Christopher Columbus
The navigator whose voyage of 1492 for the Spanish crown reached the Caribbean. His letter of 1493 described the islanders’ religion to readers in Europe, and on his second voyage he founded the settlement where a church was built and sent the friar Pané to live among them.
In the letter announcing his first voyage Columbus told the Spanish court that the islanders had no idolatry and would easily be made Christians, and he ended by calling on Christendom to give thanks for the conversion of so many peoples; he also proposed to ship slaves (Columbus, Letter to Santángel pp. 266–271). The bull Inter caetera names him as the man the sovereigns had sent and repeats what their envoys reported of his discoveries (Alexander VI, Inter Caetera (4 May 1493)).
On the second voyage he chose the site of the settlement on Hispaniola where a church was built and mass said in January 1494 (Peter Martyr, De Orbe Novo decade 1, book 2). The friar Ramón Pané says that it was at the admiral’s command that he went to live with the cacique Guarionex and wrote his account of the islanders’ beliefs (Pané, Antiquities of the Indians pp. 11, 28). See Christianity Crosses the Atlantic.
In the timeline
- 1493, firm dateChristianity Crosses the Atlantic
In 1493 Pope Alexander VI grants the lands Columbus has found to the crown of Castile and charges it to convert their peoples. A second fleet carries priests to Hispaniola, where mass is said in January 1494 and a friar, Ramón Pané, records the first baptisms.
Primary sources
Inter Caetera
- Alexander VI, Inter Caetera (4 May 1493)papalencyclicals.net