15. Historic Support for Christopher Columbus’ Eclipse Story Being Fact Rather than Fiction
Armed with foreknowledge of an upcoming lunar eclipse, Christopher Columbus arranged a meeting with the Arawaks’ chieftain, and told him that the Christian God was angry with the natives for not feeding the new arrivals. He informed the Arawaks that his furious God would demonstrate His wrath three nights hence by turning the moon blood red – “inflamed with wrath“, as Columbus put it. He would then blot it out as a harbinger of the calamities He was about to unleash upon the natives.
The Arawaks did not believe him and laughed off the dire warnings. They stopped laughing when what they had dismissed as fiction turned into fact. On the night of February 29, 1504, just as Columbus’ had told them, the moon turned red and started disappearing. According to Columbus’ son, the terrified Arawak: “with great howling and lamentation came running from every direction to the ships laden with provisions and beseeching the admiral to intercede with his god on their behalf“. They promised to cooperate if Columbus restored the moon back the way it was.