Columbus in the First Person
Part One: Introduction
Today has been one of the happiest days of my entire life. Just this morning, I disembarked on my great exploration to Asia. My ships pulled into the Spanish harbor of Palos and were met by cheering crowds. I got off of my ship and paraded down the streets of Palos with my crew of sailors. Indians that we had taken prisoner followed us, lugging cartloads of gold and spices that I had brought back from Asia. Why was I given such a hero's welcome? I had accomplished something phenomenal that no one had ever done in the history of the world: discovered a westward route from Europe to Asia.
I have been interested in sailing and exploration from almost the time I was born. As a child, I grew up in the Italian port city of Genoa. At that time, Genoa had built up a rich trading empire with Asia and was becoming very wealthy from this commerce with the eastern lands. Each day, I watched the trading galleys sail in and out of the harbor of Genoa, exchanging eastern goods, such as silk, spices and perfume for gold coins. I admired the many affluent merchants wearing their luxurious silk garments and wished that I could be like them, journeying to far off places and returning with colossal quantities of goods.
However, my family was not nearly as wealthy as the upper class merchants. We lived in the poorer section of the city and my father worked at several vocations, including weaving and tavern keeping to make enough money for our family to live on. At times, I would assist him at his work because, being the eldest of five children, I was expected to be a contributing member of our family. As I grew older, I got more and more tired of spending my time on the land and dreamed about going out to sea.
Finally, at the age of fourteen*, I began to work on merchant ships as a sailor. I loved the sea and instantly discovered that I had found my true calling. Others soon realized the extent of my prodigious navigational abilities. I could predict the occurrences of storms and soon, other sailors and even captains of ships trusted my advice when it came to sailing.
When I was twenty-five years old, I was shipwrecked by pirates off the coast of Portugal, but managed to survive by swimming six entire miles with an oar to safety. I ended up spending many years in Portugal and sailed with Portuguese navigators to far off lands like Britain and Africa. I learned that Portugal had some of the best sailors and navigators in the world. The Portuguese merchants were trading with Asia by an all-water route, in which they sailed around the entire continent of Africa, picked up goods in Asia, and then debarked in Europe. This trade route was longer than the land routes that Italy was using, but since it was a water route and Italy's trade routes went over land, the Portuguese route was much less expensive, and therefore, very lucrative to Portugal.
*Note: The exact age at which Columbus first went to sea is unknown. The history book I used to write this paper (bibliographical info is unavailabole at this time) says age 14, but Columbus cites age 10.
