If any historic figure could be considered the human equivalent of a Rorschach test, it would have to be Christopher Columbus. Just the mention of his name can generate a wealth of different and conflicting reactions, ranging from praise as an indefatigable hero to jeers as the symbol of colonialist genocide.
Part of the problem in comprehending Columbus has been the excessive mythmaking surrounding his achievements. Matthew Restall’s new book “The Nine Lives of Christopher Columbus” offers some entertaining myth-busting of “Columbiana.” The book seeks to rescue the man from the legends, worship, and demonization that have framed his name and accomplishments.
Who Was Columbus?
For starters, Christopher Columbus never called himself Christopher Columbus. That name is the anglicized moniker for the man born Cristoforo Colombo and who gained fame and fortune for Spain as Cristóbal Colón.
Nor do we know what Columbus looked like. No portrait was made of him during his lifetime.
The painting which the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York calls “the authoritative likeness of the explorer,” Sebastiano del Piombo’s “Portrait of a Man, Said to Be Christopher Columbus,” used an unrelated clergyman in Bologna as its model.
Restall addresses one of the most persistent Columbus myths, concerning his place of birth. Diverse locations from Greece to Denmark have claimed to be the birthplace of Columbus, who came into the world in 1451 in the Republic of Genoa.
Though conspiracy theorists complain about the lack of a birth certificate that places the infant Columbus in Genoa, Restall tartly points out that “neither the Genoese state nor the Catholic Church had yet implemented such a bureaucratic requirement; birth records were not required anywhere in Christendom.” The first official record of his existence came in a 1472 report identifying him as a Genoese wool merchant.
The Historic Voyages
The stories behind Columbus’s first voyage across the Atlantic are also obscured by legends. Restall carefully explains that Columbus didn’t have to overcome the skepticism of his era’s learned figures who argued that the world was flat and that his ship would fall off into space once it reached the planet’s edge, as commonly purported.
That myth can be traced to Washington Irving, who introduced the tale in his wildly inaccurate 1828 biography of Columbus. Nor did the Spanish Queen Isabel pawn her jewels to finance the expedition. Not unlike today’s entrepreneurs, Columbus fundraised and tapped private investors for his monetary needs.
Even after his first voyage, Columbus became the subject of bizarre claims that his success was due to stealing the logs and charts of an “Unknown Pilot” who made the trip before him but was never credited for that journey.
Restall also addresses the argument that Columbus sparked a genocide against the indigenous people of the Western Hemisphere. The author refuses to single him out as the sole cause of the catastrophe that befell the populations overrun by the Spanish conquerors. He explains that the enslavement of non-Christians was a factor in all the European voyages of exploration and colonization, while adding that Columbus was “neither the architect nor instigator of the colonial system that arrives with him on his earlier voyages.”
Even the story of Columbus’s death is shrouded with false information. Contrary to the popular belief that he died in obscurity and poverty, Restall notes that Columbus was “wealthy, well connected, and attended by his sons and many servants and other dependents” in his final days. Columbus’s final resting place is the subject of conflicting tales, with three different locations claiming to be the site of his remains.
A Love-Hate Relationship
While Columbus never set foot in what would become the United States, his accomplishments were embraced by Americans for opening the New World as a promised land for Western settlement and values. Variants of the Columbus name became ingrained in the American experience, most notably by having the nation’s capital named the District of Columbia. By 1892’s Quadricentennial of his first voyage, the American infatuation with the “Manifest Destiny” version of Columbus reached its peak.
Columbus also became a religious symbol in the late 19th century, with an effort made to have the Vatican declare him a saint. Some writers published speculative works insisting Columbus was Jewish but had to practice his faith in secrecy.
Meanwhile, as Restall notes, new myths were also spun to denigrate the Columbus story. The influx of Italian immigrants in the late 19th century sparked an anti-Catholic backlash. This prompted a movement to credit the Viking Leif Erikson as the true discoverer of America.
Claims of pre-Columbus arrivals in the Western Hemisphere by the Irish St. Brendan and the Welsh Prince Madoc were floated. Even theories about Atlantic crossings by the ancient Greeks and Phoenicians have been raised over the years.
Restall does a brilliant job of rescuing Columbus from strange and often zany inaccuracies. It’s refreshing to experience such a well-researched and well-written book that chooses to print the facts instead of legends.
‘The Nine Lives of Christopher Columbus’
By Matthew Restall
W.W. Norton & Co.: Oct. 7, 2025
Hardcover, 368 pages
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