Columbus Uses Eclipse: Science as Weapon Against Natives

Christopher Columbus was stranded, starving, and running out of options when he pulled a bluff that would make a poker player proud. Marooned on Jamaica's north coast since June 1503 with two worm-eaten ships and a mutinous crew, Columbus had been relying on the Taino people for food. When the natives grew tired of feeding ungrateful foreigners who offered little in return, they cut off supplies. Columbus consulted his almanac and found his weapon: a total lunar eclipse predicted for the evening of February 29, 1504. Columbus had sailed from Spain on his fourth and final voyage in May 1502 with four ships and 140 men. The expedition was a disaster from the start. He was denied entry to Santo Domingo, barely survived a hurricane off Honduras, spent months searching fruitlessly for a strait to the Indian Ocean along the Central American coast, and lost two ships to shipworm before beaching the remaining two in Saint Ann's Bay, Jamaica. A small party canoed 108 miles to Hispaniola for help, but the governor, who despised Columbus, delayed sending a rescue ship for over a year. Three days before the eclipse, Columbus summoned the Taino leaders and told them that his God was displeased with their refusal to provide food and would demonstrate his anger by turning the moon blood red. When the eclipse began on schedule, the terrified Taino begged Columbus to intercede. He retired to his cabin with an hourglass, waited until the eclipse was nearing totality, then emerged and announced that God had been persuaded to relent. As the moon reappeared, the Taino agreed to resume food deliveries. The story, recorded by Columbus's son Ferdinand and by the Spanish historian Bartolome de las Casas, illustrates both the power of scientific knowledge and its capacity for exploitation. Columbus used European astronomy not to educate but to deceive and coerce, establishing a pattern of manipulating indigenous peoples through technological superiority that would characterize centuries of colonial encounters. A rescue ship finally arrived in June 1504. Columbus returned to Spain in November and died in 1506, still believing he had reached the outskirts of Asia.