Columbus rose as a product of Genoese commercial capital and seafaring networks

Evidence

Although much of his background before his journey to Seville in 1485 will probably always remain obscure, Columbus was in many ways a natural if not typical bourgeois creation of Genoese capital, trade, and manufacturing. Born around 1451 of parents whose origins appear to have been in the Ligurian Republic, Columbus, at fourteen years of age, first took up his father’s trade: wool weaving. Notwithstanding the fictional constructions of his past that Columbus, his son Ferdinand, and Las Casas would perpetrate, it appears he remained a weaver into his early twenties, taking part in occasional voyages in that capacity to Genoese possessions in the Mediterranean. Around 1476, the documents of his contemporaries place him on a voyage to England undertaken by the bankers Giovanni Antonio di Negro and Nicolas Spinola. This trip was intercepted by French pirates, and the survivors, Columbus among them, found refuge in Lisbon. Columbus settled in Lisbon and like some other notable Genoese bourgeoisie, he eventually married into Portuguese nobility. In his case, Felipa Moniz Perestrello, whose family had property on the island of Porto Santo near Madeira, became his wife and his entree into the stream of Portuguese overseas expansion. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 544

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Genoese commercial expertise powered both Iberian routes to the East — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 543; Columbus’s voyages were the financial project of Genoese merchant capital — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 552; Columbus was a product of Genoese bourgeois trade and manufacturing (+8 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Genoese commercial expertise powered both Iberian routes to the East — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 543; Columbus’s voyages were the financial project of Genoese merchant capital — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 552; Columbus was a product of Genoese bourgeois trade and manufacturing (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Columbus’s success depended on three centuries of Genoese capitalist infrastructure, not personal qualities #corroborates (0.94)
• Columbus’s voyages were the financial project of Genoese merchant capital #expands (0.92) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 552
• Columbus’s Atlantic project depended on information and financing from Palos trading families #complicates (0.78)