The Voyage Letters

I find Columbus’s Letters to be extremely interesting. I love reading about how happy he seems on his first journey. How he is experiencing all these new things for the first time when he reaches a new island. About how detailed he goes in his letters about the birds, trees, and the types of soils that he encounters. It seems to me that he was very respectful when venturing on to a new land. He would send a few men out off the ship to explore for about three day to see if there were any forms of government that he could come in contact with. He talks about briefly about all the things that he has acquired from his travels. He seems to be doing what he loves. He is at peace with himself and at peace with the world. But over just a few short years he goes from being hopeful and joyful to becoming extremely fearful. He talks about in his fourth voyage letter about how he and his men are held captive and have nothing left. That the people who are holding them captive have took everything from them even their clothes. He briefly talks about how death is approaching him and his men. He in a sense begs the Highness for freedom and thinks that maybe she has something to do with being captured.

The reason I wanted to give a brief summary about the two letters is because it is amazing to me how much detail went into just a single letter. Then I quickly realized that it must have been really difficult for a letter to reach all the way back to his homeland. Because if this he needed to be extremely detailed so the people back home could paint a picture of exactly what there was out there to offer.