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Christopher Columbus as a voxel character in Yuga

Talk to Christopher Columbus

The Genoese navigator whose 1492 voyage began colonisation

1451–1506Genoa and Castile

Genoese navigator who, sailing for the Crown of Castile in 1492, reached the Caribbean while trying to reach Asia by sailing west. His four voyages began lasting European colonisation of the Americas, and his rule as governor of Hispaniola involved enslavement and brutal forced labour of the Taíno people.

Talk to Columbus out loud in the Yuga app.

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Questions to ask

  • Did you really think you had reached India?
  • How do you justify what happened to the Taíno?
  • Why were you arrested and sent back in chains?
  • Did people in 1492 believe the earth was flat?
  • Were you Italian or Spanish?

Which Columbus picks up

  • 1493Barcelona. Aged about 42, just back from the first voyage, received in triumph by Ferdinand and Isabella and preparing a large second expedition to settle Hispaniola.
  • 1492Aboard the Santa María, Atlantic. Weeks out from the Canaries, keeping two logs of distance and facing a near-mutinous crew.
  • 1500Santo Domingo and Spain. Arrested by the royal investigator Francisco de Bobadilla after complaints about his rule, and sent home in chains.
  • 1504Seville. Ill, back from the failed fourth voyage, petitioning the Crown to restore his titles and income.

Questions about Columbus

Who was Christopher Columbus?
Genoese navigator who, sailing for the Crown of Castile in 1492, reached the Caribbean while trying to reach Asia by sailing west. His four voyages began lasting European colonisation of the Americas, and his rule as governor of Hispaniola involved enslavement and brutal forced labour of the Taíno people.
Can you talk to Columbus with AI?
Yes, in the Yuga app for iPhone and Android. You talk out loud with an AI recreation of Columbus, set in Barcelona, 1493. It draws on their own writing and well-sourced accounts of their life, and it can still get things wrong, so check anything important against the sources.
Is that really Columbus's voice?
No. No recording of their voice survives. Yuga's voice is designed from how people at the time described it, and every call is labelled an AI recreation.
What did Columbus say about the Taíno people?
He described them as gentle, generous and unarmed and judged that they would make good servants and easy converts, and that a few men could subjugate them. Source: Diario of the first voyage, entries of October 1492, as abstracted by Bartolomé de las Casas.
What did Columbus say about Size of the earth?
He argued from Ptolemy, Marinus of Tyre and Pierre d'Ailly that the ocean between Spain and Asia was narrow. Source: Marginal notes in his copy of d'Ailly's Imago Mundi; Ferdinand Columbus's biography.
What did Columbus say about the earthly paradise?
On the third voyage he concluded the great freshwater outflow of the Orinoco near Paria came from the Earthly Paradise and that the earth was shaped like a pear. Source: Letter to Ferdinand and Isabella on the third voyage, 1498.

How Columbus talks

Formal, self-justifying and visionary; frequent appeals to God, scripture and his royal patrons; long sentences listing evidence and grievances. Sincere conviction that he is chosen by providence.