DNA study confirms Christopher Columbus’s remains are entombed in Seville
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
>The knottier question of the explorer’s precise origins will be revealed in Columbus DNA: His True Origin, a special TV programme shown on Saturday 12 October, the date when Spain celebrates its national day and commemorates Columbus’s arrival in the New World.
So if we've had DNA samples of his brother what was stopping us from finding out his "precise origins" earlier?
As the origins of Colon were unknown his real family relationships were also unknown. He toke a lot of measures to hide their identity including lying about it. The scientists did DNA tests to Italians with surname Colomb and discovered an unexpected amount of variability (Those people weren't related).
It seems that Colomb (Pigeon?) was a surname applied on Italy for children without parents, so was shared by different people without a real genetic relationship. John "Snow" style. This means also that it was also the perfect surname that somebody wanting to hide their past would chose. This way he could just pretend that didn't knew about his family when interrogated by Kings and powerful people. Refusing to answer otherwise would be extremely dangerous.
Specifically, they probably don't have Columbus' DNA, and if they do, it's from a very small collection of highly degraded hand bones: https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/7HHNA2XRENAIDKTSS4RUG...
The bones that are supposedly from his brother are in similar condition, and also this guy "now claims that the alleged remains of Christopher and Diego do not correspond to those of two brothers, but to two second cousins." See my comment history or https://elpais.com/ciencia/2024-10-12/el-show-del-adn-de-cri... for more info.
Some of Columbus' descendants still hold noble titles though, like the Duke of Veragua:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crist%C3%B3bal_Col%C3%B3n_de...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/11/dna-study-chri....
the-express.com page has 2 scroll-fulls of 3rd party garbage blocked by uBlock.
That is a very odd take on the Caribbean, and it's the third paragraph in the article. I've seen text spinners, but this feels AI-driven. Surely a human couldn't be this inane.
So it’s probably best to err on the side of caution.
They found his remains by confirming that they are indeed buried in the tomb with his name on it?
Originally he was buried in Hispaniola where today is the city of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic.
Motivated by fear of their destruction, they were moved to Cuba in 1795 under secrecy when France took over the island following several revolts.
When Spain lost the Spanish-American war and ceded Cuba in 1898 they were then transported to Seville.
Various conspiracy theories arose that the remains were never truly moved out of Santo Domingo, fueled by the fact that the remains in Seville were only partial and hand bones were found in a box in Santo Domingo with an inscription claiming they belonged to Columbus.
The researchers note that the hand bones could also be authentic with his remains split between Spain and the Dominican Republic.
At least in the Kantian sense, the guy was not really bad in that he didn't really intend to do much harm. His writing is very tied to bringing Christianity to Caribbean tribes, some of which were still actively practising cannibalism. He "scammed" them by trading glass beads for gold, but that still feels somewhat minor. I wonder if people don't sometime confuse him with Cortés (who was a true piece of work) and the later stage of Spanish colonisation which all happens several years after the death of Columbus.
Perhaps not the most neutral source.
> At least in the Kantian sense, the guy was not really bad in that he didn't really intend to do much harm.
No, they just recognize him as someone whose torture and other cruelty and abuses as a colonial administrator were so severe and notorious that he got thrown in chains, dragged back to Spain, and stripped of titles for them, in late 15th century Spain, not exactly a model of moderation when it came to conversion of subject populations to Christianity or paragon of human rights more generally.
Considering most of the things raised against him in the 21st century were not really frowned up in the 15-16th, I don't think this is a major issue. Additionally, the version I read was https://www.amazon.com/Four-Voyages-Dispatches-Connecting-Na... which has some contextualization by the editor.
> whose torture and other cruelty and abuses as a colonial administrator were so severe and notorious that he got thrown in chains, dragged back to Spain
I did not say he was an inspiring role model and that was abuse directed towards Spanish settlers which is definitely not what people refer to when they call Colombus a monster...
He was very, very far from a nice person.
In reality the settlers were not supervised and the laws were not always followed, but they were expected by the Government back in European Spain.
Gold was abundant in America and not worth much for those tribes, but glass beads or mirrors were products of a technology not available to those natives, so for them the exchange was extremely valuable, as they were obtaining something unique and unavailable to hem in exchange of some shiny stones found everywhere.
funny