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Christopher
Columbus
History
- His
Voyages
- Columbus
Announces His
Discovery
- Columbus
Death
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Columbus
Death
Christopher Columbus died in
Valladolid, Spain, on May 20,
1506, at the age of 54. He had
suffered through a long terminal
illness that first showed
symptoms on his third voyage
eight years before.
According
to his son Fernando, the cause of
death was "gout." But in those
days, gout was a catchall
diagnosis for anything that
caused joint pain. Recent
research by Gerald Weissmann
indicates that the most likely
cause of death was Reiter's
Syndrome, a rare tropical
disease.
Upon
his death, Columbus was initially
buried in a small cemetary in
Valladolid. Shortly thereafter,
his body was moved to Seville.
When Columbus' eldest son and
heir Diego died in 1526, he was
buried beside his
father.
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But Diego's widow petitioned the
Spanish court to move both bodies to the
cathedral in Santo Domingo on Hispaniola.
So the remains of Columbus were moved
across the Atlantic, and were buried under
the right side of the altar in the
cathedral in Santo Domingo. And there
matters stood for two
centuries.
In
1795, France captured the island of
Hispaniola from Spain. By this time, the
Spanish viewed the Admiral's remains as a
national treasure, and wanted to prevent
their capture by the French at all costs.
So, relying on old records, they dug up
the remains and removed them to Havana,
Cuba. A century later, when Cuba won
independence from Spain, the remains were
moved again, from Havana back across the
ocean to Seville. And so, if you visit the
cathedral in Seville today, you will find
the tomb of Columbus.
But
that's not the whole story. In 1877,
workers were restoring the cathedral in
Santo Domingo and found, under the left
side of the altar, a box containing human
remains. The box bore Columbus's name. It
immediately became clear to some that the
"left" and "right" sides of the altar
depend entirely upon the direction one is
facing. And therefore, some argue, the
body that had been moved to Havana in 1795
was really that of Diego, while the
Admiral's remains had been in Santo
Domingo all along. And so, if you visit
the cathedral in Santo Domingo today, you
will find another tomb of
Columbus.
Meanwhile,
one historian has argued that the wrong
body was moved from Havana to Seville, and
therefore, Columbus's remains are really
in Havana. And another historian argues
that Columbus's remains never left
Valladolid! Furthermore, portions of the
remains in Seville were given to the city
of Genoa in 1892 as part of the
quadricentennial celebration.
Recently,
Spanish scientists have proposed using DNA
analysis to answer the question, and are
making some progress.
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