by Marina Bradaric

Created on: September 13, 2009

The Last Voyage of Columbus by Martin Dugard illustrates Columbus as an intensely passionate explorer who was a master of his craft. He had a great education, learning to read and write at a young age, as well as being schooled on various subjects such as cartography and navigation (40). He spent basically his entire youth perfecting his conquistador skills, so in that way, he is stereotypical because it is known that that's how many sailors were raised, as it was a normal thing back in those days for sailors to grow up knowing the details of their craft. But he was different because, uncommon at the time, his relationship with his brother was so close and so loyal so much so that they even ran their own chart-making business together, although he left it behind after marriage.

Columbus may not have been the sole explorer who discovered America, but he played an extremely important role in catapulting exploration. He was so determined that for eight trying years he had groveled in the courts of Spain and Portugal (41) to fund his voyages so that he could finally discover what was really out there in the unknown. If it wasn't for his persistence to explore, it may have been much longer until the Americas were discovered and the world as we know it today could have turned out extremely different.

As controlling Europe's leading commodity allowed Venice to control Europe (23), it was found pertinent for King Ferdinand & Queen Isabella to allow Columbus to frantically search for India, for once he found it and the pepper on the land, Spain would be in control. The two royals were very loyal to their country and wanted to see it expand.

Reading The Last Voyage of Columbus didn't particularly drastically change my perception of Columbus and the discovery of the Americas but it definitely brought it down to earth. In my younger school years, Columbus was always made out to be some great, extremely smart, powerful leader who single-handedly found America and had an incredible amount of power a big hero. After reading what the author has to say about the way Columbus interacted with others, he's not at all the perfect hero I had naively grown up to imagine him to be. Rather, he had little power and was disliked by royals, such as when Joo II, the Portugal king, had twice turned down Columbus's proposals for a New World voyage (11). He was also extremely arrogant and greedy, wanting to be governor of any land he claimed (11).

Dugard makes Columbus out to be a pompous man just looking for gold at times, and makes him out to be a deeply passionate explorer at other times, so it's hard to form one concrete opinion. The only thing that's changed in my perspective is that before, I saw Columbus as being so important solely for finding America, but now I see him as a very important character in history simply for moving forward the exploration process at that time. Still important, and still a hero, just for different reasons.

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