The Return of Colombo
Having set out in June of 1490, Colombo made his return several months later in late December in Lisbon after sailing on amore northern path across the Atlantic and arriving back in the Cape Verde islands. Sending letters back to Portugal of the sights he had seen and what he had with him was like a smack to Lisbon as word spread throughout the city and beyond as many debated the truthfulness of Colombo’s words. Had he actually reached the Indies? Was he right all along?
All doubts were washed away when the Santa Maria and the Sao Miguel arrived in Lisbon harbor and docked, where a procession of royalty and onlookers arrived to receive Colombo who disembarked from his ship like a conquering hero! Those who were his greatest critics were already shaking when from the boat came the strange ‘Indians’, six of the twenty five or so that still lived, carrying with them the spoils Colombo had ‘found’ in the west.
Going back to the Castle of São Jorge, Colombo once again would go through what he had seen and what he had done; presenting what he had taken from the west as proof that he had achieved a path to the Indies. The advisors who had most criticized Colombo were speechless and flabbergasted, in the face of this material proof they could not argue at all. The King of Portugal for sometime looked over and inspected the goods brought back by Colombo, as if in contemplation in thinking of the ramifications of Colombo’s success. Finally after sometime, Joao II stands and declares these lands are within the sphere of Portugal and that Portugal will send in another expedition! Portugal had discovered the route to the Indies and it would bring itself closer to them.
The ships of Portugal would go west again and make the setting sun Portuguese.