Over the last two decades, historians and researchers in Spain have been trying to prove that explorer Christopher Columbus was not Italian, but Spanish.
In 2003, a major study was launched by the forensic scientist and professor of Legal Medicine from the University of Granada, José Antonio Lorente.
His DNA tests on bones found in the tomb in Seville Cathedral proved that they were actually the remains of Columbus as many believed.
But the study was suspended in 2005 because the research team felt that DNA technology at the time required a significant sample of the bones of the explorer and “very little information was obtained”.
Then in 2021, the study was reactivated and finally historians and scientists believe they have some solid proof of this theory.
The documentary ‘Columbus DNA. His true origin‘, broadcast by Spanish TV channel RTVE, states that Columbus was of Spanish Sephardic Jewish origin, and not Genoese and Italian.
It supports the theory that Columbus – referred to as Cristobal Colón in Spanish – was born in the Western Mediterranean, around the Balearic Islands, which at the time belonged to the Kingdom of Aragón.
These conclusions have been reached after more genetic and scientific tests were carried out by Lorente and his team using the data obtained from the bones buried in Seville Cathedral, as well as tests on the remains of his son Hernando.
The investigation has rejected all other theories about the origin of Columbus, from the classic one of him being born in Genoa to those claimed by the Royal Academy of History of Spain, which have over the years attributed his origin in Portugal, Galicia, Castile, Catalonia and even Navarra.
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The DNA tests carried out for years by the team led by Lorente in numerous places and on possible ancestors of Columbus have ruled out all the existing theories except one, which proves that he was in fact Jewish and from the Western Mediterranean.
This new research supports the theory by Francesc Albardaner, former president of the Center d’Estudios Colombins in Barcelona, who maintained that the explorer was Jewish and that the Genoese theory was false because at that time there was no Jewish community or synagogue there.
The tomb of Christopher Columbus at the Cathedral of Seville on October 11th, 2024. (Photo by CRISTINA QUICLER / AFP)
Albardaner believed that Columbus belonged to a family of silk weavers from Valencia and that he always hid his origin because he was Jewish, which would have caused him problems during the Spanish Inquisition after the expulsion of the Jews in 1492.
Historians believe there were around 200,000 Sephardic Jews living in Spain when the Catholic Kings expelled them the Crowns of Castile and Aragon and its territories.
According to the Albardaner, “Columbus was a Jew, a Jew by culture, a Jew by religion, a Jew by nation here and above all by heart, because this man exudes Judaism in his writings”.
He also received help from other Jewish converts such as the Duke of Medinaceli and the notary and lender Luis de Santángel, who was in charge of King Fernando of Spain’s finances at the time.
READ ALSO: Did Spain really not have any colonies?
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According to Lorente, “Both in the ‘Y’ chromosome and in the mitochondrial chromosome of Hernando, his son, there are traits compatible with Jewish origin”.
Up until now, most other DNA tests had been carried on the remains of Diego Colón, who was considered to be the brother of Columbus, but it has now been confirmed that he was a distant relative of five or six degrees. These new theories come from tests on Hernando instead.
“If there were no Jews in Genoa in the 15th century, the chances that he is from there are minimal”, Lorente stated.
“There was also no large Jewish presence in the rest of the Italian Peninsula, which would make this theory very tenuous. There are no solid theories or clear indications that Christopher Columbus could be French, so what are we left with? That he was from the Spanish Mediterranean arc, the Balearic Islands or Sicily”, Lorente reasoned.
“But Sicily would also be strange, because otherwise Christopher Columbus would have written with some Italian or Sicilian language traits, so it is most likely that his origin are from Spanish Mediterranean arc or in the Balearic Islands, which at that time belonged to the Crown of Aragón”.
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Among other evidence put forward by the investigation is that Columbus wrote in Spanish in all the letters that have been preserved, in which not a single Italian influence or word is ever used.
Columbus even wrote in Spanish in the letters he sent to a bank in Genoa, which wouldn’t have made sense if he was Italian.
Whether this new evidence proves once and for all that he was Spanish is still up for debate, but it seems that Spanish researchers will continue to try and find more.
