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- [00:00]
Matthew Restall
People said to me, why are there little memes on TikTok about Columbus raping manatees? Did he do that? There's also stuff from there about Columbus, like raping, wanting to have sex with goats and llamas and so on. And of course, it's like there comes a point where you. It becomes funny, right? And absurd and ridiculous. But I felt like I needed to explain that.
- [00:29]
Bob Crawford
You've reached American History Hotline. You asked the questions, we get the answers. Leave a message.
- [00:40]
Podcast Promo Voice
The murder of an 18 year old girl in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved for years until a local housewife, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story.
- [00:53]
Bob Crawford
America, y' all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns.
- [01:05]
Podcast Promo Voice
Listen to Graves county on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season ad free. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.
- [01:19]
Ed Helms
Hey, it's Ed Helms, host of Snafu, my podcast about history's greatest screw ups. On our new season, we're bringing you a new Snafu every single episode.
- [01:29]
Podcast Promo Voice
32 lost new nuclear weapons. You're like, wait, stop.
- [01:33]
Matthew Restall
What?
- [01:33]
Ed Helms
Yeah, it's gonna be a whole lot of history, a whole lot of funny, and a whole lot of fabulous guests. Paul Scheer, Angela and Jenna, Nick Kroll, Jordan Klepper. Listen to season four of SNAFU with Ed Helms on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:53]
Matthew Restall
There's a viral sickness in Abbas Town. You must excise it, Dig into the deep earth and cut it out.
- [02:02]
Ed Helms
From iheart podcasts and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manke. This is Havoc Town, a new fiction podcast set in the Bridgewater audio universe, starring Jewel State and Ray Wise. Listen to Havoc town on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Sacred Scandal is back, the hit true crime podcast that uncovers hidden truths and shattered faith. For 19 years, Alayna Sada was a nun for the Legion of. This season, she's telling her story.
- [02:33]
Matthew Restall
When I first joined the Legion of.
- [02:34]
Podcast Promo Voice
Christ, I felt chosen. I was 19 years old when Marcia.
- [02:37]
Matthew Restall
Almaser, the leader of the Legionaries, looked me in the eye and told me I had a calling.
- [02:42]
Ed Helms
Surviving meant hiding. Escaping. Took courage. Risking everything to tell her truth. Listen to Sacred the Many Secrets of Martial Maciel on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [02:56]
Bob Crawford
Hey there, American history hotliners. Your host, Bob Crawford here. Happy to be joining you again for another episode of American History Hotline. You're the ones with the questions. I'm a guy trying to get you some answers and keep those questions coming. The best way to get us a question is to record a video or a voice memo on your phone and email it to AmericanHistoryHotlinEmail.com that's AmericanHistoryHotlinEmail.com and remember, we are American History Hotline. Okay. Today's question is about Christopher Columbus, just in time for Columbus Day. Here to help me answer this question today is Matthew Restall, Director of Latin American Studies at Penn State. He's the author of many books, including When Montezuma Met Cortez and his latest, the Nine Lives of Christopher Columbus. Matthew, thank you for joining me today.
- [03:56]
Matthew Restall
Thank you for having me, Bob. I'm a. I'm a fan of the Hotline. It's a. It's an honor to be here.
- [04:01]
Bob Crawford
It's an honor to have you. Okay, Matthew, here's the question we were hoping you could help us with. It's from Lakshmi in Key West, Florida. I recently watched the show Yellowstone, and there's a scene where a character talks about how ruthless Christopher Columbus was. I know some people call him a hero. Others call him a genocidal colonizer. What was Christopher Columbus really like? Now, Matthew, before. Before you answer, and I know you're ready to.
- [04:34]
Matthew Restall
I'm, like, chomping at the bit here.
- [04:36]
Bob Crawford
Yeah, chomping at the bit. I actually have a clip from that episode of Yellowstone. This is from season two, episode two. That character speaking is Monica.
- [04:48]
Podcast Promo Voice
When Christopher Columbus first came in contact with Native Americans, it was the Arawak.
- [04:53]
Matthew Restall
People in the Bahamas. I'll read to you from Columbus's journal.
- [04:59]
Podcast Promo Voice
They willingly traded us everything they owned.
- [05:04]
Matthew Restall
They do not bear arms and do.
- [05:05]
Podcast Promo Voice
Not know them, for I showed them.
- [05:07]
Matthew Restall
A sword, they took it by the.
- [05:08]
Podcast Promo Voice
Edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They will make fine slaves. With 50 men. We could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.
- [05:20]
Bob Crawford
That diary passage is pretty damning on its face. Does that clip need more context or does it speak for itself?
- [05:28]
Matthew Restall
Well, I think it needs. I think it needs more context. And when I get asked that question, I. It's very tempting to slip into kind of academic speak in which I don't really answer the question either way. Right. The way the professors love to do is like, well, before I answer the question, let me talk for two hours about the history of colonization. But the reason I get tempted to do that with that question is because it's a question that is based on an assumption. And the assumption, I think, is wrong. And the assumption it's based on is that because Columbus was first. And we can get into talking about that, whether he really was first or not, and what that means. But just for the sake of argument right now, because he was first, he was the first European there. He got there first. Therefore, everything that happened afterwards is his credit or his fault, regardless of what position we're taking. Right. If we're, if we, if we think of European colonization in the Americas as a good thing, depending on what our position is, sometimes people adopt a Christian viewpoint and say that Christianity was brought to native peoples, therefore, it was all a good thing. So if you want to take that position, then Columbus gets credit as being a kind of a holy hero. And for that reason, there was a big campaign to turn him into a saint, into Saint Christopher in the 19th century and 20th century. On the other hand, if you take the opposite positions, they. Look, there's a lot of appalling things happened after 1492, in the centuries that followed. There was the transatlantic slave trade. 10 to 15 million enslaved Africans brought against their will across the ocean. The indigenous American population declined over the course of the next hundred years by, you know, just not getting into the argument of how much, but. But clearly somewhere between 70 and 90%. Okay. Which is absolutely catastrophic. And so if Columbus, if we blame him for everything because he was the first, there's really no way out of kind of defending that position. And then once we make that assumption, you go in and it's not hard to find him saying things which seem to support the idea that he kind of invented all the. All the atrocities that happened after that.
- [07:54]
Bob Crawford
So what it sounds like you're saying to me is Columbus kind of is a symbol as much as anything else. He's. He's. He has become the, the face of colonization and, And, and, and the destruction of native populations and, and all that is bad with the European world.
- [08:13]
Matthew Restall
Absolutely. He's completely become a symbol. I mean, the historic Columbus, who he really was and what he was really like is, Is kind of a separate conversation. It's a separate topic. I'd like to kind of, like, veer into that in a sec. But as a. Yes, as a symbol, he's not just one symbol. He's kind of a multifaceted symbol, which is where the title of not to, like, immediately stop plugging my book in our conversation, but the plug away be.
- [08:40]
Bob Crawford
Shameless, Matt well, it's be shameless.
- [08:41]
Matthew Restall
Nine lives. I mean, nine lives, obviously it's like, it's a phrase that immediately resonates in English anyway in other languages. Cats have fewer lives, by the way, which is I found very interesting. Yes, but, so I don't know what happens if they want to translate the book into other languages where cats have seven, six or seven lives. That might be kind of an issue. Might have to drop a couple of chapters. But seriously, nine lives, it's really, in a way, it's sort of like the nine symbols. Christopher Columbus is nine symbols. I mean, that's a terrible title for a book, but I'm just picking up on what you said, Bob, and the historic Columbus, the way I treat him in the book, he's really only the first two lives and the rest of those seven are all, they all come after he dies. So if you want to know what he was really like as a person, that's certainly in the book. And I certainly tackle that because I think when people pick up a book about Christopher Columbus, they want to know what he was like as a human being. And you know what I fear is that no one's going to be satisfied. So if you think he's a hero, he comes across as a very flawed hero in my book. If you think he's a demon, you're going to find evidence in the book that seems to be me kind of defending him. And that's because I really tried to be kind of open minded and kind of balanced. I wanted to know what he was really like.
- [10:05]
Bob Crawford
Okay, so let's get to what, what he was really like in a second. Let's set this the scene like, let's, let's talk about the time in which he lived and what inspired him to come here and what he found when he got here.
- [10:21]
Matthew Restall
Right. So part of the context that we need in order to understand Columbus is the context of Europe in the 15th century. Right. He's born in the slap bang in the middle of the 15th century. What is happening at that particular moment and what happens during the kind of the next 40 years? It's not, it's not, he's, he's in his 40s when he first crosses the Atlantic Ocean. So he's not young anymore at all. And I mean with life expectancy in the 15th century, he's sort of on the cusp of old age. So what happened during those 40 years? As soon as we start to look at that, we realize that Columbus is just one of thousands of mariners, explorers, slave traders, Merchants and so on. He is not unusual or atypical in almost any way. Not even the fact that he's from Genoa. So most of, most of the people that I'm talking about are from Italian city states, from Portugal and from southern Spain. Those are your typical demographic. They're all male. Right. And there are literally thousands. And they are involved in the sort of slow transformation of a huge trading network that goes all the way through the Mediterranean and then up around the coast of Europe up into kind of northern Europe in order to link the Mediterranean world with the rest of Europe by sea. And in the course of the 15th century, those ships are sailing further and further out and discovering islands in the Atlantic. One by one, these islands are being discovered and then they're being colonized. They're being fought over by these Europe, by these European powers. The Portuguese and the Castilians in Spain are literally fighting over who can control these islands. The islands that are close to Africa then become basis for after they slaughtered indigenous people and colonized, bringing enslaved Africans in from Africa. So they kind of connecting the Atlantic African slave trade through these islands. So the idea that there's Columbus with its original idea in Spain and then from Spain he just suddenly like boom, sails across the Atlantic. It makes a great story. Sure. You know, look, look, you know, the sort of, the bad movies that have been done about it where they take all the context away. I get it from a storytelling or movie making point of view, it's much better. You know, you've got this kind of lone heroic figure who has this vision that no one else has. But that's not true. He's not only one of thousands and thousands, but he isn't even, he doesn't even really stand out as being particularly more visionary than the rest of them. What he stands out at is being a little bit more deluded. He's more capable of self delusion.
- [13:12]
Bob Crawford
How so?
- [13:13]
Matthew Restall
Well, you know, there's no knowledge of how far it is to get to mainland and there's no reason for anybody to believe that a huge continental mainland like the Americas exists. So the reasonable assumption is that there's a series of islands. So just like they find the, the Canary Islands, the Azores, Madeira and so on, there's more islands like that. And in fact, it's almost certain that before Columbus's lifetime and in his early years, other mariners are making it all the way out as far probably as Newfoundland. It could be actually hundreds of years since fishermen sailing in the North Atlantic have seen Newfoundland. And of course, as we now know that in a thousand A.D. so you know, 500 years before Columbus, Norsemen established a colony in Newfoundland. So there's that. That kind of information suggests strongly that if you keep going, you're going to find one island after another. However, the actual size of the Earth is well known. Not only does, does is it known that the Earth is round, but the size of the Earth is known. And therefore, quite reasonably, everybody from Portuguese and Spanish sailors to the advisors to the Spanish Monarch say, look, you can't make it all the way to Japan from Europe. It's just too far. You can't, you can't. Our ship, the size of our ships means that we can't go fast enough to get there in time before we run out of food and so on. And that's totally right. So what Columbus does is he starts making the argument that actually the world is smaller than that. That the world is smaller and that distance, imagine if you would the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean as one big ocean with the Americas sea as well. He just shrinks that he keeps coming up with these arguments to make it smaller and smaller. That is, that shows an incredible capacity for self delusion, which of course there's always somebody out that goes, yeah, the guy was brilliant. So it was self delusional.
- [15:30]
Bob Crawford
But was he like a flat Earther? Was he like, I mean like for his time? Would that be the equivalent of a conspiracy theorist?
- [15:38]
Matthew Restall
Oh, well, I should have known. You're going to lead us down into that, into that rabbit hole. No, I don't think, I think he wasn't that deluded. No, I think this, I think conspiracy theory thinking is definitely relevant to the Columbus story. But, but later, not during his, not so much during his lifetime. Now the, where conspiracy theory stuff comes in in his lifetime is because when he comes back from the first voyage, only two of the ships come back. One of the ships has been trashed.
- [16:08]
Bob Crawford
Nina. The Pinta, the Santa Maria.
- [16:10]
Matthew Restall
Yeah, and one of the ships is trashed, it runs aground and so they pull it to pieces and they leave the crew in the Caribbean with the pieces to build kind of huts. And when they come back on the second voyage, those, those people are all dead. They've all been killed. They attacked the local indigenous people and they started a war and they all got killed. Anyway, that's another story. So when he comes back and says, oh yeah, we found like a whole bunch of islands and in fact these islands are off the coast of Asia. So I was, I was correct all along. Then the conspiracy theory stuff starts to Circulate saying there's no way he could have known that. He says, oh, I knew it was there. I knew it was there. I, I, I had a vision from God. God told me. And they're like, yeah, right, this guy is kind of a little crackpot. He's a little weird. He was a weird guy, right? And so they start saying, no, he, he, he knew about it. And there's a conspiracy theory that circulates that becomes known as the theory of the Unknown Pilot. And, and the theory, like all good conspiracy theories, it starts with somebody saying, oh, he probably, there's probably some pilot who found those, some pilot meaning a navigator, right? Who, who found those islands and came back and told someone in a tavern and died. And so then it becomes Columbus holding this old mariner who tells him the story as he dies in Columbus's arms. And then Columbus like hiding that story and not telling anybody and the whole thing kind of snowballs. And of course the unknown pilot is a Spaniard. There's immediately competition between Columbus and his little group of loyalists and his brothers and the Spaniards who were on the voyage over who really was the, who really was the discoverer.
- [17:59]
Bob Crawford
We're about to take a quick break, but before I do, I want to let you know all about my new book that's coming out soon. It's called America's Founding Son, John Quincy Adams From President to Political Maverick. Pre order your book today. It's available wherever you buy your books.
- [18:22]
Ed Helms
All I know is what I've been told. And that to half truth is a whole lie.
- [18:27]
Podcast Promo Voice
For almost a decade, the murder of an 18 year old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved until a local homemaker, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story.
- [18:43]
Matthew Restall
I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her.
- [18:46]
Podcast Promo Voice
We know a story that law enforcement used to convict six people and that got the citizen investigator on national tv.
- [18:55]
Matthew Restall
Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran.
- [19:01]
Podcast Promo Voice
My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist producer. And I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find.
- [19:12]
Matthew Restall
I did not know her and I did not kill her or rape or burn or any of that other stuff that y' all said. They literally made me say that I.
- [19:19]
Podcast Promo Voice
Took a match and struck and threw it on her. They made me say that I poured gas on her from lava for good. This is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to Blame America.
- [19:36]
Bob Crawford
Y' all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people and small towns.
- [19:44]
Podcast Promo Voice
Listen to Graves county in the Bone Valley feed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season ad free, subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.
- [20:06]
Ed Helms
Hey, it's Ed Helms. And welcome back to Snafu, my podcast about history's greatest screw ups. On our new season, we're bringing you a new Snafu. Every single episode.
- [20:17]
Podcast Promo Voice
32 lost nuclear weapons. You're like, wait, stop.
- [20:20]
Matthew Restall
What?
- [20:21]
Bob Crawford
Yeah. Ernie Shackleton sounds like a solid 7.
- [20:24]
Ed Helms
Basketball player who still wore knee pads.
- [20:27]
Matthew Restall
Yes.
- [20:27]
Ed Helms
It's gonna be a whole lot of history, a whole lot of funny, and a whole lot of guests. The great Paul Scheer made me feel good. I'm like, oh, wow, Angela and Jenna, I am so psyched you're here.
- [20:40]
Podcast Promo Voice
What was that like for you to soft launch into the show?
- [20:44]
Ed Helms
Sorry, Jenna, I'll be asking the questions today.
- [20:48]
Podcast Promo Voice
I forgot whose podcast we were doing.
- [20:50]
Ed Helms
Join Nick Kroll. I hope this story is good enough to get you to toss that sandwich.
- [20:55]
Bob Crawford
So let's, let's, let's see how it goes.
- [20:58]
Ed Helms
Listen to season four of SNAFU with Ed Helms on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [21:08]
Matthew Restall
There's a vile sickness in Abbas Town. You must excise it, dig into the deep earth and cut it out.
- [21:18]
Bob Crawford
The village is ravaged.
- [21:19]
Matthew Restall
Entire families have been consumed.
- [21:22]
Podcast Promo Voice
You know how waking up from a dream, a familiar place can look completely alien.
- [21:28]
Matthew Restall
Get back, everyone. And if you see the devil walking around inside of another man, you must cut out the very heart of him, burn his body, and scatter the ashes in the furthest corner of the this town.
- [21:42]
Ed Helms
As a warning from iHeart podcasts and grim and mild from Aaron Manke, this is Havoc Town, a new fiction podcast set in the Bridgewater audio universe, starring Jewel State and Ray Wise. Listen to Havoc town on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [22:03]
Matthew Restall
The Devil walks in Abbostown.
- [22:08]
Ed Helms
At 19, Elena Sada believed she had found her calling. In the new season of Sacred Scandal, we pull back the curtain on a life built on devotion and deception. A man of God, Martial Maciel, looked Elena in the eye and promised her a life of purpose within the Legion of Christ.
- [22:26]
Matthew Restall
My name is Elena Sada, and this is my story. It's a story of how I learned.
- [22:32]
Podcast Promo Voice
To hide, to cry, to survive, and.
- [22:35]
Matthew Restall
Eventually how I got out.
- [22:39]
Ed Helms
This season on Sacred Scandal. Hear the full story from the woman who lived it. Witness the journey from devout follower to determined survivor as Helena exposes the man behind the cloth and the system that protected him. Even the darkest secrets eventually find their way to the light. Listen to Sacred Scandal, the many secrets of Martial Maciel as part of the Mike Ultura podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [23:13]
Bob Crawford
Okay, so Columbus, he crosses the Atlantic, he comes to these islands, and who does he meet there?
- [23:23]
Matthew Restall
And there he encounters in indigenous peoples, Indigenous peoples in the islands about whom we now know, you know, a fair amount, but not as much as we would like because of how they get treated. So the. The question about Columbus and his attitude towards indigenous peoples, particularly the quote from the log. Right. In which he's saying they're very meek, they could easily be enslaved, and so on. Yes. So did he actually write and say those things? More or less, yes. It's important to. To note, and as a kind of a sidebar, that we actually don't have the original manuscripts of any of his ship logs. We have them as they were saved by a famous Dominican friar called Bartolome de Las Casas. And Las Casas had his own agenda. Las Casas agenda was that Columbus was an agent of God. And Columbus himself came to believe this. And he, Las Casas was convinced that Columbus's role as part of God's plan was for Christians to discover the Americas so that Christians could bring Christianity to indigenous peoples. So, and.
- [24:42]
Bob Crawford
And by doing that, bring about the return of Christ.
- [24:47]
Matthew Restall
Yes, right, exactly.
- [24:48]
Bob Crawford
All these peoples, we were all the same. We all spoke the same. Tower, Tower of Babel were divided. We bring them back together. Christ returns.
- [25:00]
Matthew Restall
Yes, because why has. Why, as of 1492, had Christ not come back yet? Because not all people on the planet have been given the opportunity to convert to Christianity. So once you've found that there's a whole continent of people and Christians just need to get there and give them that opportunity, and then the second coming will occur. And so Columbus does not have this idea in his head in 1492, but by the time of his third, certainly his fourth voyage, he definitely convinces himself not only that he is that agent of God, but even that his life and his discovery of the Americas is prophesied in the Old Testament. Like, he. He really kind of gets that kind of deluded about his role, and he thinks, oh, and the whole point is not just about converting indigenous peoples and the second coming, but it's grander than that is. Now, the gold that we're going to find in the Americas will use to fund the recapture of Jerusalem. Now we can destroy, you know, Judaism and. And Islam and the whole thing. Right. That. That's. That's sort of the Crusade. Although there's also another talking of conspiracy theory, another conspiracy theory angle on this of people who think that Columbus was actually Jewish. We can circle back around to that one in a minute. So, I mean, you know, I'm not sure really fully yet answered the question about Columbus's attitude towards indigenous peoples and slavery. So, yes, he says that, and I think it's important to recognize that he does believe that enslaving indigenous peoples is just fine. And not only that, but let's round them up and ship them back to Spain to be slaves there. And I should note that tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of indigenous people in the century beginning with 1492 going forward, end up being enslaved. And certainly in the hundreds of thousands, half a million become enslaved. But a good percentage of those, it's not clear yet how many end up back in Spain. As in. As. As enslaved peoples living out their lives. And they get enslaved as children, and they live and have their own children and so on, or remain slaves in Spain and work their way into the slave system in Europe. So he's talking about a system that is already in place and that is going to really kind of take off. So does he believe that? Does he say that? Yes. Does he invent that system? Absolutely not. Is it surprising that he says that? Absolutely not. In fact, if he says, if you've got Columbus writing down saying, no, these people should not be enslaved, that's not right. Enslaving them is. Is morally wrong and we should not do that. That would have been strange. That would have been kind of astonishing.
- [27:52]
Bob Crawford
So. So, Matt, who holds the purse strings?
- [27:56]
Matthew Restall
Yeah, the purse strings. Okay, so there's some great kind of myths and legends about this, right? About the relationship between Columbus and Queen Isabel of Castile. That she pawns her jewels to pay for his voyage is completely not true. That there's some kind of romance between them. There's like zero evidence of that. In fact, the more I got to know Columbus, the more I realized this guy has not does as a romance with anybody. He has two sons, one. One each by a different woman. And I'm not sure there was a romance involved in any of that at all. This is not something that he cares about. What? Absolutely not. Where does the money come from? You know, some of it is from. Is. Is guaranteed by the Crown. But mostly it's private investment and it's investment from Spanish merchants and sailors and so on. So the, the Pinthon brothers, P I N Z O N or Z O n. The Pinton brothers or Pinon brothers from Palos. They play really, really important role in not only in the first voyage, but in. In subsequent voyages as well, providing ships, personnel and so on. And they have all. They have what Columbus doesn't have. Columbus doesn't have anything. He doesn't have. He doesn't have ships. He doesn't have sailors who are loyal to him. He doesn't have family connections. So the. I would say that, you know, it's about investment and return on investment. Now, once he comes back and shows evidence of wealth, then further investment comes. But, you know, but this is a little bit like the struggling band who get their first record deal and then the first record comes out and it goes to number one. And everyone thinks they must be rolling in money. And they certainly seem to be piling in and out of limos in new clothes, and there seems to be a lot of partying going on. Expensive level partying. And then people are really confused and don't understand why it is that this band has no money at all, that they are completely broke. You, Bob, understand how it works.
- [30:04]
Bob Crawford
I do, yeah. The money was never yours to. To spend. The money is basically the record. Record label is the bank. They're a bank.
- [30:13]
Matthew Restall
That right now, sometimes when you become very successful over a prolonged period of time and you enter into prolonged negotiations, probably lawsuits with your original manager and your label and so on, you might actually get some money. And then of course, that confuses people even more because they're like, but Paul McCartney's worth a hundred billion dollars or whatever it is.
- [30:33]
Bob Crawford
The key is these days to sell tickets. If you can sell tickets and you're a band, but you're not making. You're not making money on the music.
- [30:41]
Matthew Restall
Okay, so let's take it back.
- [30:43]
Bob Crawford
Okay.
- [30:43]
Matthew Restall
Right. I would, I'm. I'd love to talk about that, but let's take it back to Columbus. Why, why did I bring that up as an analogy? Obviously, in most ways the analogy is absurd. But, but, but it's fun. And it might help us to understand right at the beginning, Columbus doesn't have money. He's not. He doesn't come back from these early voyages rich. Right. So where does the money come from? It comes from colonial enterprises, comes from colonial endeavors. And what those colonial endeavors are Based on is credit. It's all about advanced credit. And any discovery, any wealth that is brought back, gold that is pulled out of placer mines in the Caribbean. And then later, when Spaniards get onto the mainland and discover other sources of wealth, particularly gold and silver, that is all goes to pay off creditors and get more credit. It's kind of a massive Ponzi scheme. I mean, the whole Spanish empire and in some ways all the European empires in the Americas are kind of Ponzi schemes that are based on the assumption that there's even more wealth coming around the corner, right? It's like you'll hit records like it doesn't matter because the next one will be bigger and bigger and then there'll be more, more money coming. Now that's not to say that Columbus dies impoverished. That's part of the legend of Columbus. Oh, he's, he's not appreciated. The Spanish Crown doesn't appreciate all that they, that he does for them. And he died, he doesn't die poor at all. His contract guarantees certain kinds of incomes and revenue, but that contract is constantly being renegotiated by him. And he is essentially doing, during his, that final kind of 14 years of his life from when he gets the original contract. When he dies, he's doing a little bit the same thing that bands do when they kind of then start arguing and suing their managers and so on, and, and that then continues for hundreds of years. So immediately upon his death, his son, who inherits the title, which is an important title, which is Admiral of the Ocean, Steen of the Indies, that title, and he comes with a certain income which is equivalent to several million dollars, actually at one point, maybe as much as five or six million dollars a year as just straight income, right? With the potential for much, much, much more than that if you can claim all the other titles. His son immediately sues the Spanish Crown. And so there are now lawsuits that go on, on and off for hundreds of years between Columbus descendants and the Spanish Crown and then between Columbus's descendants, between his heirs over that money. So, yes, there's money, but where does the money come from? It comes from enterprises and colonial exploitation in the Americas. It doesn't actually come directly from, you know, what Columbus himself does. Now to kind of wrap this up, what is the most lucrative enterprise that Spaniards are engaging in in the Caribbean in Columbus's lifetime? And let's even take it a little beyond that, say, his son's lifetime?
- [33:45]
Bob Crawford
I'm guessing it's not T shirt sales.
- [33:48]
Matthew Restall
It's not Merchandise. Okay. If they'd had that idea, we could be horrified by that in. In the 21st century. No, it's. Well, now I'm. Now I'm laughing, and I feel like I can't laugh because I'm going to tell you what the truth is.
- [34:03]
Bob Crawford
It's slavery.
- [34:05]
Matthew Restall
Yeah. So. So when you realize that, like. Wait, wait. What do you mean, enslave people? It's like. Well, that's. That's how. That's how the whole thing keeps going through. Enslaving people. You're literally going island to island or on the coasts and going into villages, and you're rounding people up. And the people who are worth the most are the people who are the easiest to capture. So it's children and women. They're worth more than. Than men. And the men are the ones who are most likely to try and defend their families. And they can be. And then they're killed or. Or sometimes they. They managed to enslave them as well. So you. You. You're not purchasing them. I mean, mo. Most of the enslaved Africans who acquired during the transatlantic slave trade from Africa are purchased through trade because African kingdoms still have power. European colon colonial powers don't have the ability to destroy those African kingdoms and create colonies, large colonies in Africa. That doesn't happen until the 19th century. But indigenous peoples living in small city states or stateless communities on islands and on the coasts simply don't have the ability to resist when a ship pulls up with cannons and armed guys who are simply there, you know, to raid and seize people, and then they sell them in the. In the burgeoning slave markets on the islands. And then back in Spain, that. That brings the greatest amount of money, is the greatest source of income, and also encourages further credit. So, look, Columbus is part of this system. Does that, you know, make him some kind of hero? It's hard to see that, but. Absolutely. Absolutely not. But he also doesn't. In no way does he create this system, and he would be absolutely powerless to stop it. So, I mean, we all kind of go back and see what kind of guy is. Is Columbus. You know, what. What. What would it be like to have him on American history hotline? Right? To have him in a room talking to him. He. He would talk even more than I do. You would not be able to shut the guy up. He had a reputation for being incredibly garrulous. He talked and talked and talked. And now it sounds like I'm about to, like, insult myself now, which is totally fine. He talks and talks. He was incredible. Egoman, I think he was just astonishingly self centered. So I really investigated Columbus with an open mind. I mean the purpose of the book is not primarily it's not a biography. I mean it is a biography but it isn't. My concern was to answer not only questions that people might have about the historic Columbus but also let's just leap all the way to kind of the extreme end when people said to me why are there little memes on TikTok about Columbus raping manatees? Did he do that? There's also stuff on there about Columbus like raping wanting to have sex with goats and llamas and so on. And of course it's like there comes a point where you, it becomes funny, right? And absurd and ridiculous. But I felt like I needed to explain that know then there, there's an explanation but the explanation has to be kind of tapped into a larger explanation which is, which is the purpose of the book here. So I approached Columbus with an open mind. I had previously done the same in investigating Montezuma and Cortez on a different book which we'll talk about on. On another occasion, Bob and I my opinion of Cortez changed fairly dramatically. I thought he was probably a somewhat unpleasant character and by the time I got to the end of researching that. But this guy's just an absolute monster. I mean he's just horrific. I did not come to the conclusion that Columbus was a monster. Not in the same way I did. He, he's clearly very intelligent, kind of impressive in many ways. He had no education despite the kind of legends about that. So comes from very modest background, self taught. He teaches himself to read, he teaches himself to speak and read multiple languages. He never writes Spanish particularly, never really becomes fluent in writing it. He tries to write in Latin and it's pretty bad and so on but the fact is it's all self taught. And he's also teaching himself navigation that he must have learned from pilots when he went to sea when he was in his early 20s. But he's kind of an impressive guy in this sense. But he becomes so single mindedly self absorbed. It's all ultimately about him and then what he can do to ensure his legacy in founding a noble dynasty in Spain. Now we don't know when he gets this idea but it seems one would imagine that when he's in, he leaves Genoa when he's in his 20s and then in his 20s he spends most of his 20s in Lisbon or based in Portugal. And the evidence seems to suggest that that's where he got this idea that if you sail out into the ocean, into what they call the ocean sea, what we call the Atlantic, there are islands out there and you can find these islands and you can essentially make yourself kind of lord of these islands is kind of this chivalric dream. And then you can elevate yourself to the nobility. And you go back to the king of Portugal saying, you could be the king of the islands, but I'm going to be the lord, I'm the viceroy, I'm the ruler of it, and I will have all these titles and then they will be passed down to my son and his son and so on as a way of kind of erasing what he thought was embarrassing as his background. You know, his father was like a wool weaver, ran a tavern for a while. His grandfather was a cheese maker. You know, this is like modest people, modest working class people in, in, in Genoa in the, in the 15th century. And he was embarrassed by that background and he didn't want to pass that on to his sons. So there's a kind of a social mobility ambition that is absolutely all consuming and becomes more and more so during his lifetime. And the last thing I'll say is, well, does he achieve it? Yes, he does. So if you want to be impressed by that, that's fine, be impressed. He's a kind of a, you know, self made man and he, you know, he passes that title on. There is today in Spain a Don Cristobal Colon or Christopher Columbus, who is the 20th in line who holds the title Admiral of the Ocean Sea. And he's, you know, an, an aristocrat, a businessman, a sailor. He's had a, he was in the Spanish navy. Right. He's. Exactly. If Columbus could somehow have seen, you know, five centuries forward and seen his descendants, I think. Well, no, he was a guy who was never satisfied. I think you and I, Bob, will be satisfied with that. He would say, well, that's great, but why is he not Viceroy of Mexico?
- [41:24]
Bob Crawford
Right? A complicated man in, in complicated times, Columbus was, was a man of his times is what this sounds like you're telling me.
- [41:36]
Matthew Restall
See, maybe we should have written this book together. It would have been shorter because you're right. No, you're absolutely right. He was a man of his time. And, and, and it was a grim time.
- [41:47]
Bob Crawford
It was a grim time.
- [41:48]
Matthew Restall
He was. Yeah, I, I think we sort of spent half an hour answering that first question, but I mean, that's a good way of putting it, right? Yes, he was, he was a man of his time. But it was a time in which it was okay to invade someone else's country and kill them and enslave them. It wasn't okay for everybody. People complained but and there are people complain in Spain, but generally it was okay.
- [42:14]
Bob Crawford
I've been talking with Matthew Restall, director of Latin American Studies at Penn State. He's the author of many books, including When Montezuma Met Cortez and and his latest, the Nine Lives of Christopher Columbus. You can find out more about his book in our show notes Matthew, thank you for joining us today on American History Hotline.
- [42:34]
Matthew Restall
It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you.
- [42:40]
Bob Crawford
You've been listening to American History Hotline, a production of iHeart podcasts and Scratch Track Productions. The show's executive producer is James Moore Morrison. Our executive producers from iHeart are Jordan Runtal and Jason English. Original music composed by me, Bob Crawford. Please keep in touch. Our email is americanhistoryhotlinemail.com if you like the show, please tell your friends and leave us a review in Apple Podcasts I'm your host Bob Crawford. Feel free to hit me up on social media to ask a history question or to let me know what you think of the show. You can find me at Bob Crawford Base. Thanks so much for listening. See you next week.
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The murder of an 18 year old girl in Graves County, Kentucky was went unsolved for years until a local housewife, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story.
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Bob Crawford
America, y' all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns.
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Listen to Graves county on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever. Wherever you get your podcasts and to binge the entire season ad free. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.
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Ed Helms
Hey, it's Ed Helms, host of Snafu, my podcast about history's greatest screw ups. On our new season, we're bringing you a new snafu. Every single episode.
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32 lost nuclear weapons you're like, wait, stop what?
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Ed Helms
It's going to be a whole lot of history, a whole lot of funny and a whole lot of fabulous guests. Paul Scheer, Angela and Jenna, Nick Kroll, Jordan Klepper. Listen to season four of SNAFU with Ed Helms on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Matthew Restall
There's a vile sickness in Abbas town. You must excise it, Dig into the deep earth and cut it out.
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Ed Helms
From iheart Podcasts and grim and mild from Aaron Manke. This is Havoc Town, a new fiction podcast set in the Bridgewater audio universe, starring Jewel State and Ray Wise. Listen to Havoc town on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Sacred Scandal is Back, the hit true crime podcast that uncovers hidden truths and shattered faith. For 19 years, Alena Sada was a nun for the Legion of Christ. This season, she's telling her story.
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Matthew Restall
When I first joined the Legion of.
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Christ, I felt chosen. I was 19 years old when Marcia.
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