2/3/03
THE GOALS OF COLUMBUS’ VOYAGE
By J. Parnell McCarter
As the great Anti-Christ, the Pope seeks to sit in the place of
Christ. Since Christ will sit and rule
the world from Jerusalem (Revelation 21), the Pope seeks to do the same. These aspirations of the Pope extend
to his cohorts, such as the Jesuits, the Knights Templar, the Knights of Malta,
and the Knights of Columbus. This was a
goal of Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit Order, for example. And Protestant dispensationalists are
unwitting dupes who are helping the project along, their theology of Israel originally
fed by a Jesuit and believed by Francis Darby.
Christopher Columbus, and those who sent him on his voyage to the New World, also sought this goal, as we read at http://www.umassd.edu/SpecialPrograms/Caboverde/cvchrono.html :
“Historical interpretations and
historical accuracy are not always one and the same. Scholarly research has
recently been reported by Peter Dickson and commented on by John Hebert, senior
specialist in Hispanic bibliography in the Hispanic division, Library of
Congress in Washington, DC. (Washington Post, Oct. 12, 1995: C5) which raises
serious questions and may eventually compel us to dramatically alter our
description of the context of events which led to the "discovery" of
America by Christopher Columbus. These recent findings shed new light on the
life of Columbus before 1492.
1478 Christopher Columbus married
into the most powerful family in Portugal, the Braganza-Norona clan. By 1485 most
of the Braganza family (Columbus's in-laws) had fled Portugal for Spain. They
plotted to kill Portugal's King Joao but were unsuccessful. The King responded
by executing the twelve conspirators, ten of whom were related to Columbus's
wife. No evidence has been found to implicate Columbus in the conspiracy.
King Joao refused to finance
Columbus's voyage of exploration. Spain's Queen Isabel showed a particular
interest in Columbus and agreed to finance his voyages. The mother of Queen
Isabel was Portuguese by birth and of the House of Branganza and distantly
related to the wife of Columbus.
The web of European political
relationships and the ideological underpinnings of European expansion played a
major role in setting the stage for social and economic development in Cape
Verde and everywhere else that the European explorers set foot.
In addition to family relationships
it is enlightening to examine the "political theology" of Spain,
Portugal, England, France and most of Europe's royal courts at that time.
Columbus wrote of being "an instrument of God in recovering of
Jerusalem.... The royal mission was presented as divine, universal and directed
toward uniting the world under a single ruler, who was to recapture Jerusalem
from the Moslems, thereby fulfilling history's culmination and end. This vision
was put out competitively by Europe's royal courts, but Castile was seen to be
implementing it most literally at the time - in instituting the Inquisition,
conquering the Muslim KIngdom of Grenada, and, in tandem with sending out
Columbus in 1492, expelling the Jews. (Peggy K. Liss, Washington Post Oct. 19,
1995 p. A22).
1479 The Treaty of Alçacovas and
later the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) established the territorial domains of
Portugal and Spain along a longitudinal line 370 leagues west of Cape Verde.
1483 The first French ships reach
Cape Verde.
1492 Christopher
Columbus, the Genovese navigator, lands in the Bahamas and claims the "new
lands of the western seas" for Spain. In 1498 Columbus stops in Cape Verde
for provisions on his third voyage to America. During the same period the
expulsion of Jews from Iberia began. Some would eventually migrate to Cape
Verde.”