Soon after his return Queen Isabella died, and about two years later, on May 12, 1506, Columbus himself died at Valladolid, Spain. He was buried first at Valladolid, but his remains were soon transferred to a monastery in Seville, Spain. They were exhumed in 1536 and taken across the sea to the city of Santo Domingo, on the island of Hayti, which he had discovered. In 1796 the remains were taken to Havana, Cuba, where they remained until the close of the Spanish-American war. In 1898, after the island of Cuba had passed from Spain to the United States, the body of the great admiral was taken across the Atlantic again to Spain, where it now rests.
In person Columbus was tall and well formed. Early in life he had auburn hair, but by the time he was thirty years old his hair had been turned white with care, hardship, and trouble. His face was long, and he had gray eyes and an aquiline nose. He was moderate in all his habits, and was one of the most religious of men. He was of a poetic temperament and thus lacked some of the essential qualities of great leadership. He was broad in his outlook, noble in his aspirations, and benevolent in spirit.
Columbus died ignorant of the fact that he had discovered a new world. He believed that the great continent which he gave to civilization was Asia, and that he had only found a new way to that country. He called the natives whom he found "Indians," thinking that they were inhabitants of India. When it was known that a new country had actually been discovered, it was named "America" in honor of Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian geographer and navigator, who visited, it seems, the mainland of this country in 1497. The land discovered by Columbus on the night of October 12, 1492, is believed to have been Watling's island, one of the groups of the West Indies.
Eighteen years elapsed between the time when Christopher Columbus conceived his enterprise and that August morning in 1492 when he set sail on his first voyage of discovery. He had gone about from place to place seeking aid, but spurned everywhere. These years were spent in almost hopeless anxiety, in poverty, and in neglect. The people of his day thought him crazy. When he passed by, they pointed to their foreheads and smiled. He braved the dangers of unknown waters, of mutinous crews, of hostile natives, and of starvation. What is worse, he endured the arrows of jealousy, slander, and misrepresentation. He had a contract with the Spanish crown whereby he was to receive certain honors and wealth as a result of his discoveries. He could not get King Ferdinand to fulfill the contract. He was sent home in chains from the great hemisphere he had discovered, and even the honor of its name went to another who had no claim to it.
Through the career of every successful man there runs a grim determination to do the thing in hand. Columbus had this determination and with it he triumphed. The stars hid themselves behind storms; the compass refused to act normally; a strange and terrible ocean roared; mutiny howled and jealousy hissed, but on one thing he was determined—he would do his best to accomplish the thing he had set himself to accomplish; and he did it.
One of the most inspiring poems in American literature is Joaquin Miller's "Columbus:"—
Behind him lay the gray Azores,
Behind the Gate of Hercules;
Before him not the ghost of shores,
Before him only shoreless seas.