Columbus Letter On The First Voyage - History of The Letter

History of The Letter

No original manuscript copy of Columbus' letter is known to exist. Historians have had to rely on clues in the printed editions, many of them published without date or location, to reconstruct the history of the letter.

It is assumed that Columbus wrote the original letter in Spanish. As a result, historians tend to agree that the Barcelona edition (which has no date or publisher name, and the appearance of being hurriedly printed) was probably the first to be published, and was the closest to the original manuscript. At the end of the Barcelona edition there is a codicil stating:

"Esta carta enbió Colom al Escrivano de Ración, de las Islas halladas en las Indias, contenida á otra de sus Altezas." (Trans: "This letter was sent by Columbus to the Escrivano de Racion. Of the islands found in the Indies. it contains (was contained in?) another (letter) for their Highnesses")

This suggests that Columbus dispatched two letters - one to the Escrivano de Ración, Luis de Santangel, and another to the Catholic monarchs, Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile.

In the printed version of the Spanish letter, the post-script is dated March 14, rather than March 4; this could be just a printer's error; the letter to the monarchs in the Libro Copiador gives the correct post-script date, March 4, 1493.).