A Leap of Faith:
Politics, Wealth and Wonder in the Voyages of Columbus

A Leap of Faith: Politics, Wealth and Wonder in the Voyages of Columbus In 1492, Christopher Columbus concluded what amounted to an elaborate business arrangement with King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella I. He would receive titles, property and revenues from his discoveries and the Spanish crown would gain access to what would become a pipeline to the unimagined riches of the New World. It was a true leap of faith on the part of the world’s leading Catholic monarchs, who were fresh from the conquest of Granada and the reuniting of European Spain. Ferdinand and Isabella would come to believe their expulsion of Spain’s Moorish masters as their true legacy. Yet it was Columbus’ fateful mission that would open the way to wealth and world power for the resurgent Spanish nation. This was the promised payoff, the real return on investment for the Spanish monarchy.
Columbus and the Spanish sovereigns came to terms at a time when European nation states were seeking any advantage they could find in an unfolding international game of exploration and economic competition. Under these circumstances, the advantages conferred by new trade routes and the acquisition of new lands and resources could mean world supremacy. Columbus claimed to know where such advantages could be obtained, and how to get there. Despite initial resistance from Ferdinand and Isabella (King John II of Portugal had already turned him down), Columbus’ ideas about the earth’s circumference (which he underestimated) and the route to Asia (which he miscalculated), though radical, held great promise and fired the imaginations of Spain’s ambitious rulers. Columbus’ account of his first voyage,