The Columbus Papers Unearthed: ‘. . . and We Never Called Him Chris’

This anniversary year is a time for re-evaluating the historical role of Christopher Columbus. But we must re-examine the man as well as the myth. A long-lost oral history project has come to light.

Able Seaman Nardino: If you ask me, the whole thing was an ego trip, not a voyage of discovery. I’d be on duty at night, he’d come clumping up--he wore elevator seven-league boots, by the way--and stand there at the rail chewing my ear off. “They’ll name a city after me . . . They’re going to put up a statue of me . . . There’ll be a holiday in my honor . . . They’ll have big world’s fairs just to mark the anniversary.” All like that, all the time. What were the rest of us, chopped jerky?

Arawak Indian Shaman: He was always blowing tobacco smoke in your face. He got into a really heavy habit. That morning cough of his would wake the dead. We finally put up signs on the trees all over the camp, “Caution, Lungs At Work.” He sent soldiers with fire-sticks to tear them down.

Captain Roncini: What a ----- name-dropper. The ------ would sit around after the evening meal, and we were the ------- captive ------ audience. It was “Izzy said this” (he called our beloved queen “Izzy”), “Izzy promised me that.” And the way he told it--he and the pope were drinking buddies, the mayor of ------ Genoa and him slew dragons out at his weekend place. You couldn’t bring up a name he didn’t try and top. It was a relief to get to the Indies and on land, just to get away from it.

Arawak Maiden: I’d be boiling up the midday meal down on the beach, and he’d come sort of sauntering by and he’d say, out of the side of his mouth, so it had this kind of lewd, wisecracking tone to it, “Hey, good looking, what you got cooking?” Maybe that worked over the sea, in the land of the hat people, but not with my girlfriends and I. We just laughed!

Flagbearer Toriano: Every tree, he’d point his sword at it and make this speech about declaring it Spain’s in the name of Queen Isabella ruler-of-this-empress-of-that. Then he’d strike the pose and the poor sketch man would be brought up to make a picture of it. Once he saw some stuff on the ground and started in on the “I-declare” thing and one of his aides stopped him. “That’s lunch,” he said.

First Mate Luigi Vuppicci: I saw these big parchment postcards he’d brought; he was going to send them to everybody at court the minute we disembarked coming home. Pure trash, bragging, lies. “Saw a camelephant.” “The Chinese King says hello.” “Oranges here as big as a cannonball.” I don’t know where he got this stuff.

Barber Francisco Boccabello: Personal grooming? Forget it! But vain! The storm we had, two weeks out . . . he wouldn’t come out of his cabin. Afraid his hairpiece would blow away, I always figured.

Voyage Scribe Amerigo Fantucci: The cabin boy would have handled the Indians better. He had no diplomatic skills at all. Here we’ve just met the Indians, you could see they thought we were clowns or something, all our flags and baggy pants and so forth, and our esteemed leader starts in, “Ask them where there’s a grog shop open,” and “Ask them if they want to come for brunch on Sunday,” and “Ask them where they got those great tans.” God, you just shuddered whenever the guy opened his mouth.

Arawak Hunter: He couldn’t hit an anthill with an arquebus from three paces.