewish traditions in private. It was not only uncomfortable to be Jewish in Spain, but even as a converso, life on the Iberian Peninsula was no longer safe.
On January 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus, an Italian merchant, navigator, and explorer, met with King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain to seek funding for a proposed voyage westwards across the Atlantic for the purpose of discovering a new sea route to India.
Luxury goods and spices from the east were in high demand in 15th century Europe, but ongoing warfare with the Ottoman Empire and Muslim warships in the Mediterranean blocked off European trade routes to India via the Middle East.
Although it was understood that the world was round by this time, transatlantic voyages were considered unfeasible due to the Gulf Stream, which would mean travelling against strong eastward winds over unknown periods of time and contending with severe storms and hurricanes at sea.
Due to the dangers and likelihood of financial loss, Queen Isabella was not convinced and turned down his request. This was not the first time Columbus failed in fundraising. He made an earlier attempt to convince the Spanish monarchy to support his mission back in 1486 and also tried to get funding from Portugal before that in 1484. Nobody seemed to think that Columbus could pull it off.
Leaving the meeting feeling dejected, Columbus gave up on the Iberian Peninsula and thought to perhaps seek support from other European powers further to the north, like France or England. Further rejections by other countries may have convinced Columbus to give up on his dream and thus the New World would not have been discovered until sometime later in history by someone else.
Columbus was already on his way to France when a converso of Jewish origin by the name of Luis de Santangel intervened to change the course of history. As the royal treasurer, Santangel had a considerable degree of influence and built a personal relationship with both the king and queen.
He advised Queen Isabella that Spain would lose out on a major opportunity for fame and glory if Columbus were to be successful in his mission through the backing of another country. He even offered to contribute towards the project through his own personal financing.
With that, Isabella relented and sent a messenger to retrieve Columbus and summon him back to the royal court. Columbus was finally given royal approval to initiate his transatlantic voyage with the backing of the Spanish Crown.
What was Santangel’s motivation in helping Columbus to the effect that he was willing to contribute large sums of money from his own pocket?
For nearly 800 years, Jews lived under Muslim rule in Spain, which was largely a long period of tolerance, religious freedom, and prosperity known as “The Golden Age”. Christian European forces never fully capitulated to Muslim rule and conducted a military campaign known as the “Reconquista” that slowly recaptured bits and pieces of Spanish territory over the centuries.
By the 15th century, the vast majority of Spain was now under Christian control. The last bastion of Muslim rule was over the city of Granada, but after a siege and a series of battles in 1491, the city finally surrendered on January 2, 1492, just ten days prior to the meeting between Columbus and the Spanish monarchs.
Word on the street, or in the palace, was focused on religious unity. Now that the struggle against the Muslims was over, the focus would soon shift to “the Jewish problem”.
Santangel might have outwardly looked Christian, but in his heart he was still Jewish. Rumors circulated of a coming decree to force the remaining Jewish population to choose between conversion or expulsion. Perhaps Santangel’s motivation in sending out Columbus was to find a new haven for the Jews of Spain, which would soon be urgently needed.
Indeed, on March 31st, 1492, the Alhambra Decree was signed that would effectively bring the practice of Judaism to a swift end in the Spanish kingdom. The Jews were given only four months to choose between a Christian life in Spain or a Jewish life in exile.
At the same time that the Jewish population was trying to sell their properties, collect their debts, and search for migration routes, Columbus was recruiting sailors and crewmen for his upcoming voyage. It’s no surprise that some Jews or conversos perceived such a voyage as a means to get out of Spain.
Among the 90 crewmen of Spaniards and Moors were also a few people of Jewish origin. They included two experienced sailors, Roderigo de Triana and Alfonso de la Calle, a physician, Maestre Bernal, a surgeon by the name of Marco, and Queen Isabella’s personal inspector, Roderigo Sanchez de Segovia.
Probably the most high-profile Jew on board who had recently converted to Christianity by force was Luis de Torres, an interpreter for the governor of Murcia. As a result of his knowledge of Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, and other ancient languages, Columbus thought his linguistic skills would be useful in communicating with the locals.
According to some accounts, Columbus was originally supposed to set sail from Spain on July 31, but because of the large number of Jews struggling to exit the country on the last day before the decree went into the effect, the harbor at Palos de la Frontera was overcrowded and the famous sea voyage was delayed for a few days.
Some Jews were paying Muslim sailors to take them to the shores of North Africa, others were getting picked up by Ottoman ships to facilitate their immigration to Turkey, and yet some had a different direction in mind…the West. Finally, on August 3rd, 1492, Columbus led his crew on a convoy consisting of the Santa Maria, the Nina, and the Pinta to pursue their historic mission.
After more than two months on the open sea with no land in sight, the crew started getting rowdy. On October 11, Columbus begged his crew members to remain vigilant for any sight of land both day and night and even offered higher wages as an incentive.
That night at around 2:00 AM while the rest of the crew were either sleeping or drinking, Roderigo de Triana, one of the Jewish sailors, spotted a faint light in the distance, a fire. That could only mean one thing: “Tierra, tierra! Land, land!” Thus, it was a Jewish sailor who became the world’s first European explorer to see the Americas.
Landing in the Bahamas, Columbus was sure that he had reached India. He therefore called the native population Indians.
Columbus and his crew would continue exploring this new world arriving in Cuba by the end of the month in what Columbus thought might be China. From the shores of northern Cuba, Columbus deployed his Jewish interpreter Luis de Torres to move inland and make contact with what he thought was the Emperor of China.
He ended up reaching a village of 1000 inhabitants who never encountered a European before and treated him as a Divine being3. (This wouldn’t be the first time a Jew was worshipped as a god.) It was in this village that Torres was introduced to the concept of smoking tobacco, which he later shared with his Spanish compatriots upon their return to Europe.
The next island to be discovered became known as Hispaniola (modern day Haiti and Dominican Republic). 39 crewmen including Luis de Torres settled there and thus the first colony in the New World known as La Navidad included at least one Jew.
Until 1492, for most of the Middle Ages, Spain was the global center of Jewish life, but as soon as that reality changed, seeds were planted for a new future home or safe haven. The Americas would be seen as a Jewish refuge from the Inquisition and later a refuge from other forms of persecution such as the pogroms and the Holocaust.
From the very early foundations of European exploration, Jews participated and even led the way for nation building in the Americas. As we remember Christopher Columbus, let’s also remember the Jews who made his celebrated voyage possible.
