The lie of the Millennium

» A very brief description of the Jordi Bilbeny’s book “Brevíssima Relació de la Destrucció de la Història. La Falsificació de la Descoberta Catalana d’Amèrica” (Destruction of history. The fake of the catalan discovery of America)

» 1.- Prologue

I must warn you. The reading of this document is captivating, hard to believe at the beginning, surprising and shocking.

This document is no other than the short translation to the www of the investigations carried out by Jordi Bilbeny over the last 18th years already exposed in his books.

What Bilbeny discovered is a bomb historically speaking. There is no other discovery that dismantles so many false theories which have become certainties and fill nowadays our school books.

The truth always ends up emerging. What has been concealed by the official history cannot now bear now more disregards. Despite the history is always made by the powerful the search of the truth has always been in the very nature of man and sooner or later the enigmas and lies get resolved and unmasked.

The evidence now revealed strikes twice. For the unearthing of the real circumstances of the discovery of the New World still so misunderstood and for the incredible and appalling manipulation of the historical facts by the authorities. It may be difficult for the outsider to understand the reasons for such misconduct without understanding the politics of modern Spain as well as the historic politics of what was then the Catalonian Kingdom of Aragon and the Castilian Kingdom of Castile.

The baroquely engineered false history and intended manipulation of all related data regarding the discovery of America cannot be understood without understanding first the Castilian fanaticism of the age. An age and a fanaticism that gave life to the Spanish Inquisition, the catholic fundamentalism that in a degree still remain in such land today, the very much alive ethnic hatred towards the Catalonian nation.

The Spanish authorities couldn’t burn definitively all books and evidence regarding such discovery for the new arising Castile would have lost his borrowed glory. They could not reach the books written out of their borders or the copies sent abroad and it is thanks to that that nowadays we can sum the evidence and reconstruct what really happened.

The silence of the official institutions when presented with the evidence point out an accusing finger to those who in the past hided the truth as well as those who today try pointlessly to ignore it.

In this new millennium we shall start with a clear conscience and for the sake of knowledge make the truth prevail upon the political usage of history.

The lie of the Millennium

» 2.- The false “Bartolome de las Casas” and his work

Since the beginning of the sixtieth century the history of bookmaking, book printing and its distribution is closely related to the history of censorship. If fact, from this very age are known the censorship laws which allowed the censor agents to revise any books to be printed and modify its contents to oblige to the religious and political interests of the Spanish Crown. This was applied to all books referred to the then recent discovery of America:

· Royal bond 21st of September 1556 -> Remains prohibited the impression of any book about America without the special license of the kingdom council. And therefore ordered the collection of any existing one and severe punishment for any bookseller that may carry on selling them.

· Royal bond 9th of October 1556 -> It is ordered to royal officials the requisition and identification of all books arrived in ships not indexed in the Saint Inquisition indexes.

Curiously enough it is in those dates that the historian Bartolome de las Casas wrote his will. We may easily observe the relation between the censorship laws being introduced and the precautions undertaken by the writer.

It is just after each of the Royal bonds of 1556, 1558 and 1560 that Bartolome de las Casas takes the first measures in protection of its work and four year after the 1560 Royal bond that indefinitely postpones its “General History of the Indies”. To be more precise, the November of 1559, Bartolome de las Casas signed will letter for the future of its work.

Through that document he gave the manuscript of this book to a religious order and expressed his will for the book not to be published until at least forty years later after his dead: “Once those forty years passed, in the event of convenience for the good of the Indians and of Spain, they can order it to be printed for the glory of God and revealing of the truth”. Passed five years, on his later will of the 17th of March 1564 insisted: “And therefore I gave in donation [my work] to the Saint Gregorian College of all my Latin and romanc writings may them be found in the theme of the Indians and the General History of the Indies which I also have written in romanc. It was my intention that never leaved the college but for printing when God provided the time remaining the originals in within the college which I ask and pray to the very Reverend and councillor fathers of the time. That they shall do for good. Upon which conscience I command them that in within the college may they guard and protect”.

There is yet one more fact that Bartolome de las Casas decided to protect his work from censorship: The fact that only puts all his writings about the Indians in his General History of the Indies.

Yet the maybe most undeniable evidence is that like all the other censured writings, the General History of the Indies remained completely unknown for some years and not at the abbey in which he ordered it to be kept. We know that by the Royal bond of the 3rd of November 1571, after five years of its dead, the original work was subtracted by Juan de Ovando of the abbey and moved to Madrid under the custody of Juan Lopez de Velasco, the Indies Council censor. There remained until 1597.

For the correspondence we have regarding Lopez de Velasco referring to his censorship activities we know that he was a statesman upon which his country’s interest prevailed upon the convenience of letting the truth be public. Is in that way, how Bartolome de las Casas, has being conserved in royal ownership: serving the interest of the Castilian state upon the historical truth and against the interests of the Kingdom of Aragon.

The clearest example of this censorship is the wide quantity of changes, added-ups and contradictions we can find at the General History of the Indies, a recognised fact already mentioned by the international historian community.

Another revealing fact I that the original work was hidden during centuries despite that from time to time someone made reference upon it:

· The historian and bibliography writer Antonio de Leon Pinelo in his book “Epitome of the Oriental and Occidental Library” (published in Madrid 1629) says he saw the work in two volumes at the Simancas archive, where he went on 1626 to examine the General History of the Indies of Bartolome de las Cases by the command of the Indies Council. He also tells us that those volumes corresponded to 1492 and 1552. And therefore he mentions another two existing copies. Those volumes though one in the Villa-Umbrosa Count library and the other at Jacob Krisius in Amsterdam.

· In the same way, in “Memory of Antonio Herrera and the books and papers of Casas who where taken from San Gregory College in Valladolid and are in possession of Juan Lopez de Velasco” it is said that the works where composed of three volumes and the first had 624 pages. But in fact the first conserved volume according to Lewis Hanke had only 496 pages.

Another aspect of evidence again from censorship sources and its political intention, it is revealed when analysing the pretended autograph preface by Columbus of the “On board diary”. From this letter, we have an extract that Bartolome de las Casas publishes in the first volume of the General History of the Indies (pages 47 and 48), and an oddly complete incorporated text to the codex of the “The prophecies book”.

Now, in the original (modified) text by Bartolome de las Casas of the General History of the Indies which is in Madrid’s National Library at the text from the preface letter one can see scrawls, modifications and other proofs that what one’s reading is not a transcription.

The fact that is being incorporated to the codex allows us at least to be suspicious about a fraud case. Numerous historians have already noticed that like Gallardo in his “Essay of a library” and in fact it can be checked that not only is something added afterwards but also unrelated. Let’s take a look at the following examples:

· The letter which is taken off the book’s content starts at the 4th front and longs until the 6th front. Of those pages, the ones which carry the 4 number are part of the bunch of paper but not the 5th, which seems glued. The number 6 finally are even with 4.

· The handwriting is the same from the 4th to the 5th pages but different from the 6th on.

· The paper of the added page, is completely different from the one in which has been inserted. Looking closely we can see that they have nothing in common.

· The handwriting of the added page doesn’t appear again in the codex.

· The letter presents blanks, added text and signs of manipulation which is clearly suspicious.

The conclusion is that “The prophecies book” was modified so it matched with the preface-letter of the General History of the Indies not to say that from the General History of the Indies itself didn’t last match of the original once the abuse of the “The prophecies book” was done.

If Columbus is the most important character in America’s discovery, there is another character whose importance is even or more due to the very valuable literary legacy which has been crucial to the discovery’s understanding. This character is Bartolome de las Casas and no else. According the official Columbine Spanish historiography he was a missionary friar, born in Andalusia albeit there is not a single document proving his andalusian nature.

As it will be demonstrated following this was the Catalonian friar Bartomeu Casaus.

If we analyse the copies of the official texts lost in that age that speak about the American discovery we will see that the character is called Bartolome de las Casas but we also will see that almost all copies where published in Castile. Knowing the certainty of censorship we cannot trust those sources faithfully. In fact a Latin translation of the “Brief Tale of the Indies destruction” published in Frankfurt on the 1598 has Bartolomaeum Casaum as author.

We can also state thanks to Girolami Banzoni in the “History of the New World” that the father of the friar was called “Casaos”. Yet a more clear prove is the signature of that character when on 1543 was appointed Bishop of Chiapas until 1550.

We cannot at that point avoid considering the bishop one of many Catalonians un-nationalized in profit of Castile.

(Note to the reader: Once proved the nature of the character, the character will be called henceforth by his real name: Bartomeu Casaus)

» 3.- Quo Vadis Columbus

Are the contradictions in the preface-letter an accidental finding? Are they affecting only this part of the text? Or rather spread all throughout the book as an unavoidable and indelible fact by the censorship agents to manipulate the facts and change the sense of the history? In the following examples we can explore it clearly:

In General History of the Indies is being told both of the discovery of the new lands and about going to Asian India, part which has been openly modified.

We also find contradictions in the fact of Cuba being an isle or terra firma. The vision that Casaus gives about what Columbus believed Cuba was is totally contradictory, not only throughout the General History of the Indies but also with the Admiral’s word in the “letter” with which he announced the discovery where is clearly stated that Cuba was an isle.

All posterior fakes used by the censors to give evidence that Cuba was terra firma, or Japan, and that that terra firma was Asia should be understood as a very astute political game. Why? Because if Columbus didn’t discover neither land nor isles by his will and labour but by chance and not knowing where he was going and confusing all he saw with other geographical places as found written in the “Capitulations” book, the Crown would cancel the contract and expropriate the land and profits gained and the novelty titles given.

As known, the Colom (Columbus) where finally expropriated which is even more clear the extreme importance of this character in Casaus history.

» 4.- About Jaume Ferrer De Blanes, missing in combat

A very related issue with the Discovery of America is the correspondence between Columbus and a famous cosmographer of the age who according to some sources would be one of the main cause that would throw Columbus to the quest for the new world. Well, as Casaus says in his books, this cosmographer was called Paulo. A Florentine physician identified lately by the columbine critic as Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli.

Altolaguirre in his “Cristobal Columbus and Pablo del Pozzo Toscanelli” demonstrated that the correspondence that includes Ferran Colom, son of the discoverer in “The history of the Admiral” was an invention for there was a bunch of incongruences (repetitions and common places) and inexact data not according to the mentioned facts.

For instance, in one of those letters of 1474 Toscanelli says that “at the end of the path the great province of Catai should be found, official residence of the Great Khan. The one of Mangi and the beautiful city of Quinsai”.

This fact wouldn’t have any importance at all if it wasn’t because all those denominations belong to China’s Mongol dominion founded by Genghis Khan the 1206 and ended the 1369 so either manipulation of the text has occurred or Toscanelli wasn’t what one can say a ‘brilliant’ geographer because in 1474, when this letter was written China wasn’t ruled by the Great Khan any more and the country wasn’t called Catai, the province of Mangi didn’t exist and Cambelec, Zaiton and Quinsai cities had other names.

Another fact that makes Toscanelli’s existence dubious is the fact that an historian called Herrera, in one of his latest studies about Casaus and specially in the chapter that refers to by whom was Columbus induced to the quest for the New World there is no reference to Toscanelli at all. According to Herrera, the man that induced Columbus to the discovery was no one else than Martin of Bohemia.

As we know how the censorship agents behaved cutting and adding its easier to believe that the truth is that those who manipulated Herrera’s and Ferran Colom’s books, did it based on an original missing today and containing a different name than the legated. Which one then?

All we know is that the writer was a friend of Colom and that he should have known a lot of cosmography. It happens that the unique letter sent to Columbus by a cosmographer which critics haven’t yet turned down for not being original is Jaume Ferrer de Blanes’s one. This letter once again is the translation of an now lost original one in Catalonian tongue for there is no lack of references showing the origin like phrases like “this our Spain” or the sharing of the same monarchs in “Our common lords”.

Also it should be taken into account the letter to the kings sent the 27th of January 1494 in which was written “I will always refer to those who know more than myself like the Admiral of the Indies who at tempore existente knows about this issues like no one else” which proves the friendship between both characters.

The fact that Ferrer was a top cosmographer of its time is being testimony by plenty of historians like Roselly de Lorgues and so is explained his involvement in the partition of the Atlantic Ocean between Spain and Portugal once legalized the discovery of the new lands. In fact, Ferrer creates the first world map including America which would be sent to the kings at 1495.

Being Ferrer who orientates, gives counsel and induces Columbus to the New World discovery it is not hard to imagine that he was a Catalonian himself. So Columbus was a Catalonian and Ferrer was a Catalonian. They are the one who organises the expedition and succeeds and the one that supervises the details and set the limits between Spain and Portugal. That discredits the traditional Spanish teachings “for Castile and Leon was America discovered by Colon”.

The facts since now dismantle the prejudice that America’s discovery was reserved to Castile. Why should Ferdinand the 15th of August 1494 write to his deputies on Catalonia, Majorca and to the viceroy of Sicily all belonging to the kingdom of Aragon asking them for the search of sailors, cosmographers and expert astrologers to give their opinion about the Atlantic division then?

To close the chapter then we can conclude that the cosmographer that was intentionally erased form Casaus, Ferran Colom and Herrera’s books couldn’t be no other that Jaume Ferrer de Blanes and that was intentionally erased because of his Catalonian condition, because his old and compromising relation with the different states of the Aragon Kingdom and because of his proved and old friendship with the Admiral.

» 5.- The great Mediterranean port of Palos de Moguer

Casaus compiles Columbus words in “I came to the village of Palos sea port where I loaded three vessels very adequate to the purpose and leaved the port provided with very suppliers and sea people” but in another says “he left the river called Saltes, for it is called like that the river of Palos”. Saltes was yet then and since two centuries before an inhabited island. Plus that “river in Palos” that Casaus mentions has never before mentioned.

Otherwise, there are a great number of chroniclers of the age that record Columbus leaving land neither from Palos nor Saltes but from Cadis.

In the below annexed text:

This wide range of choices is yet again showing that the censors shaded the name of the original port and that they where more worried of making it disappear than synchronising the invented substitute port.

The historian Bilbeny has demonstrated that Columbus didn’t leave from Palos but from Pals de l’Emporda instead. The documents speak about a military fortress in Palos but there was never one there. Nor there is any archaeological remaining evidence today. Pals de l’Emporda though still conserves today all traces of a fortified medieval town. Sometimes a picture is worth more than words:

[imatges - Pals General History of the Castilian quests cover. 1) where it is clearly seen that the official Palos is Pals de l’Emporda]

Another evidence is the fact that other chroniclers like Piri Reis (1513) and Alfonso Garcia de Matamoros (“De Academia et Doctis Viris Hispaniae”, 1553) tell us that the first expedition of the discovery “ … in reaching the Strait of Ceuta and having sailed four thousand miles”. There is clearly not 4000 miles from Palos de Moguer to the Strait of Gibraltar. There is about 4000 miles from Pals de l’Emporda to the Strait of Ceuta though.

Also if you ever have been in Palos de Moguer you will see with your eyes that the supposed river from where the three vessels leaved land doesn’t exceed what you can call a torrent.

Yet more evidence is that is being told that from Palos de Moguer is from where Columbus returned to Barcelona to be received by the kings. Numerous historians compiled the fact that Columbus went from the landing point to Barcelona walking. That he did in three days because the kings gave him the order dated the 30th of March and he arrived the 3rd of April. This makes sense with the receiving that the Catholic Kings gave to Columbus in Saint Jeronimus of the Mutra’s monastery in Barcelona. Should have been true that he came from Palos rather than Pals de l’Emporda he must have done an average of 14 Km hour.

It was at the Mas Sunyol, a house close to the monastery where according to the chroniclers he was allocated and slept. In 1990 the historian Francesc Albardane, stealing from the Notary archive from Barcelona, found a document in which was written that this house belonged to the Colom family in Barcelona. The discoverer slept at his home.

» 6.- The sailors invented at purpose

With the sailors the pattern in consistent: their names disappear, and are being substituted afterwards by Spaniard sailors who either went to America far later or never went at all because where the result of the censors imagination.

Despite Casaus says that they where all from Palos Roselly de Lorgues has demonstrated that none of the crew of the Santa Maria where from Palos.

There is a clear fact though: the fact that the text “List of the people who went with Columbus in his first voyage” is a copy of 1498, that is not signed by the Admiral, that there is a missing page, that only forty of the hundred and twenty original sailors are in it and that only ten of them are mentioned previously by other sources induces at least at being suspicious.