Bartholomew Columbus

Bartholomew Columbus (Genoese: Bertomê Corombo; Spanish: Bartolomé Colón; Italian: Bartolomeo Colombo) (c. 1461 – 1515) was a Genoese explorer and the younger brother of Christopher Columbus.

Born in the Republic of Genoa, in the 1470s Bartholomew was a mapmaker in Lisbon, the principal center of cartography of the time, and conceived with his brother the "Enterprise of the Indies", a scheme to reach the Orient and its lucrative spice trade by a western rather than an eastern route. In the late 1480s Bartholomew took up residence in France and his brother in Spain, to persuade their respective monarchs—Charles VIII of France, and Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon—to back the scheme.

When word arrived in 1493 that his brother had succeeded, Bartholomew returned to Spain, where he missed Christopher, who had already left on the second voyage of his four to the "New World". Funded by the crown, Bartholomew traveled to Hispaniola in 1494 to meet his brother. After captaining one of the ships he remained on the island for six and a half years (1494–1500), serving as governor with the title of Adelantado during his brother's absences. He founded the city of Santo Domingo on Hispaniola between 1496 and 1498, which is now the capital of the Dominican Republic. He was imprisoned together with Christopher and another brother, Giacomo (also called Diego), by Francisco de Bobadilla and returned to Spain in December 1500. After the royal pardon of Christopher, Bartholomew accompanied him on the last of his New World voyages.

Following Christopher's death in 1506 Bartholomew returned to the Antilles, accompanying his nephew Diego, but Bartholomew soon returned to Spain when the king confirmed his concession involving Mona Island near Puerto Rico; the king would reclaim the appealing little island from Bartholomew's heirs after Bartholomew's death on 12 August 1514 (by which time Bartholomew had returned to Hispaniola).

Bartholomew Columbus is known to have fathered an illegitimate daughter, named Maria and born in 1508.

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    The only history is a mere question of one’s struggle inside oneself. But that is the joy of it. One need neither discover Americas nor conquer nations, and yet one has as great a work as Columbus or Alexander, to do.
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