PART ONE - JOHN COLEMAN, SR.
Hello,
I am here representing Christopher Columbus. I was born in Genoa, Italy in 1451. I spent my early years working at my Fathers' trade of weaving and later became a sailor on the Mediterranean. While sailing, I was shipwrecked near the Portuguese coast and made my way to Lisbon, where my younger brother, Bartholomew, was a cartographer. I became a chart maker for a short time in that great maritime center during the Golden Era of Portuguese exploration.
I was engaged as a sugar buyer in the Azores for a Genoese mercantile firm. I met pilots and navigators who believed in the existence of islands further to the West. Returning to Lisbon, I married, in 1479, the well-born Dona Filipa Perestrello e Moniz, daughter of the Governor of Porto Santo Island.
By the time I was 32 years old, I had become a master mariner in the Portuguese merchant service. I was but one of many who believed one could reach land by sailing west. My uniqueness lay in the persistence of my dream and the determination to realize the "Enterprise of the Indies," as I called my plan. In 1484 I petitioned John II, King of Portugal, to finance a westward crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. The Maritime Commission, however, rejected my plan.
I then moved to Spain, where my plan won support of some influential people. My first and many more meetings with Ferdinand and Isabella's court to finance a sailing were rebuffed. After eight years of supplication, the Spanish monarchs decided to risk the enterprise in 1492.
I embarked on my "Enterprise of the Indies" on August 3, 1492. My flotilla consisted of three ships, Santa Maria, Nina, and the Pinta. We stopped at the Canary Islands to repair the Pinta's mast. We weighed anchor on September 6th and sailed due West until October 7th, when I changed course to the Southwest. On October 10, 1492 a small mutiny was quelled and on October 12, 1492, I landed on a small island in the Bahama group. I took possession of the island in the name of Spain. I called it San Salvador (Holy Savior).
During the next few weeks we landed on other islands, which I claimed for Spain. On October 27, 1492 we sighted Cuba, which I named Juna in honor of a Spanish Princess. On December 5, 1492 I landed on Hispaniola, which today is known as the Dominican Republic.
On Christmas Eve of 1492, the Santa Maria wrecked off of the coast of Hispaniola. I had the men build a make shift fort from what we salvaged from the wreckage. We named the fort La Navidad. I garrisoned the fort with less than 40 men to found our colony. I took command of the Nina and sailed back to Spain with the Pinta in January of 1493.
Upon my arrival back at Palos, Spain in March of 1493, the reception was all I could wish. As guaranteed by my contract with the Spanish sovereigns, I was made "Admiral of the Ocean Sea" and Governor General of all the new lands I had discovered or should discover. I was given a Coat of Arms and Knighted.
I made three more expeditions, the last being in 1502. My most famous expedition was the first, that by my faith in God brought me to the new world and home again.
I was not the first European mariner to sail to the new world. Leif Ericson had sailed here almost 500 years before me. However, my voyages marked the beginning of continuous European efforts to colonize the Americas.
I died at the age of 55 in the year 1506.
Thank you and have a great day!