In 1492, Columbus Sailed the Ocean Jew

October 12 is Spain’s national holiday, La Fiesta Nacional de España, also more commonly known as Día de la Hispanidad. The date coincides with Christopher Columbus’ arrival to the Americas in 1492.

To ring in both the national holiday and commemorate Columbus’ voyage, Spanish national broadcaster RTVE aired a documentary which followed a group of geneticists led by José Antonio Lorente from the University of Granada. For 22 years, Lorente and his colleagues had been trying to determine, once and for all, the elusive identity of the man the Spanish call Cristóbal Colón.

They studied hundreds of documents and forensically examined the remains of the famous explorer. Early in their investigation, they agreed that there were no fewer than 25 different possible origins for Columbus, including Galicia, Valencia, and of course, Genoa. These 25 possibilities were whittled down to 8 plausibilities. Eventually, DNA research led by Francesc Albardaner from the Centre d’Estudis Colombins de Barcelona narrowed it down to just one.

Now the results are in. According to Lorente, Albardaner and their team, Christopher Columbus was a Sephardic Jew. Unsurprisingly, the reactions to such a conclusion have ranged from acceptance, to incredulity, to wild indignation.

The theory that Columbus was a Jew is not new. Every so often, Columbus’ ambiguous ancestry, ethnicity, and birthplace becomes a news item for one reason or another, and this is just the latest episode in the long-running mystery. Those who posit that Columbus was a Jew have relied on evidence such as the explorer’s personal correspondence with his son, which he is alleged to have signed writing in Hebrew letters “b’ezrat Hashem” or “with God’s help.” Other evidence for a possible Jewish background: Columbus had two wealthy benefactors who not only financed his voyage but also haggled with the Spanish crown for approval. Both Louis de Santangel and Gabriel Sanchez were Jews, conversos to Christianity, like Columbus himself, or at least so the claim goes. Some have also pointed to the intriguing timing of Columbus’ expedition. The year he sailed the ocean blue is also the year los Reyes Católicos expelled Jews from their kingdom.

This new genetic study is the first time that these documents and the historical record have been combined with exhaustive DNA research. However, it seems the DNA analysis has only complicated things, rather than clarifying them. Far be it from me to pretend to understand all the ins and outs. I will merely convey some of the objections and questions from those who do.

The investigation’s conclusion has to do with Y chromosomes and haplogroups. Lorente et al have decided that Columbus was a Sephardic Jew from somewhere in the western parts of the Mediterranean region based on analysis of his YDNA and the discovery that he belongs in Haplogroup J. Those who doubt this conclusion claim that YDNA analysis is not sufficient to determine one’s ethnic origin and Haplogroup J is prevalent all over Mediterranean Europeans; it is not unique to Sephardic Jews nor an indicator that someone is a Sephardic Jew.

This is the recurring problem with trying to solve the mystery of Christopher Columbus. For every piece of evidence in favour of one conclusion, there is evidence against said conclusion and in favour of a different conclusion. Let’s return to those letters signed in Hebrew. Some argue that there just isn’t enough proof that the characters Columbus scribbled in the corner of those papers are really Hebrew characters. There are those who say Columbus couldn’t have been Genoese because there is no record of him communicating in Ligurian or any other form of Italian. He only ever used a form Castilian Spanish (apart from those Hebrew signatures), known as Ladino, which was the “Yiddish” of Spanish Jewry. In response, defenders of his Genoese identity cite notes written in Italian in Columbus’ journals. In response to that response, the authenticity of those notes is brought into question.

Amongst the objections to the University of Granada’s investigation are claims that Lorente and Albardaner have an ideological or political agenda to push. We can’t trust this study because these are “the same people” who say that Vikings were transgender, Cheddar Man was black, and race isn’t even real. I don’t think this is a fair criticism. For starters, these are not “the same people”. The team from the University of Granada had nothing to do with the famous recreation of Cheddar Man nor any of the silly claims about transgender Norse. In fact, rather the opposite. In 2019, the same University of Granada conducted a study of the Spanish genome and ended up totally dismantling the myth that Spaniards interbred with the Afro-Arab invaders during the centuries long Muslim occupation of Iberia. Their research revealed that, even in Andalusia, there is hardly a trace of North African DNA in the Spanish population, that Spaniards’ DNA remains largely similar to that of Celtiberians from the Iron Age, and that Spaniards are much more closely related to Scandinavians than they are to indigenous North Africans or Arabs.

I must stress the importance of such a conclusion. One of the Spanish left’s favourite tropes is this myth of mestizaje. They love to use this myth to sneer at Spanish nationalists and anti-immigrationists. “Stupid racist. You want to keep the Moroccans and Somalis away? Too late! We’re already half Moro and African anyway!” Anyone from Britain can relate to this, as British liberals use a similar tiresome tactic there: “What’s your problem with mass immigration from all across the third world? After all, we’re a mongrel race descended from Vikings, Romans, Normans, and even Cheddar Man was black!” This is why it is extremely annoying when people supposedly on the nationalist right repeat the same unfounded myths so beloved by neo-communists, globalists, and liberal progressives when it comes to Mediterranean Europeans.

Yes, it is true that Spain is in the clutches of an anti-Spanish liberal regime, and many of Spain’s institutions, above all its media, are the regime’s lackeys, but if the scientists from the University of Granada were honest and brave enough to smash the myth of Afro-Arab-Ibero mestizaje, I think we can give them the benefit of the doubt and refrain from accusing them of having a leftist agenda. That said, the opprobrium from some on the right is understandable. There are many implications to whatever the genuine identity of Christopher Columbus turns out to be.

For many years, anti-whites have attacked Columbus the man and Columbus as a symbol of wicked European colonialism. Naturally, pro-whites have defended Columbus as a great European explorer, a Faustian spirit who accomplished an amazing, world-changing feat. For Columbus to end up being a Sephardic Jew will certainly complicate things, as well as spice them up even more. On the one hand, the anti-whites will have to contend with the potential fact that Columbus was not really a European after all, but a Jew. There are many Jews in the choir of voices which call for the abolishment of Columbus Day and the removal of his statues. If it turns out he was one of them, it’ll make for an all-you-can-eat buffet of hat eating. As we have seen since the explosion of conflict between Palestinians and Israelis, when the BIPOC become aware of the evil deeds of Jews, tension follows and the “rainbow alliance” against whites falters. It’ll be amusing to see if and how they rewrite the Columbus narrative.

On the other hand, those who hold Columbus in high regard will also have to contend with their hero turning out to be someone who was only partially European at most, and his other parts were Semitic. Catholics, in particular, have taken the news rather hard. Across social media, I’ve seen Catholics either angrily refuse to countenance the idea that Columbus could be Jewish, or wave away Columbus’ possible Jewishness by adamantly proclaiming that, whatever his ethnicity, he was a stalwart man of God and servant of the Faith. That Catholics can welcome Jews into the flock and stand up in their defence when deemed necessary won’t do much to counter the argument that the Catholic Church specifically, and Christianity generally, are not of much use to the cause of white nationalism.

Personally, I have never cared much about Columbus one way or another. I’ve never seen him as an Italian hero. Columbus Day was a crumb thrown to angry Italian Americans in order to placate them after some Anglo-Americans had lynched 11 Sicilians. It was an obvious attempt to garner the Italian American vote, but it was also a nonsense. Whatever Columbus’ background, we know for sure that he wasn’t Sicilian.

Sicilians don’t really give a damn about Columbus. Indeed, in Italy as whole, Columbus isn’t celebrated as a national icon. He’s merely one of many legendary figures to have come from that peninsula of renown, if in fact he really was Genoese.

As for the whining and crying about Columbus the genocidal murderer…well, even his contemporaries found some of his actions objectionable. According to the historical record, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabel were furious with Columbus when they heard about his treatment of the tribes in the “New World”. They deemed it a horrific contradiction of Christian benevolence and peace. Queen Isabel even scuppered Columbus’ plans to get rich off of enslaving 1,600 “Indians”.

A Jew enriching himself through the slave trade? It’s not exactly unheard of, is it.

The documentary about Columbus’ DNA left many questions still unanswered. The full study of the geneticists’ research is yet to be published. We’ll have to wait a little bit longer to see the entirety of their evidence claiming that Columbus was a Jew. Until then, let those who wish to honour him do so. Those who wish to judge his deeds with fairness and perspective, without engaging in either moralistic melodrama or blunt refusal to acknowledge his misdeeds, are also welcome to do so too, in my opinion.