Columbus Day: 7 interesting facts about the famed explorer

2. Wanted to fund another Crusade to conquer Jerusalem

While the exploration of the Americas and the Crusades of the Medieval era are not generally thought of in the same context, Columbus apparently considered the two to be linked.

According to historian Carol Delaney of Stanford University, a major purpose of Columbus’ westward oceanic journey was to raise enough profits to fund a Christian conquest of the Holy Land.

Delaney quoted a 1493 letter to Spain’s King Ferdinand and Queen Isabela, in which Columbus hoped that “in seven years from today I will be able to pay Your Highnesses for five thousand cavalry and fifty thousand foot soldiers for the war and conquest of Jerusalem, for which purpose this enterprise was undertaken.”

In a December 1492 journal entry while in the Caribbean, Columbus spoke of wanting to find enough gold and other commodities that he could compel “the sovereigns” to “undertake and prepare to go conquer the Holy Sepulchre; for thus I urged Your Highnesses to spend all the profits of this my enterprise on the conquest of Jerusalem.”

According to Delaney, Columbus’ support for a new crusade “was part of the much larger and widespread, apocalyptic scenario in which Columbus and many of his contemporaries believed.”

“That scenario, derived from the biblical book of Revelation, claims that the conversion of all peoples to Christianity and the re-conquest of Jerusalem are necessary preconditions for the ‘Second Coming,’” she wrote.

“Columbus felt strongly the imminence of this event; he also came to feel that he had a providential role to play in the drama.”