Columbus’s Legacy Sails into New Waters on DNA Study’s Spanish, Jewish Origin Claims
The debate over Christopher Columbus’s legacy has entered a new dimension: A just-released DNA study says Columbus was born in the Spanish city of Valencia — not in Genoa, as is widely believed — and was Jewish, two claims sure to set off new rounds of heated debate over the explorer’s origin.
On October 12, researchers finally (after teasing ) reveled results of a 20-year DNA study, in a documentary played on Spain’s national broadcaster RTVE. The broadcast coincided with the country’s national day.
The DNA project began in 2003 with an excavation of Columbus’s tomb at Seville Cathedral. Even the location of his remains was/is controversial; researchers in 2006 used the excavated DNA samples to confirm Seville’s claim. The project lasted two decades as researchers waited for forensic technology to improve enough that their results could be irrefutable.
As with many of the explorers, little is known about Columbus’s early life, and a mix of sailors, navigators, and ship builders from the Mediterranean and elsewhere made the Spanish and Portuguese voyages possible. The explorer Amerigo Vespucci, whose name was give to two continents, was an Italian (from Florence) who sailed for Spain, as was Ferdinand Magellan’s chronicler Antonio Pigafetta, and Magellan himself was Portuguese and served the Portuguese crown in Asia and Morocco before defecting to Seville.
The lack of records on Columbus’s origin has led to competing claims. Traditional history settled on Genoa, yet historians offer competing theories, and people in a surprising number of countries have claimed Columbus as their own: Spain, who Columbus sailed for; Portugal, a kingdom he may have served along the African coast; Italy, whose powerful Renaissance city states developed the initial maritime technology that made the Iberian voyages possible … and Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Poland, and Scandinavia …
Columbus died in 1506 at Valladolid, a royal seat in Castile, but per his wishes to be buried in the New World, his remains were brought to the Caribbean island of Hispaniola in 1542. Centuries later they were moved first to Cuba and then to Seville, where his tomb was excavated in 2003 for DNA analysis.
And the day before the project’s results were announced, they were teased, promting news headlines reading “Now they’re really, really certain the Seville remains are Columbus’s.” The team also had remains from Columbus’s two sons, Diego and Hernando, to work with.
What’s Next?
The assertions that Christopher Columbus was Spanish and Jewish will both be challenged — and rejected by many. First people will challenge the researchers' work and then the science itself. Replies to a social media post on the news give an indication, with some insisting, no, he was Italian, and others asking who cares about the expletive, expletive. And that’s not mentioning the weirder replies.
Here’s the problem: Columbus has been adopted as a hero figure by different people and countries and for different reasons. The US in the 1790s and beyond was a fledgling country in need to shared national heroes and myths, and Christopher Columbus was perfect for the part: Importantly, he wasn’t British — America needed non-British heroes — and he also wasn’t Spanish, helpful given relations with Spain at the time.
Columbus the Genoese explorer quickly became cemented history among Italian Americans, for example, who along with many others are fighting to protect Columbus statues in several cities.
The study’s claim of Valencia as Columbus’s birthplace will also be unwelcome among people in Italy, Portugal, and possibly in other parts of Spain.
Columbus the Jew?
The notion that Columbus was Jewish is not new, but backed by genetic science it packs a stronger punch and in a tender spot. In his final years, Columbus became engrossed in writing a manuscript called The Book of Prophesies, in which he claimed his mission was to spread Christianity ahead of a second coming of Christ, as prophesied. This idea was picked up and developed by others, including the LDS church in The Book of Mormon.
In the US and elsewhere, the explorer mission of spreading Christianity was quickly expanded to one of civilizing an uncivilized world (despite existing civilizations), and an excuse for both slavery and genocides of indigenous people in the Americas. The argument is still being used. The right-wing “educational” publisher PragerU has a video in many classrooms showing a cartoon Christopher Columbus explaining to a young brother and sister that “Slavery wasn’t that bad — it was better than being killed.”)
So this Jewish talk?
The theory offered alongside the DNA study was that Columbus had to hide his Jewish heritage. Spain had recently expelled Jews, forcing those who remained to convert or pretend to convert and become so-called “New Christians.” The alternative was torture and death by the Inquisition. Many Jews in Castile and other Spanish kingdoms fled to Portugal and shortly after when King João III began the Portuguese Inquisition, to Morocco and the Canaries (where they played key roles in trade).
Those who stayed around found it prudent to hang pork sausages in their kitchens, among other things, as proof they were not Jews.
Columbus DNA Takeaways
In recent years the world had been grappling with Columbus’s legacy — great explorer versus colonizer, slaver, and worse … Columbus Day versus Indigenous People’s Day. One side’s tearing down statues, the other’s dug in shouting “Cancel Culture!” The DNA study will likely fuel new notes of contention.
While science may have spoken (if the researchers work is confirmed), the controversies will live on, possibly stronger in some cases. One thing science has proven, when science proves to be an inconvenience, science denial is only a hop and a skip away.
