The Spanish Crown backed Columbus to gain capital independent of its aristocracy

Evidence

And if we recall that Columbus’s appearance before Ferdinand and Isabella coincided historically with that moment when the Spanish Crown was intent upon its self-appointed mission to unify Spain, centralize state authority, vanquish its rivals among its own aristocracy, and acquire an independent source of capital for itself, Columbus and his Genoese collaborators and countrymen were an almost perfect instrument. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 549

Categorization

• XREF: Ties into the book’s central argument that the rise of slave-based colonial economies served state centralization and merchant capital interests.