The Felanitx Theory: Columbus

At the end of 2011, I offered an annual award for the "historian of the year". To this day, I would imagine that Gabriel Verd remains blissfully unaware of this accolade but four years later he may be placing himself on the shortlist to pick up a far more celebrated prize. The citation in 2011 went along the lines of perseverance in the face of almost overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Verd is the Mallorcan historian who insists that Christopher Columbus was from Felanitx. His life's work has pretty much been devoted to proving this. In 2011 he was convinced. Now, he is on the point of producing evidence which will demonstrate definitively that Columbus was from Felanitx and not from Genoa or any other place which has laid a claim on him.

At the weekend at a restaurant (Son Colom) in Felanitx which doubles as an exhibition centre for Columbus, Verd was able to explain his theories to visitors who included the president of the Council of Mallorca, Maria Salom. He asserted that the "Felanitx theory is the most coherent that there is". The competing theories include Ibiza, Galicia and, of course, Genoa, which is the city that history scholars over the centuries have accepted that Columbus came from.

Having Maria Salom along for the day was understandable, as the Council is one of the keepers of Mallorcan culture and heritage and as it was the Council, in 2004, which forwarded a grant of over 50,000 euros for research into Columbus's origins and genetics; one of the biggest supporters of this research was Gabriel Verd. There have, subsequently, been DNA tests carried out which have sought to establish links between local populations and Columbus (certainly with his younger brother, Bartholomew). These don't, however, seem to have proved anything - definitively.

The research has been and is valid. Though it is the accepted version of history that Columbus came from Genoa, there have always been certain questions, e.g. why he himself made little reference to Genoa and, more importantly, why he spoke in the strange way he did. Linguistic research has held much of the key to resolving the arguments regarding Columbus's origins. It is this linguistic element, along with Mallorca's culture and heritage, which was what interested a former president of the Council, Maria Antonia Munar, who held this office when the 2004 grant was made. She admitted at the time that she had "a patent interest in Columbus being from Mallorca", and one suspects that this interest would have been partly kindled by nationalism. Munar's party, the Unió Mallorquina, was Mallorcan nationalist. Columbus a Mallorcan? The discoverer of America was Mallorcan all along and not an Italian and definitely not a Spaniard? It's the stuff of nationalist dreams and one, moreover, that features some version of Catalan as the mother tongue.

A further linguistic element is the name Porto Colom in Felanitx. Colom means pigeon in Catalan. In Italian the word is "colombo". In the Genoa region of the fifteenth century it was "corombo". There were people called Pigeon all over the western Med. Porto Colom, as in "colunbi", was noted on an Italian map of Mallorca from the thirteenth century, so it is perfectly logical that people might have adopted Colom as a surname because of the place name. Or alternatively, they were just named after a pigeon. Either way, as far as Columbus was concerned, Verd has maintained that his name came from his mother, Margarita Colom, who gave birth to the illegitimate son of Carlos, an Aragonese nobleman who was the brother of Ferdinand, later the husband of Isabel and so one half of the Catholic Kings. And the precise location of the birth was the Felanitx finca of s'Alqueria Roja.

Gabriel Verd believes that this year he will add to the celebrations of notable Mallorcans (Ramon Llull, 700th anniversary of his death, and Fray Junipero, his canonisation) by proclaiming that Columbus was definitively a Mallorcan. There is a part of me which really wants him to be right, for him to turn historical orthodoxy on its head and for history to therefore have to be rewritten. But despite his confidence that he will prove Columbus's Mallorcan birth definitively, unless it is in such a powerful way with new, previously unseen, original source documents that can substantiate the Felanitx theory and be scrutinised by peers who might be convinced of the arguments, the overwhelming evidence in favour of Genoa will remain.

Even if he were to provide definitive proof, would all Mallorcans be happy? History is less kind to Columbus than it once was. He is now accused of genocide and so of the extinguishing of Taino Indian culture in Hispaniola. The fact that smallpox and other diseases were largely responsible for the Tainos being all but wiped out doesn't stop contemporary views which portray a barbarous Columbus. Would Mallorca really want that legacy?

No Comment: Columbus came from Ibiza

You will have heard of María Antonia Munar. She was the one-time leader of the Council of Mallorca who is going through a process of various court hearings and trials to do with her alleged misdeeds while in public office. Munar was, as a member of the discredited Unió Mallorquina, particularly keen on advancing claims that Mallorca might have to elevate the island's status. To do so fitted with a philosophy of Mallorcan nationalism, and one such claim had to do with Christopher Columbus.

In October 2004, Munar said in her capacity as leader of the Council: "I have a patent interest in Christopher Columbus being from Mallorca. I feel satisfied at having shown my support for Professor Gabriel Verd, and I intend to continue to do so". This quote was reported in the local press as was a note regarding a research programme, "Development of Human Genetic Research on Columbus's Origins", which was to receive a grant of nearly 54,000 euros to study theories that Columbus was born in Mallorca and "whose staunchest supporter is the historian Gabriel Verd".

At the end of this quote from the local press on a website - www.cristobalcolondeibiza.com - there are two words: "no comment". They are intended to be critical, as they are supplied by Nito Verdera, a writer from Ibiza and also an investigator into Columbus's origins. His "no comment" was deliberately sarcastic; he has no time for Verd's theory that Columbus was Mallorcan and no time for Columbus's origins being hi-jacked for political reasons, which he was basically accusing Munar of.

Verd's theory, and it is one to which I have referred on several occasions, places Columbus's roots in the town of Felanitx in Mallorca's south-east. It is a theory with which I have some sympathy but it does have discrepancies. There again, mostly any theory to do with where Columbus came from has some discrepancy or other, even the accepted one to do with his birthplace having been Genoa. It is is the fact that there have long been some questions arising from the Genoa theory that has created the Columbus "industry" and prompted numerous counter-theories. This said, these counter-theories have often been as a consequence of political aims, though it is also fair to say that the Genoa theory has been subject to these as well; Mussolini urged Italian historians to defend Columbus's Italian nationality.

Verdera's belief is that Columbus's mother tongue was Catalan, that he was a converted Jew and that he came from Ibiza. Each of these claims has support elsewhere; Verdera is not alone in having come up with any of them. But getting official backing for his theory has proved difficult. Until now. And only sort of.

Ibiza town hall has just engaged in something decidedly odd. It has voted in favour of permitting the idea that Columbus was from Ibiza to be disseminated. It has done so on condition that it doesn't cost any money to do so, and it was only an agreement by various parties at the town hall that it wouldn't cost anything that carried the vote; the lady mayor of Ibiza had in fact been opposed to the motion.


Just one of the oddities with this decision is that it is one that comes not from the Council of Ibiza but from the Ibiza Town town hall. I confess to knowing little of Ibiza's internal political workings, but now I have found out something about them, a question arises: why is there a town hall for Ibiza Town and for other places on Ibiza when the population is only around 130,000 and there is a Council as well? The answer would appear to be to enable a town hall to devote its time and energies to an issue about which it is clearly unconvinced.

There does, in all of this, seem to be a bit of inter-island rivalry. Verdera clearly doesn't think much of Verd's theory. What Verd thinks of Verdera's I couldn't honestly say, but I would imagine that he would disagree with him. In the battle of the historians with similar names, Verd has an advantage over Verdera when it comes to official support. There was Munar's backing, while the mayor of Felanitx, Gabriel Tauler, has been beating the Columbus drum for some time, partly in the hope of attracting American tourists.

So, which of them is right? Verd or Verdera? The chances are that both are wrong and there is a great deal of history (to do with the Genoa connection) that would need to be disproved once and for all to make either of them right. Which is not to say that either is wrong in trying to prove their theories. But Columbus having been an Ibizan? I don't know, so it's best just to say "no comment".

N.B. The website link mentioned above will take you to an English version of Verdera's views. Click Part V under English.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.