Who Was The Real Christopher Columbus?

Transcript
0:00 · [intro redacted]
0:41 · may 20th 1506 only two years after his fourth and
0:47 · final voyage to the new world christopher columbus the famous explorer
0:54 · is dying [Music] why he is dying is not known
0:59 · his son and biographer hernan would later say it was gout that took the life
1:04 · of his father still others ascribed the cause to
1:10 · something more sinister they say he may have been poisoned to
1:15 · death by his enemies but the cause of their father's death
1:21 · doesn't concern the columbus suns right now it's the who they're after
1:28 · who is this man they call father father
1:34 · we must know who we are could you leave us without telling us your name our name father you can't take all your secrets
1:42 · tell us now we beg you no my sons let him be in peace
1:51 · yes that's right at the hour of columbus's death his sons diego and hernan
1:58 · know practically nothing about him not even if his true name is christopher
2:03 · columbus they had heard rumors that he was not from italy that his mother was jewish
2:11 · that he was the bastard child of a member of portuguese royalty that he was acting as a secret agent for
2:17 · the king of portugal against his loyal benefactor queen isabel
2:24 · they had heard these rumors many times but when they sought the truth from their father he would not answer
2:31 · his life was a secret from his sons from the world
2:36 · forever but maybe not forever
2:47 · [Music]
2:52 · [Music]
3:03 · [Music]
3:34 · [Music]
3:40 · and so the legend of christopher columbus was created a boy born to a poor family of wool
3:46 · dyers in genoa who hung out at the docks studying ships and map making
3:53 · somehow he learned navigational skills and decided that india could be reached
3:59 · by sailing west across the atlantic ocean [Music]
4:04 · despite his low status he somehow managed to gain access to the royalty of
4:09 · europe free to wander the palaces of kings and queens
4:14 · he spent a lot of time with royalty entertaining them with the idea of an expedition to discover a new and faster
4:21 · route to india he was a complete unknown to queen isabel of spain yet he convinced her to
4:29 · provide a large sum of money to search for this mythical route to riches
4:35 · and what he discovered was not india at all but a land that came to be known as
4:41 · america or so goes the story as written by the doubting washington irving
4:47 · [Music] but now there's a team of 21st century
4:54 · researchers who don't believe the story either they are americans dave horner and paul
5:01 · perry with portugal's carlos evaristo veteran explorers and historical
5:07 · researchers members of raha the royal archaeological and historical association of portugal
5:15 · horner is a veteran explorer and author finding a bounty of treasure on spanish
5:20 · galleons and searching for the remains of amelia earhart
5:26 · perry is a best-selling book author whose historical explorations include following the fabled trail of jesus in
5:33 · egypt and joining the expedition that found captain kids sunken ship in madagascar
5:40 · and evaristo one of portugal's most knowledgeable historians is an archaeologist who is considered by the
5:46 · vatican to be one of the world's foremost experts in holy relics together these researchers will pursue
5:54 · an alternative story to columbus that ties together many of the loose ends that have long been unexplained
6:02 · but first they want to talk to members of the royalty and nobility
6:07 · all close to the columbus story by talking to them they will decide
6:12 · whether their well-researched assumptions are right or wrong they receive responses that they didn't
6:18 · really expect i believe that everything we know about
6:23 · the columbus is wrong what in the world do you mean by that basically
6:29 · we i have all the reasons to believe that he was born a portuguese
6:34 · that his father was a portuguese prince of the royal family
6:40 · that his mother was a portuguese from from a jewish sentencing family
6:47 · and that he worked as a secretary for the king of portugal similar information comes from the duke
6:54 · of viragwa christopher columbus the 20th descendant of the great explorer and an
7:00 · admiral himself columbus has commentary about the birthplace of his forefather
7:06 · that lends doubt to the traditional historic story
7:24 · [Music]
8:08 · and then there's count vasco de gama the 19th an antique dealer in lisbon whose
8:14 · portuguese forefather a contemporary of columbus discovered the ocean route to
8:20 · india his studies of columbus leave him little doubt that columbus was born in portugal
8:27 · why because portuguese tradition says that he was from portuguese descent and
8:32 · learned his navigational skills at the nautical school of prince henry the navigator
9:02 · the explorers also spoke to historians and scientists including the late captain augusto barretto whose 40 years
9:09 · of investigation uncovered secret documents and maps linking columbus to a
9:14 · portuguese prince and a secret mission for king john ii of portugal
9:20 · and then there is the raja team scientific collaborator dr jose lorente acosta dean of forensic studies at the
9:28 · university of granada and a former member of the fbi he has positively
9:33 · identified the bones of christopher columbus in his seville cathedral tomb and may confirm their theories with
9:39 · further dna studies this has not been yet tested but
9:44 · it will be tested we are waiting to have the new
9:49 · technologies that would possibility it would facilitate this kind of analysis and dna if we have
9:56 · if we can get enough quantity and quality it would give us a lot of information about the origins of columbus including direct comparisons
10:02 · with some of some of these theories so what is the truth about the man we
10:08 · know as christopher columbus the three researchers meet at historic orem castle the international
10:15 · headquarters of raha in portugal to form the questions that will be the focus of
10:20 · their historical pursuit the trio decide to gather at the medieval banquet hall where evaristo has
10:27 · laid out a number of artifacts connected to the columbus mysteries
10:32 · these are uh artifacts connected to the major mysteries on columbus that we're trying to confirm or
10:39 · debug was christopher columbus truly italian
10:45 · or was he the illegitimate son of a portuguese prince was columbus jewish
10:51 · absolutely say many historians including simon wiesenthal israel's noted nazi hunter
10:59 · was he a secret agent for king john ii of portugal and if so
11:05 · why did he go to sea for the spanish he wouldn't be allowed to do that unless
11:10 · he was a templar himself or operating in the name of the portuguese king
11:17 · the modern day explorers plan to visit columbus's european world and many of the places they visit will
11:24 · be ones not found in the history books but first they go to cintra portugal
11:30 · where dom duarte duke of braganza head of the portuguese royal house and raha's
11:36 · royal patron wants to share more about columbus's history including some family traditions
11:45 · everything points to the fact that first he was not an italian he never wrote anything in italian
11:52 · then the symbols used to sign
11:58 · the symbols who would mean that his original name
12:03 · was zarko so the idea is that it was the daughter the son of
12:11 · zelko lady and the daughter of gonzalo zarco
12:17 · and he was probably the father was the infant the
12:24 · prince don fernando of portugal who was the son of don duarte
12:31 · so basically the data we have points to that he should be he was portuguese
12:38 · and the son of a portuguese prince and a woman who was he was not married with
12:45 · her so that he didn't want to be classified as being a bastard
12:59 · it's supposed that he was born in a village called cuba in el intention
13:05 · the first main island he found he named it cuba because he had
13:10 · many connections to jewish culture he was interested in in the jewish
13:16 · tradition so it could probably could be the son of a jewish mother maybe the zarko
13:23 · family was jewish
13:32 · well after his first official trip to the official discovery of america
13:38 · when he came back what he did was not to go to sevilla he went to lisbon
13:44 · and he stopped here and he went to see the king who was
13:50 · upriver in the little town up river because there was a plague in lisbon at
13:55 · the time and harry stayed for i think three days with the king telling his trip
14:01 · and after that he went then to to sevilla to spain so that it's very clear what why he would make a
14:09 · report to the king of portugal before going to the kings who paid his team
14:22 · history is such an interesting science that we should not be offended
14:28 · and we should not uh take it politically i know the italian americans are very
14:34 · upset if he's not italian but and spanish are not very happy
14:40 · that he is portuguese but i think we have to address history
14:45 · the science and it's more useful to know the truth than to
14:52 · cultivate some historical legends or lies
14:57 · that help us make us confused and make history difficult to understand
15:05 · their conversation with his royal highness genuinely challenged history
15:10 · not only did he tell them several things that are not included in standard history books he forcefully insisted
15:18 · they were 100 factual
15:24 · these researchers will plow through every aspect of columbus's life in an effort to solve these 500 year-old
15:32 · mysteries and in doing that they plan to bring in a feast of fresh information that will
15:38 · open these cases wide their goal is a difficult one to reveal the true christopher columbus
15:47 · something he wouldn't do even on his deathbed [Music]
15:56 · many archives and libraries of spain have special connection to christopher columbus
16:01 · which is why our explorers are in the archive of the indies in seville
16:07 · this is the general archive of the india's is that right yes i was here 25 years ago magnificent this is the place
16:14 · where they have all the records on columbus all of the colonial records and all of this all of columbus's writings
16:21 · his letters all of the rocks all the records of the galleons itself to and from the new world everything's here
16:29 · in 1826 the great american author washington irving was given the task to
16:35 · write a biography of columbus for the u.s consulate in spain irving was granted free access to this
16:42 · and other archives yet despite the wealth of information that made up a meaty two-volume biography
16:49 · irving found nothing to indicate that christopher columbus had been born in genoa italy
16:54 · this lack of proof of columbus's nationality haunts the irving bio and
17:01 · closed the contemporary case to have columbus declared a saint by the pope
17:06 · on the book's very first page irving declares that columbus was born in genoa
17:11 · in about 1435. he follows that with a footnote
17:17 · readers will find the vexed question about the age birthplace and lineage of
17:22 · columbus severally discussed in the appendix and so it was
17:28 · discussed in detail there has been much controversy about the birthplace of columbus it has formed
17:35 · a point of zealous controversy which is not yet satisfactorily settled
17:41 · indeed irving presents numerous claims from noblemen mayors and ordinary people
17:46 · declaring that columbus hailed from countries and regions other than genoa
17:52 · where most are led to believe he was born some of these claims in irving's books declare him to be a member of noble
17:59 · families others claim that his working-class father was in truth
18:04 · a fallen member of royalty perhaps he didn't research his doubts
18:10 · enough irving's biography became an international bestseller
18:15 · and soon statues and images sprang up all over europe many of them announcing
18:21 · columbus as a proud son of genoa but more serious doubt about his
18:26 · birthplace sprang up in the 20th century when patrocinio rubiero and captain
18:32 · mascarenas barreto two portuguese historians declared that christopher
18:37 · columbus was not only portuguese but was the son of the duke of beija and
18:43 · therefore cousin of king john ii
18:49 · italia
18:58 · and by the way columbus couldn't even speak italian said barretto
19:29 · the results of beretta's findings were groundbreaking he presented his findings all over
19:35 · europe beginning in 1978 but still the belief that columbus was born in genoa had been solidified
19:44 · but thanks to dna that belief may eventually change
19:50 · [Music] the city hall of granada spain looks
19:55 · more like an art gallery than the seat of local government there are famous paintings beautiful
20:01 · paintings and the official shield of queen isabelle and king ferdinand from the 15th century
20:09 · but the thrill of the history they are seeing is about to be added to by the information dr lorente is going to
20:16 · reveal through the hard science of dna examination this former fbi agent and
20:23 · current head of the csi department at granada university has strong doubts
20:28 · that christopher columbus was italian llorente gained access to the dna of
20:34 · columbus as part of an international group asked to prove that the admiral was really buried in the famous tomb in
20:41 · seville cathedral with dna in hand the group decided to see if columbus was indeed italian
20:49 · they did it by comparing the famous dna with possible columbus descendants
20:55 · the result has not changed history yet
21:01 · if you say that he's from italy if and you want to prove that he's from italy you need to have dna from some
21:09 · relative of columbus either from that time or from someone some descendant of christopher
21:15 · columbus and and there is no relative of christopher
21:21 · known relative of christopher columbus buried in in italy and there is no
21:27 · no no known descendant of the family of christopher columbus there are many people with the with the name uh
21:34 · columbus in in italy but but not that so
21:39 · this is going to i will explain you what we did but this is hard to prove that he's from
21:45 · italy okay so how do i summarize the question uh
21:51 · is columbus italian could you give me 30 seconds on how to summarize that
21:56 · okay well with the result that we have we cannot say where he's from it's just much better
22:03 · to prove that he is linked to some other to portugal or to whatever
22:10 · because yeah as yeah i suppose not mean it's always hard i mean uh
22:16 · if you don't have a direct reference sample to compare two which is very difficult
22:22 · as it now stands dna science has not advanced far enough to prove columbus's
22:27 · origin but was he possibly fathered by the duke of beija and therefore a member
22:32 · of portuguese royalty but proof positive would require the dna of the duke of beija or a first or
22:40 · second generation relative find the dna of a 15th century duke or another member
22:45 · of the portuguese royal family ordinarily that would have been the end of the discussion but not for the
22:51 · knowledgeable and well-connected evaristo a well-placed phone call to a bishop a quick explanation and the
22:58 · explorers are given the keys to one of the most sacred sites in all of spain
23:04 · the crypt of queen isabel and king ferdinand the benefactors of christopher columbus
23:12 · it is unheard of to be given such access to the crypt of spain's most important
23:17 · king and queen even lorente who was born and lives in granada had never entered the royal
23:23 · crypt evaristo chooses to honor the moment with a single red rose
23:29 · but the red rose is not for the queen but another lesser-known occupant of the crypt and i'd like
23:37 · to present you prince miguel de la paz you had asked us to find
23:44 · the first or second generation would-be relative of christopher columbus and he's right here in your
23:52 · hometown i present prince miguel de la paz
23:57 · so he was here he was here all the time and he's the son of king manuel of
24:03 · portugal and of isabelle and ferdinand's daughter
24:09 · he died at the age of two do you think you can get dna from him
24:16 · we have to try it's however disposable well then now it's all in your capable
24:22 · hands of course there was one problem
24:28 · prince miguel de la paz is wrapped in an unbreachable lead coffin
24:33 · will the spanish authorities allow them to open the coffin and collect the desired dna
24:39 · [Music] the next morning the explorers travel to
24:44 · seville to see the tomb of columbus it's a magnificent monument built in
24:50 · 1890 inside the coffin born by the kings of spain are the remains of christopher
24:57 · columbus or at least what remains of the remains
25:03 · while evaristo goes off to make a phone call horner and perry find themselves sitting outside the cathedral
25:10 · talking about the saga of columbus's remains [Music]
25:16 · yeah he died up north in valladolid he was there for a long period of time
25:23 · then his body was brought here to seville and then one of his relatives wanted his body in
25:30 · the dominican republic so they brought his body over to the dominican republic i believe it was in
25:36 · the 1700s then there was a revolution in the
25:41 · dominican republic and they decided to move him out so he was brought to cuba some of his remains were left in the dr
25:49 · he's brought to cuba he's then moved back to spain some of his remains are
25:54 · left in cuba and he's then laid to rest what's left of him here at this in seville so his
26:02 · primary tomb is here in seville but in fact he's buried in at least four different places
26:08 · so he's quite a traveler in death evaristo returns from his phone call
26:13 · with good news the museum in baja has agreed to let them examine the crypt where the duke of
26:19 · beija is buried he was the member of royalty who according to portuguese tradition
26:26 · may have fathered columbus but his dna has never been examined
26:33 · but if they can find some of his remains lorente says he can compare them to those of columbus and then it will truly
26:39 · be known who is buried in columbus's tomb
26:47 · basia portugal was occupied for centuries by romans visigoths and muslims
26:54 · but it wasn't until king sancho ii took charge in the 13th century that it became a permanent fixture in portugal's
27:00 · alanteju region [Music] in 1459 prince dom fernando
27:07 · aka the duke of beija built this convent for an order of nuns
27:16 · it has been many things since then but in 1470 it was created to be the last resting
27:23 · place of the young duke himself the master of the knights templar and
27:29 · possible father of christopher columbus died at the age of 36.
27:37 · [Music] the former convent is now a museum that is home to some of the most important
27:44 · church art in portugal but our explorers are not here to admire the art they are here to see who if
27:51 · anyone is buried in the sarcophagus of the duke of baja if there is someone they will compare
27:58 · his dna to christopher columbus's and hope for a match if a match happens they will have
28:04 · changed the history books and ushered in a whole new era of historical research
28:12 · rather than pry up the lid of the monumental sarcophagus evaristo has chosen an easier way
28:21 · okay what exactly are we going to do again well what we're going to do is run this endoscopic camera into
28:28 · prince ferdinand duke of beijing's sarcophagus to confirm if there are any human remains inside that we can extract
28:35 · dna from [Music]
28:44 · with the camera inside the sarcophagus the explorers have a clear view of what is inside
28:53 · the result i'm not seeing anything in there actually there's this is an empty
28:58 · sarcophagus [Music] there's nothing in there
29:05 · the question is what happened to the remains because there's no record of them having ever been removed let me
29:12 · i'm going to rewind this you can take a look at it see
29:18 · empty box yep completely empty
29:23 · what happened to the duke of beijing's remains i don't know
29:29 · before leaving the former convent the three explorers paid their respects to beatrice of basia
29:36 · wife of the duke of basia an extraordinary lady this beatrice
29:41 · among her many accomplishments were two treaties that divided the uncharted world between portugal and spain
29:49 · over the grave of beatrice the explorers planned their next move horner can't help but wonder if she knew
29:57 · whether columbus was her husband's illegitimate son
30:07 · with the search for dna on hold for the time being the explorers decide to go back to the history books
30:14 · they find them at mafra palace in a town of the same name near lisbon
30:20 · built in the 1700s for king john v the massive palace contains a library of 36
30:27 · 000 leather-bound volumes some say it contains all of western
30:33 · knowledge from the 14th to the 19th century and some feel it was built from plans
30:39 · for a new jerusalem as found in the book of revelations
30:46 · the books are protected from paper-eating insects by tiny bats that patrol the library at night
30:53 · without them the books would be reduced to book dust it is here that our explorers come in
30:59 · search of information not from the books that surround them
31:04 · but from a gadfly historian by the name of manuel gandra like captain barretto and other
31:11 · portuguese columbus theorists gandra feels that the life of columbus portrayed in the history books has
31:18 · little to do with the truth
31:24 · mr fact is columbus portuguese i think it was portuguese because
31:31 · everything in his life
31:36 · tells us that he knew portuguese very well he spoke portuguese
31:42 · very well he wrote portuguese very well better than it didn't he could not write
31:48 · or speak italian it seems okay but he could write very well portuguese
31:54 · uh as other languages as for example hebrew and and greek and latin
32:00 · and there is a tradition about
32:06 · being portuguese and son of grandmaster of the order of christ
32:14 · prince ferdinand yes prince fellaini he was he was uh he was um
32:21 · and a lady that was from the family of the first of the
32:26 · first discoveries of of madaira zarco
32:32 · okay and this tradition is very strong in here and his signature his kabulistic
32:38 · signature shows that he was from that family
32:47 · but there is another easier way to prove that columbus was from portugal
32:53 · it doesn't involve the search for ancient dna nor does it require a long road trip
33:00 · it only involves a map and a short drive to cuba
33:08 · ah yes cuba land of sand sun and skin
33:14 · the island discovered by christopher columbus and named by him because
33:19 · because cuba portugal was the town of his birth that's what they say in portugal
33:25 · here's the duke of braganza for instance the first main island he found he named it cuba
33:32 · then the islands around cuba some of them have names of villages in alien
33:38 · territory around the town of cuba and then there's the late historian
33:43 · captain augusto barretto
34:32 · a
34:48 · [Music]
34:57 · all of these experts and more insist not only that christopher columbus was born in cuba portugal but
35:05 · that he was the illegitimate son of a portuguese prince so off we go to cuba
35:12 · portugal that is there isn't much to see in cuba
35:19 · here for instance is a church dating from the time of the duke of baja
35:24 · it was on the grounds of this church where columbus was believed to have been born to isabel sikara zarco in a house
35:33 · that since has been torn down
35:38 · his birth name salvador fernandez zarco was later changed to christopher colon
35:45 · by the explorer himself we'll get to that part of the story later
35:51 · the duke's plantation house next to the church is gone a street named for captain barretto
35:57 · leads through the nearby village of cuba to a tiny square and a statue of
36:02 · columbus himself gazing across the narrow street as though it were the great blue sea
36:09 · every stu explains the statue its meaning and cuba's astounding claim here
36:15 · in the center of the village square in cuba alentejo southern portugal is this
36:20 · monument honoring its most famous son christopher columbus the plaque here reads historic truth
36:28 · the first truth is that columbus always hid his true origins and his true
36:33 · identity that for 500 years history has accepted an uncertainty meaning that the story
36:42 · about him being from genoa has never really been proven recently however notable historians and
36:49 · researchers have concluded that christopher colon was portuguese
36:55 · he was the son of the infante don fernando prince fernando duke of beja
37:00 · and of lady isabel gonsalves zarco his real name was salvador fernandez
37:07 · zarco and he was born in the el intege here in cuba
37:14 · columbus born in cuba portugal that's a bold claim for a nearly anonymous village
37:20 · but the story goes one step further on the other side of the statue
37:26 · on the other side of the monument to columbus is this plaque it reads alentejo the motherland of the
37:34 · discoveries it says that on the 28th of october 1492 christopher columbus
37:39 · discovered an island that he named cuba there was no other cuba in the world at
37:45 · the time except this cuba here in alentejo portugal but the other sites that he also named
37:52 · in the new world in the places adjacent to cuba have names from the same places that are
37:58 · adjacent to cuba here in the elentejo in southern portugal a look at a map of the
38:04 · caribbean shows this claim to be true surrounding the cuba of the americas are
38:10 · more than 40 islands and locations with the same name as those adjacent to the
38:15 · cuba of portugal this seems too astounding to be mere coincidence place
38:20 · names found on a map of cuba portugal match those surrounding cuba in the caribbean the explorers consider this to
38:27 · be geographic dna on par with human dna powerful evidence that christopher
38:32 · columbus was perhaps born in cuba portugal
38:38 · the mayor of cuba joao portuguese sits down with evaristo in the village's
38:43 · modest columbus museum to back up that assertion
38:48 · he begins with ancient history cuba he says dates from the roman era
38:57 · oklahoma
39:59 · [Music]
40:19 · this evidence is so convincing that spain's state tv provided a series about queen isabel
40:25 · that portrayed columbus as possibly having been a portuguese secret agent
40:44 · [Music]
41:28 · a political cover-up a desire to keep the truth about columbus in the dark that's what every
41:34 · still thinks and the mayor agrees [Music]
41:44 · uh [Music]
42:22 · [Music]
42:28 · is it's a conspiracy of fear says evaristo
42:35 · fear of stepping out from the academic crowd and changing history but change is never easy in fact the
42:42 · only thing hardest harder says evaristo is the search for truth that brings you against long-held beliefs
42:49 · the mayor agrees [Music]
42:56 · uh [Music]
43:14 · [Music]
43:28 · [Music]
43:38 · [Music]
43:56 · so does the theory that columbus was born in portugal stand up to critical thought
44:02 · professor gandra thinks that same question should be asked of genoa does their belief that columbus was born
44:09 · in italy stand up to critical thought so myth or fact
44:15 · was columbus then born in cuba you know it seems it seems it seems that all the
44:21 · the islands and all the places he he he discovered in new world took the names
44:28 · of places around the place where he was born 40 of them yeah yeah so
44:35 · and cuba was one of the main places as you know uh so it's uh
44:41 · it's curious because if he was from geneva that was not explained it was there was
44:47 · no no way to explain that yes difficult to explain indeed
44:54 · still the question remains if not italian is the textbook say
44:59 · then who was christopher columbus there are those who say that the secrets
45:05 · of columbus are contained in his signature a complex collection of letters and
45:10 · symbols that reveal the identity of the great explorer and perhaps including two
45:15 · of the most tantalizing secrets of all that he had been of jewish heritage and
45:21 · that he was a portuguese secret agent a double 07 for the king of portugal
45:27 · with a license to kill this is the signature of christopher
45:32 · columbus technically it is referred to as a cipher a way of including secret information in
45:39 · the course of signing one's name captain barretto researched this triangular signature of dots and letters
45:47 · for more than a decade and evaristo is certain he deciphered the mystery
45:55 · another one of the mysteries of columbus is of course his name
46:00 · his cipher and uh his coat of arms we know that there are many
46:07 · controversies and many theories out there for what this actually means
46:14 · some people say uh it's it's a reference to kabbalah
46:20 · others say it's a reference to ferdinand and isabella the
46:25 · interpretation by captain barreto is that it reveals that this man is salvador
46:33 · because today uh when we buy a sports car or something that's
46:38 · very valuable or very important we in portuguese say x p t o
46:44 · means it's great so what we have here is x a p a t and an o
46:51 · it actually means salvador it means christ the savior the supreme
46:57 · person that the templar knights paid homage to so the captain says that this means
47:05 · salvador next we have fair ends ference means of course uh ferdinand for fernandez which is son
47:13 · of ferdinand and then you have a z because the z's were
47:18 · actually made like this but in reverse and that would mean zarco so salvador fernandez zarco
47:26 · then you have what's called a colon or a a colon in in english uh in in
47:33 · portuguese it's a column and if you if you it actually means colon colon
47:40 · so if we take this word here it means christopher
47:47 · christopher christopher with the t and the p
47:53 · christopher column christopher colon if we continue and we
47:59 · do this then we have christopher columb fernandez we already we already know it's salvador
48:06 · and if we take a mirror and put it here the s becomes a z
48:13 · and that indicates zarco so if you look at this cipher and take
48:18 · it apart like captain burrito did you have the s the f
48:24 · and the z salvador fernandez zarko
48:29 · one of the conclusions reached is the notion that the supposed mother of columbus isabel zarco was the daughter
48:36 · of jewish italian explorer joao gonsalves zarco and thus giving the explorer jewish
48:42 · ascendancy [Music] other historical researchers have come to the same or similar conclusions
48:50 · british historian cecil roth felt the cipher was a substitute for kadesh a jewish prayer recited by mourners after
48:57 · the death of a relative and indeed the sons of columbus did say kadish for their father when he died
49:06 · and there was simon wiesenthal the noted nazi hunter whose book sales of hope
49:11 · built the case that columbus's voyage was motivated by a desire to find safe
49:16 · haven for the 800 000 jews subject to expulsion from spain
49:22 · during the inquisition to show solidarity with the jews of
49:27 · spain jewish scholars say that he set sail for the new world on august 6 1492
49:34 · the very day the jews were given the choice of converting to catholicism leaving spain
49:40 · or being killed so what was the atmosphere like here
49:46 · when when columbus and his crew left was it was it festive were they excited about this search for the new world
49:53 · well the day that they left it was calm but the days leading up to his departure
49:58 · were total chaos because the queen had ordered all the jews to leave spain and leave all their
50:05 · property behind and the docks were just full of jews trying to board ships so it
50:12 · was total chaos wow does that likely confirm columbus himself was a jew
50:19 · well yes and no so was columbus hiding his jewish
50:25 · heritage or is that a myth of history a misreading of columbus's true faith
50:32 · the researchers from raja want to find out [Music] evaristo stops the carriage and escorts
50:39 · horner into the mother of god convent formerly a jewish synagogue built in the time of
50:45 · columbus so this used to be a synagogue up until 1492 when the jews were
50:53 · driven out of spain in 1495 they turned it into a christian building they turned
50:58 · it into a church and a convent and this convent out of all the convents in
51:04 · the city was especially favored by the christopher columbus family
51:09 · and it was actually the pantheon it says there the pantheon of
51:15 · christopher columbus's family and where his granddaughters are buried
51:22 · fantastic so why would they choose a former synagogue
51:27 · as their final resting place and their family mausoleum their family pantheon it's very very strange
51:34 · and then it's into the synagogue turned church where evaristo shows horner the tombs of
51:40 · the columbus granddaughters this is the tomb of four of christopher
51:46 · columbus's granddaughters here in sevilla at the convent of the mother of god
51:51 · they endowed this convent with funds so that they could be buried here and have their family plot
51:58 · this used to be a jewish synagogue evaristo also shows horner the ornate
52:05 · altar that separates the tombs of hernan cortez widow and daughter
52:10 · and then reveals a startling fact you know that in 1495 when they turned this
52:15 · into a convent they gave it to the female branch of the dominican order and
52:21 · that's the same order that isabella commissioned to start the inquisition
52:27 · a few weeks after his visit to the jewish ghetto in seville evaristo finds himself at a cemetery in madrid with
52:33 · vatican lawyer luis castro evaristo has found research that links
52:39 · columbus's triangular signature of dots and letters with a cryptic inscription
52:45 · resembling three balls in a triangular shape this shape is said to be found in jewish
52:51 · cemeteries they decide to do some research this is clearly
52:58 · a jewish tombstone has the star of david and here again we have the repetitive
53:04 · three three three and three you have three balls three holes three bowls which are depicted as seeds
53:10 · because either blossoming yeah the branches that are again
53:16 · doubled which represent the 12 tribes of israel
53:21 · further into the cemetery they find what they are looking for the three balls depicted like that
53:28 · yes are not seeds obviously they may be the symbol of money changers or money
53:34 · lenders bankers as was used back in the middle ages with
53:39 · the uh the jewish community and also with the templars who were bankers yeah i think so and they're still used today
53:46 · by many uh credit establishments all over the world there are other pieces of evidence that
53:52 · seem significant to the question of columbus's faith in his will he left money to a jew who lived at the entrance
53:59 · to the jewish quarter in lisbon he tithed the tenth of his income to the poor a jewish custom and when he
54:06 · returned to spain after his discovery of the new world his first two letters were not to isabelle and ferdinand but to
54:13 · luis de santiage and gabriel sanchez the prominent jews who had helped fund his
54:19 · voyage is this evidence another sign of columbus's jewish heritage
54:26 · very possibly say many researchers but the duke of braganza has another
54:32 · theory he believes that christopher columbus was a devout catholic but straddled both christianity and judaism
54:39 · through the heritage of his catholic father and jewish mother listen carefully as his highness explains the
54:46 · dual faith of christopher columbus his name means
54:55 · and and the christopher's it's mean christ so it's the dove of christ
55:02 · it's a symbolic name for the the empire of the holy spirit
55:08 · because the idea of the portuguese what that our discoveries were not to build a
55:14 · political empire but to build the empire of the holy spirit that was called at the time the
55:21 · fifth empire and it was the idea that the world world should be united
55:26 · under the holy spirit and it would be a time of peaceful
55:32 · brotherhood between every country and every people and the rulers would rule
55:37 · following the the laws of god and
55:43 · then his official name could be a symbol to explain that he was
55:50 · preparing the world for this empire of the holy spirit so what you're saying then is that his
55:57 · real name was not christopher columbus no no i'm quite sure it was not
56:03 · it was a official name he built for himself he should be probably zarko
56:11 · his first name his family name because it was name of his his mother
56:18 · let's talk about his mother for a minute uh there there's a belief that he was he
56:24 · was jewish on his maternal side true or false it's possible that
56:31 · his mother had a jewish ascendancy even if because
56:37 · the [Music] the reason why he never spoke about her mother
56:43 · could be this one i don't know but it's it's a mystery but it could be because he had
56:49 · many connections to jewish culture he was interested in in the jewish
56:56 · tradition so it could probably could be the son of a jewish mother maybe the zarko
57:02 · family was jewish columbus's mother may be jewish agrees gandra
57:09 · but in the end if he is the son of a portuguese prince he is of royal blood
57:14 · even if the family zacco family was jewish and
57:20 · a colon mother was jewish his father was not and that prevailed i think so
57:26 · i think so because he was very very uh he was received as a andy you
57:34 · he told us he wrote that it was uh from royal family and it was not the first
57:41 · admiral of his family and his father was an admiral so
57:47 · cloth tanners from genoa were not admirals no this is a we know we know that that's a
57:55 · good a good theory but not not a true one so why the cover-up
58:01 · um it's not a cover-up it's something someone invented
58:07 · because uh nor colin nor isan ferinen for example
58:13 · tell us about columbine being generous okay um
58:19 · he tells us different things about his father and his ancestry that's not from
58:25 · italy or from genova everything colin wrote about himself and his family
58:32 · comes to the same point and this is royal family portuguese royal family
58:37 · which brings us back to the duke of braganza a confirmed descendant of king john ii and the duke of beija
58:44 · and unconfirmed descendant of christopher columbus himself
58:52 · he was supposed to spy it was not very clever to everybody know that he is the son of
58:58 · approaching his prince spanish would not believe him before columbus's fourth voyage he was
59:05 · arrested and he was arrested for treating the the
59:10 · indians poorly in the new world but you don't feel like that was why he was arrested you feel
59:17 · like it was another reason i believe that this was a excuse to arrest him
59:22 · the main reason was that they discovered he was a portuguese spy perhaps there is more proof that
59:29 · columbus was a secret agent in the treaty of tordesillas the 1494 treaty
59:35 · divided the world between spain and portugal the purpose of the treaty was to settle
59:40 · conflicts over the land discovered by columbus but before the treaty was ratified
59:46 · king john ii insisted that portugal get a much larger slice of the world than
59:52 · originally agreed to [Music] the king wanted the dividing line to be moved west which would give portugal
59:59 · domain in two countries only they knew existed brazil and canada
1:00:06 · that is why evaristo will examine an official copy of the great treaty that divided the world
1:00:14 · evaristo is convinced by references to columbus in the treaty that he helped king john ii in his demand to move the
1:00:21 · divided line 180 leagues to the west giving domain to portugal in brazil and
1:00:28 · canada such help on the part of columbus would amount to a true act of espionage
1:00:36 · [Music] in the the in the description
1:00:41 · of the motives the reasons why they're dividing up the world
1:00:48 · there is direct reference to columbus so this is a pontifically
1:00:54 · um overseeing document a treaty between two kingdoms two
1:01:00 · nations rectified by the pope himself with direct mention
1:01:08 · of christopher columbus evaristo carefully explores the yellowed
1:01:14 · pages and columbus is actually referenced because
1:01:19 · they use his discovery as the basis
1:01:26 · of the place where they drew the line between portugal
1:01:31 · and spain evaristo digs deeper into the document for more information
1:01:38 · now you can see in the document the references to portugal and to its
1:01:44 · discoveries and also to castile and if you look
1:01:50 · here you see referenced king john's name
1:01:55 · don juan the boundary line was changed hundreds of miles west after king john ii
1:02:02 · demanded it be moved the move gave portugal much of brazil the existence of which had been a
1:02:09 · closely held secret known only to portugal's great navigators
1:02:14 · columbus surely helped convince his relative king john ii to push for the
1:02:20 · westward expansion says evaristo by moving the line some 370 leagues from
1:02:26 · what was originally proposed john ii and the templars of portugal
1:02:32 · actually laid claim to brazil so the question is
1:02:37 · did they know of brazil's existence before the treaty and before columbus
1:02:42 · discovered america we believe they did the three raha explorers ponder the
1:02:49 · changes in the treaty and their potential value but to dave horner there is no mystery
1:02:56 · the value in moving the boundary to the west is as clear as the map in columbus's hands
1:03:02 · the treaty of tortos executed is what might come out of that in the
1:03:08 · future and if you put these two countries together and this would fit tuck up
1:03:13 · under this cape here here they're finding you know the first big thing they found was the gold mine at mignon
1:03:19 · exactly and so not only were they getting that out of africa
1:03:24 · just exactly opposite on this side of the line of demarcation
1:03:31 · where it was appearing gold and silver in brazil in brazil so
1:03:37 · it all at one time perhaps was a continent that broke apart and and so
1:03:43 · you can see today the the tremendous amount of raw material in valuable
1:03:50 · jewels and metals that came out of not only here but also the african coastline in the
1:03:58 · central part of africa so that was probably why portugal wanted the line moved from what was suggested by castile
1:04:05 · so that they could have the 370 leagues and in this way keep brazil which they had already really never found that much
1:04:12 · gold and silver in the new world just from the early discoveries but king
1:04:18 · john wanted as much as he could get of anything and so he was successful in moving that line and his move
1:04:25 · caused pretty good luck for the people who were backing in so in that sense if
1:04:31 · columbus was a secret agent his mission was successful his mission was tremendously successful when you look at
1:04:37 · the vast quantities of gold silver and all the related the metals and
1:04:43 · and similar benefits that coming out of this not only this section of south
1:04:49 · america but also the west coast too in the end says professor gandra these
1:04:54 · and other actions of columbus make him one of history's most infamous
1:05:00 · 007s maybe well let me just ask you a question point blank
1:05:05 · myth or fact was columbus a secret agent for king john ii it's fact
1:05:10 · um we must understand two things uh very important
1:05:16 · secret was only was always the great uh
1:05:22 · goal of this uh enterprise discoveries since every navigator
1:05:29 · but with john ii this was even bigger this secrecy was even bigger because
1:05:35 · there was there were the spanish uh looking for the same things that we were we portuguese were
1:05:43 · so john ii had to had to prevent the spanish to get there first and it was
1:05:49 · why he tried with colomb to um
1:05:55 · to uh to divert them to other places not to the south atlantic the south and the
1:06:01 · atlantic but to the anthills to uh be lost there and not to follow
1:06:08 · portuguese to the south occupied their time yeah yeah i think so and colin was
1:06:14 · one of the main subjects to or main of those urgent agents portuguese agents
1:06:21 · that uh did the that tried to do that so he'd be double 07.
1:06:28 · yeah perhaps at that time [Music]
1:06:41 · if columbus was indeed a secret agent then this is the smoking gun a safe conduct letter issued by king
1:06:48 · john ii of portugal in the same year that he arrived in spain for the first time
1:06:54 · [Music] the document identifies columbus as the most esteemed friend and agent of king
1:07:00 · john ii it's both a get out of jail card and a license to kill that only a double 07
1:07:07 · agent would have it was columbus's own son who referred
1:07:13 · to this document for the first time in the biography of the admiral that he wrote
1:07:18 · the document was rumored to have been lost and nobody had seen it for over 500
1:07:24 · years but we rediscovered it in the archive of the indies in seville
1:07:30 · in the reserve section the raha team returns to its
1:07:35 · headquarters in orem castle to talk about the research
1:07:40 · the three are thrilled with their findings i'm particularly impressed with the
1:07:46 · particularly the youngest of the columbus sons who was begging and crying
1:07:52 · at the deathbed of his father please father tell us who our father
1:07:57 · really was we must know we're entitled to know that father those are the very words
1:08:04 · and they also wanted to know what so many other people want to know was he a secret agent for king john ii
1:08:11 · was he portuguese absolutely and his own son raised these questions and initiated the
1:08:18 · investigation over 500 years ago he went three times to genoa and found no evidence that he was from genoa and then
1:08:25 · declared that the only thing that he knew about his father was that at a
1:08:31 · certain point in his life he went back to using the alias of christopher columbus but it wasn't just and only his
1:08:38 · son the entire columbus family was so convinced of their fathers
1:08:45 · telling the truth that they carried out a lawsuit against the government of spain for two and a
1:08:53 · half centuries now that tells you something and you want to believe at least i want to know
1:08:59 · who paid that legal bill was christopher columbus truly italian
1:09:04 · or was he the illegitimate son of a portuguese prince was columbus jewish
1:09:10 · was he a secret agent for king john ii of portugal the modern day explorers feel they had
1:09:17 · almost assuredly answered those questions yet there is only one thing that keeps
1:09:22 · them from declaring total victory the dna
1:09:28 · the only source of dna that could link columbus directly to his supposed father
1:09:33 · would be the dna of the portuguese royal family and the best source available would be
1:09:39 · prince miguel de la paz believed to be a nephew of columbus
1:09:45 · yet no matter how hard the raja team tried the keepers of the crypt at granada cathedral would not let them
1:09:51 · open the young prince's coffin his eternal slumber was not to be interrupted
1:09:57 · for the time being but maybe the answers they were looking
1:10:03 · for already existed as the researchers were about to leave their interview with the duke of
1:10:09 · braganza they stopped at painting showing his royal ancestors
1:10:15 · it was there that the duke told them something they had not yet heard a sample of dna had been taken from him
1:10:21 · for testing in dr lorente's lab the results although not conclusive he
1:10:27 · said appear to have a dna link between him and the subject of the film
1:10:33 · christopher columbus they convinced him to share those results on camera
1:10:39 · well recently there have been new discoveries that are very interesting and that i would really advise you to
1:10:46 · look at i'm not a professional historian and but i
1:10:52 · i think it's a fascinating thing i did some dna tests
1:10:57 · can you tell me yeah tell me about that well i don't know exactly the results because it seems it was difficult to
1:11:03 · to establish the dna of christopher's columbus christian colombo but
1:11:09 · it seems there is some dna connection between me and him
1:11:14 · which is why the researchers from raha cannot declare the end of this subject
1:11:20 · until final dna studies are able to be carried out the case of christopher
1:11:25 · columbus has no ending a partial mystery
1:11:31 · that remains to be continued
1:11:38 · [Music]

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