Volta
Politics20 May 1506

Death of Columbus

Columbus died at Valladolid on 20 May 1506 — still pressing for the titles and revenues promised at Santa Fe, and still believing the lands he had reached were Asia.

His patron Queen Isabella died in November 1504, just after Columbus returned from his last voyage. Weakened by gout and arthritis, he followed King Ferdinand’s court asking for the titles and revenues of the Santa Fe agreement, without success. Not poor, he nonetheless felt abandoned.

He died at Valladolid on 20 May 1506. His remains are said to have passed from Seville to Santo Domingo and Havana and back to Seville Cathedral, though Santo Domingo claims to hold the true remains. By then the idea that the lands he had reached were a new continent rather than Asia was already spreading among others.

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States at the time
Spain
Places
Valladolid

People

  • Christopher Columbus1451 – 1506

    key figure · Genoese navigator who, sponsored by Spain, crossed the Atlantic and reached the Americas in 1492

  • Ferdinand II of Aragon1452 – 1516

    monarch · King of Aragon who, married to Isabella I of Castile, united Spain and completed the Reconquista by conquering Granada

Before and after

Earlier
1502 Fourth Voyage of Columbus
Later
1519 Magellan–Elcano Circumnavigation

Themes that include this event

  • The Age of Discovery1415 – 1600

    From Ceuta to the Manila galleons — two centuries in which European ships crossed the oceans and bound the world together by sea