Tiago Lameiras

Columbia: Part I Tiago Lameiras

We all know the story of Christopher Columbus, the Genoese explorer who set sail under the patronage of the Spanish Catholic Monarchs in 1492 to establish a direct sea route between Europe and the Far East, whence India and its highly valued spice trade could easily be reached and, thusly, allow Castile and Aragon, the predecessors of the Kingdom of Spain, to place first in the podium of the most profitable countries during the Age of Discovery, competing neck and neck with the neighboring and extraordinarily successful Portuguese Monarchy. It is equally axiomatic that on October 12th that same year, Columbus eventually came to find land after a month and a half at sea, mistaking the uncharted Caribbean islands for the Empire of Japan and, at some point, China, as described by Marco Polo, a Venetian traveler who, two centuries prior, had treaded along the Ancient Silk Road all the way to Asia and back. The aspect that is usually kept out of the record, however, is the fact that Columbus stopped at nothing to obtain every piece of gold the ground could yield, which led to a massive exchange between Europe, Africa, and future America that was bound to modify the History of Humankind in the worst possible way - forever. Throughout Part I of this expedition, we travel aboard the famous flotilla comprised of the Santa María, the Niña, and the Pinta across the Atlantic, bearing witness to just how a group of initially ninety men expected to enforce Christian law in an area where the aborigine inhabitants had already built an efficient society of their own, having been deemed, nevertheless, "irrational beasts".