New genetic research suggests that Christopher Columbus was not Italian or even originally Catholic, but was a Sephardic Jew, probably from Spain, who hid his heritage to avoid persecution. .
According to the BBC, a decades-long investigation into the background of this famous controversial explorer, conducted by Spanish scientists, sheds light on the long debate about where the 15th century world traveler was actually born. The purpose was to guess.
The conventional theory is that Columbus sailed across the Atlantic to Spain in 1492, sparking European interest in the Americas, but Columbus is believed to have been born in Genoa, an independent republic on the northwest coast of Italy, in 1451. It was being done.
However, many historians doubted this. And new DNA evidence taken from some of the bones of Columbus’ body in Spain’s Seville Cathedral appears to prove them right.
“We have the DNA of Christopher Columbus. A very partial DNA,” Miguel Lorente, a forensic expert and leader of the investigation, said in the documentary “Columbus’s DNA: The True Origin,” which aired in Spain on Saturday. That’s enough,” he said.
“We have the DNA of his son, Hernando Colon, and both Hernando’s Y (male) chromosome and mitochondrial DNA (from his mother) have traits compatible with Jewish origin. Yes,” Lorente said.
Researchers have not determined where Columbus was actually born, but they believe it was probably in Western Europe, perhaps in the Spanish city of Valencia.
They believe that Columbus hid his Jewish identity or converted to Catholicism to avoid religious persecution.
The discovery is based on nearly 22 years of research that began in 2003, when Lorente, a professor of forensic medicine at the University of Granada, and historian Marcial Castro excavated Columbus’s partial body from the cathedral.
For centuries countries have debated his origins, with dozens of conflicting theories claiming he was born in Poland, England, Greece, Portugal, Hungary, and even Scandinavia.
But those ideas, including the novel ideas of the Viking Columbus, appear to have been wrong.
DNA-based results are “almost absolutely reliable,” Lorente said.
This result is consistent with contemporary historical records that approximately 300,000 Jews lived in Spain before the Catholic monarchs Isabella and Ferdinand ordered Jews and Muslims to convert to Catholicism or leave. There is.
Many left without abandoning their faith and settled in large parts of the world.
The word Sephardic comes from the Hebrew word Sepharad, which is Spanish.
Columbus’s fame stems from his four expeditions to the Americas, which were supported by the Spanish monarch who was looking for a new route to Asia.
But he instead plunged into the Caribbean islands, sparking a new era of exploration that led to the settlement and conquest of the New World. It also resulted in the deaths of millions of indigenous people who died from European diseases and wars with European invaders.
Columbus died in Valladolid, Spain, in 1506, but requested to be buried on the island of Hispaniola, an island that straddles today’s Dominican Republic and Haiti.
His remains were taken there in 1542, and then at least some were moved to Cuba in 1795 and to Seville in 1898.
Aside from questions about Columbus’ origins, his legacy is full of controversy. Much of this stems from his barbaric treatment of the indigenous peoples who lived in the Americas before Columbus arrived.
According to the Washington Post, his men cut off indigenous peoples in Haiti and the Dominican Republic if they did not provide money every three months.
His crew also cut off the legs of indigenous children who helped sex traffick nine- and 10-year-old girls who tried to escape.
These new perspectives changed the way people viewed the explorer, and many called for his holiday, celebrated on the second Monday of October, to be renamed “Indigenous Peoples Day.”
with post wire
