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CHAPTER XI THE MARRANOS IN THE NEW WORLD “In the same month in which Their Majesties issued the edict that all Jews should be driven out of the kingdom and its territories—in that same month they gave me the order to undertake with sufficient men my expedition of discovery to the Indies.” With this significant passage, Christopher Columbus began his account of the expedition which led to the discovery of the New World. He might have added, had he thought it worth-while, that he actually set sail within a day or two of the departure of the last of the Jewish exiles, and that the vessels which conveyed them were lying in the roadstead of Seville in close proximity to his own little squadron. The connection between the Jews and the discovery of America was not, however, merely a question of fortuitous coincidence. That epoch-making expedition of 1492 was as a matter of fact very largely a Jewish, or rather a Marrano, enterprise. There are grounds for believing that Columbus was himself a member of a New Christian family. It is, indeed, highly ironical that the patriotic attempts made today to claim him as a Spaniard are mostly based upon an assumption that he was a furtive member of the race which Spain was even then chasing from her shores. Less hypothetical is the case of others who participated in the great expedition. It was made possible by a loan which Luis de Santángel, Chancellor and Comptroller of the royal household, 271
