When King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain agreed to support Christopher Columbus’ voyage across the Atlantic in April of 1492, the Catholic monarchs had commercial interests on their mind. As discussed in Christopher Columbus and the Enterprise of the Indies, Columbus, who had long searched for patrons to support his envisioned voyage, found an audience in Ferdinand and Isabella because after Spain’s decisive victory against the neighboring Muslim kingdom of Granada, the pair could afford to shift their focus from the religious wars of the Reconquista to more commercial enterprises.[1] Despite the heavily commercial interests behind the voyage, a different motive, religion, soon would come to assume a more central, defining role in future voyages.
At its genesis, Columbus’ voyage was viewed as a business agreement. As a commercial enterprise, Columbus’ expedition, the king and queen hoped, could lead to the establishment of more efficient trade routes and allow Spain to compete with Portugal’s successful Atlantic exploration. This was expressed in the Santa Fe Capitulations and Granada Capitulations, agreements between the crown and Columbus that outlined how the voyage would be funded and how any land or riches acquired would be handled.[2] Despite the Catholicism of the monarchs and Columbus’ own religious convictions (his contemporary and biographer, Bartoleme de las Casas, commented that there could “be no doubting his Catholic faith nor that he was very devout”), no religious purposes were explicitly stated in the agreements chartering the first voyage.[3]
However, after Columbus' successful return, Columbus and the Spanish crown began to see how this could become more than a commercial enterprise: it could become an empire, furthermore, a Catholic empire. Ferdinand and Isabella’s rule could be expanded, incalculable wealth could be made, and Catholicism could be brought to the far reaches of the world, which, in turn, would secure eternal blessings. [4] Religion began to evolve into a driving – and justifying – factor, especially as Pope Alexander VI released multiple bulls that decreed Spain’s efforts as aiding “the propagation of religion” and “the exaltation of the Catholic faith”.[5] What had begun as a commercial enterprise was “radically reconfigured: the religious impulse behind it, hitherto latent, was brought to the fore”.[6] By Columbus’ second voyage, religion’s centrality in defining the purpose of exploration was cemented.
[1] Geoffrey Symcox and Blair Sullivan, introduction to Christopher Columbus and the Enterprise of the Indies: A Brief History with Documents (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005), 13-15.
[2] Santa Fe Capitulations (April 17, 1492) and Granada Capitulations (April 30, 1492) in Christopher Columbus and the Enterprise of the Indies: A Brief History with Documents, ed. Geoffrey Symcox and Blair Sullivan (Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2005), 60-65.
[3] Bartoleme de las Casas, On Columbus’s Appearance, Education, and Character, in Christopher Columbus and the Enterprise of the Indies: A Brief History with Documents, ed. Geoffrey Symcox and Blair Sullivan (Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2005), 47.
[4] Symcox and Sullivan, introduction to Christopher Columbus and the Enterprise of the Indies: A Brief History with Documents, 16.
[5] Pope Alexander VI, Papal Bull “Piis Fiedlium” (June 25, 1493) in Christopher Columbus and the Enterprise of the Indies: A Brief History with Documents, ed. Geoffrey Symcox and Blair Sullivan (Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2005), 145.
[6] Symcox and Sullivan, introduction to Christopher Columbus and the Enterprise of the Indies: A Brief History with Documents, 19.
