Genoa wants a "fair trial" for Christopher Columbus to clear him of fresh charges that he was a violent and greedy slaver who committed mass murder. The Columbus Foundation in the northern Italian port insists that the Spanish crown officer who tried Columbus and sent him back to Spain in chains had old scores to settle with the explorer.
"There is documented proof that Don Francisco Bobilla bore Columbus a grudge because of political, business and family reasons," said foundation president Mario Bozzi Sentieri. "To use modern legal parlance, we want Bobadilla 'recused' and an impartial jury installed to give Columbus a chance to defend himself on the basis of his own writings".
Genoa's determination to restore the reputation of its greatest hero was spurred by a Spanish historian's recent presentation of documents from Columbus' 1500 trial which convicted him of abuses against natives and Spanish settlers as well as disobeying royal orders to stop taking slaves.
According to Sentieri, the document discovered in Spain by Columbus expert Consuelo Varela was only "a preliminary list of alleged crimes that condemned Columbus without giving him a chance to defend himself". A real trial never took place at the colony of Hispaniola Columbus founded on the island of Santo Domingo, Sentieri claimed.
The foundation chief suggested that Spanish historians' fresh eagerness to demolish Columbus' reputation had been prompted by an Italian expert's discovery of documents proving "beyond doubt" that Columbus was Italian. Over the years, there have been various theories denying
the accepted version that he was the son of a humble Genoese woolworker.
One claimed he was the scion of a Spanish nobleman and another suggested a pope could have sired him.
Now that the great navigator can no longer be claimed by Spain, Sentieri argued, Spanish historians are determined to relaunch damning charges against him. Previous accounts of Columbus darker side say he committed the first genocide in America, wiping out a tribe, ruled his settlers with an iron hand and took to hanging dozens of them at a time, and was so greedy for gold that he cut off the hands of native treasure hunters - even small boys - if they returned from prospecting with nothing to show him.
Another unproven charge was that he shut up a French friar who had tried to denounce him by having him strangled.
