Christopher Columbus and the New World of His Discovery — Volume 6
Christopher Columbus and the New World of His Discovery — Volume 6
The sixth volume of Filson Young's monumental history chronicles Christopher Columbus's third voyage, the expedition where the myth of the discoverer begins to crack. In 1498, Columbus sets sail once more, driven by an almost messianic conviction that he has been chosen to find the earthly paradise. What he finds instead is mutiny among his men, a colony spiraling into chaos on Hispaniola, and the first stirrings of the violent colonial enterprise that will reshape two continents. Young renders the voyage with striking immediacy. The ships battle treacherous waters and dwindling supplies. Columbus himself suffers terribly from arthritis and gout, his body failing as his dreams falter. On Hispaniola, he confronts the consequences of his earlier actions: indigenous populations grow restless, Spanish settlers chafe under his authority, and rivals back home plot his downfall. The Admiral of the Ocean Sea finds himself trapped between warring factions, his power slowly eroding. This is not hagiography. Young presents a man of extraordinary will now visibly crumbling, both physically and politically, as the true costs of his enterprise become impossible to ignore.
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“Columbus tried to pour the wine of civilisation into very old bottles; you, more wisely, are trying to pour the old wine of our country into new bottles. Yet there is no great unlikeness between the two tasks: it is all a matter of bottling; the vintage is the same, infinite, inexhaustible, and as punctual as the sun and the seasons. It was Columbus’s weakness as an administrator that he thought the bottle was everything; it is your strength that you care for the vintage, and labour to preserve its flavour and soft fire. Yours,””
— Filson Young
