515 Years Later, Columbus Controversy Endures

Travel Blog • Eva Holland • 10.11.07 | 6:57 AM ET

In fourteen hundred and ninety-two…the Pinzons sailed the ocean blue? If descendants of Martin and Vicente Pinzon have their way, Christopher Columbus could be sharing some of the credit for his 15th century “discovery” of America. The two brothers piloted the Nina and the Pinta alongside the Santa Maria on the famous voyage, but have been largely forgotten today. “I’d like the name to get recognized,” Bob Pinzon told the AP. “I think Columbus got too much credit.”

While the Pinzons fight for recognition, several Mediterranean countries are still arguing over the origins of the great navigator himself. Though Columbus is generally accepted to have been Genoese, the Catalonians and the Portuguese have also laid claim to him. Now, according to an interesting story in the New York Times, a Spanish geneticist has managed to extract a DNA sample from the bones preserved in Seville, and he hopes to use it to determine the hero’s true identity.

Amy Harmon writes:

A Genoese Cristoforo Colombo almost certainly did exist. Archives record his birth and early life. But there is little to tie that man to the one who crossed the Atlantic in 1492. Snippets from Columbus’s life point all around the southern European coast. He kept books in Catalan and his handwriting has, according to some, a Catalonian flair. He married a Portuguese noblewoman. He wrote in Castilian. He decorated his letters with a Hebrew cartouche.

Since it seems now that the best bet for deducing Columbus’s true hometown is to look for a genetic match in places where he might have lived, hundreds of Spaniards, Italians, and even a few Frenchmen have happily swabbed their cheeks to supply cells for comparison.

Tests are being done on men with the surnames Colom and Colombo but if, as some academics believe, Columbus was an adopted name, then no true descendant is likely to be found. And even if a match is made, there remains the distinct possibility that the family has migrated at some point over the last 500 years.

Commentators like Noam Chomsky (who has been known to compare Columbus to Hitler) must be scratching their heads at the scramble to lay claim to such a controversial figure. But whether hero or villain, Columbus certainly made a singular impact on the history of the Atlantic world that cannot be denied by anyone—except, perhaps, the Pinzon family.

Painting of Christopher Columbus by Alejo Fernández.