by Ray Fauteux

Created on: October 07, 2008   Last Updated: December 31, 2008

It seems that there was much more to Columbus that we were led to believe in those high school history classes.

It seemed that every island I ever visited in the Caribbean had a statue of Christoforo Colombo gracing it's landscape. What a time it must have been for Christopher Columbus when he first set his eyes on those amazing Caribbean islands. They are stunning now, and one could only imagine what they looked like when he first saw them.

You would have thought that Christopher Columbus would have come from a family of seafarers, but actually he came from a family of weavers. He was born in 1451 in Genoa, Italy(although some historians question this) and at 14 years old answered the call of the sea and left the family weaving business behind him. He made his way up through he ranks and like most teenagers of the day who aspired to take up a life of seafaring spent time as a ships boy and a common sailor. His first major voyage outside of the Mediterranean was as part of a five ship convoy that was attacked by French pirates.

The ship Columbus was on was burned and sunk and despite being six miles from shore, Columbus was able to reach land because little know to most, he was a very good swimmer. He was twenty-five at the time and in 1477 was given his first commission. He set sail with a fleet of ships with goods to sell in northern Atlantic ports. It was during one of these trips that Columbus had the opportunity to visit Iceland.

Many more Atlantic voyages would follow, but it was not until 1492 that Columbus would receive backing for his first major voyage and at 41 years of age set out with three ships, the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria and discovered the New World.

He would make the voyage four times and the in the course of his first two voyages named and discovered many Caribbean islands. Many of them are holiday destinations now for people from all over the world. Antigua, Cuba, Haiti, Saint Kits, San Martin, Saint Croix and the Dominican Republic were all touched by Columbus.

In his third voyage he discovered and named Tobago and Grenada. Today Grenada is known as the spice island and I'm glad to say I had the opportunity to walk through the amazing open air spice markets of the island a few years ago.

On his fourth trip, Columbus was caught up in a horrific 9 day storm near Panama and according to records came very near not returning home from that trip. The early explorers did not have the access to weather information that sailors have today and the Caribbean is littered with wrecks to attest to that.

Columbus brought the gift of oranges to the New World and one of the trees he brought is still alive and producing today.

He and his men also brought the gift of syphilis back from the New World. Historians believe that his men were responsible for spreading the disease through-out Europe and causing over 4 million deaths. This is not something you read in the history books in high school.

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