People

The next article in the “Disruptive Technologies, Inspired Inventions, and the Latter-day Gathering of Israel” series. To see the previous article, CLICK HERE.

When Moroni concluded the record which we now know as The Book of Mormon: A New Testament of Christ, he buried the record on a hillside in what is now upstate New York. The book was to play an essential role in the Restoration, declaring a witness of Christ to all the world and serving as the keystone for the restored Church of Jesus Christ. But the record was hidden on a continent that was “kept…from the knowledge of other nations” (2 Nephi 1:8), a continent that would remain unknown to the rest of the world until 1492.

Until that time, as Orson Hyde noted, “the history and record of a fallen people, containing light….and truth from heaven, were buried in the soil of the Western Continent; and although engraven on golden leaves in a strange and unknown tongue, still they must come forth.”[1] The coming forth of The Book of Mormon was essential to the Restoration, and that could not happen until the continent where the record was hidden became known to the rest of the world.

Christopher Columbus was probably not the first European to sail to the Americas. But, as the historian Paulo Taviani noted, “only with Columbus’s undertaking did Europe, Islam, India, China, and Japan learn of the existence of a New World. And that changed the course of human history.”^[2] I think it is fair to say that no sea voyage of any man in all of recorded history since Noah changed the world more than the great voyage of discovery of Christopher Columbus. Columbus unlocked what Noah had locked away – the Promised Land of the Americas.

Columbus’s achievement came from a combination of inspiration, skill, and determination. He was, by all accounts, the greatest mariner of his age, “an exceptionally gifted sailor,” as Taviani put it. The son of a wool weaver, Columbus was quick to credit God for his extraordinary seamanship: “I prayed to the most merciful Lord concerning my desire…and he gave me abundant skill in the mariner’s arts.”[3] In fact, the entire idea to attempt an ocean crossing came from inspiration: “With a hand that could be felt, the Lord opened my mind to the fact that it would be possible to sail from here to the Indies, and he opened my will to desire to accomplish the project. This was the fire that burned within me.”[4]

Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press was an important element in Columbus’s success. Gutenberg published his edition of the Bible just a few years after Columbus was born, giving Columbus access to the “marvelous illumination from his sacred Holy Scriptures.” He added, “The scriptures urge me to press forward with great haste.”[5] The proliferation of books in the second half of the Fifteenth Century enabled Columbus to expand his knowledge. There are over 2,500 margin notes in the surviving volumes Columbus’s library. And, as noted in a previous article, the new printing industry made it possible to inform all of Europe and the entire Old World of Columbus’s achievement.

Columbus did something that seemed impossible to achieve with the technology of the day. Part of his genius was the use of grid system – a simple blank chart divided vertically by longitudinal lines and horizontally by latitudinal lines. The idea was not his, but was suggested to him by a Florentine intellectual, Paulo dal Pozzo Toscanelli. The power of this idea was that it reduced the unknown ocean to a finite series of measured grid spaces. In a letter to Pope Alexander VI in 1502, Columbus wrote, “I traveled ten lines into the other hemisphere.”[6] While this seems like a simple idea in retrospect – nearly all maps today contain a grid system – it was a key factor, a simple but powerful technology, which enabled Columbus to launch an era of deep ocean navigation: sailing into unknown waters without a defined destination or nearby land mass.

But perhaps the most disruptive technology introduced by Columbus was a key piece of navigational knowledge, a discovery that would connect the Old and New Worlds: the Atlantic trade wind patterns. Prior to his historic 1492 voyage, Columbus had sailed north beyond England and south to present day Ghana. He recognized that the southerly winds blew from east to west and probably provided reliable winds to cross the ocean. But more important, he noted that at northern latitudes the winds blew from west to east, suggesting that a northerly route could bring a ship back across the ocean to Europe. By unlocking the secret of the trade winds, Columbus was not only able to successfully cross the ocean and return but made it possible for any competent mariner to replicate his voyage, thus opening an era of trans-Atlantic trade that reshaped the world in ways that are difficult to fully comprehend.

Some of these changes impact our everyday lives in ways we never think about. Imagine, for example, Thai cuisine without hot chili peppers, Italian cuisine without tomatoes, France without French fries, or Europe without chocolate. Yet prior to 1492, all these foods were found only in the Americas.

The globalization of crops and foods is only a small manifestation of the changes which resulted from what historians have termed the Columbian exchange. His voyage reshaped the world politically and economically. Spain, a near-bankrupt amalgam for four different kingdoms, emerged in a single generation to rule an empire that reached around the globe from Europe to the Americas to the Philippines. The Spanish dollar, minted from silver taken from the mines in Peru and Mexico, became the first great world currency – it was still legal tender in the United States when the pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847.

But perhaps of greatest importance is that Columbus’s achievement made possible the ultimate translation and publication of the record of Christ’s visit to ancient America and the restoration of the gospel in the last days.

Christianity in Europe has faded over the centuries since Columbus but has flourished in the lands he discovered. The Americas are today the great stronghold of Christianity – even the Pope is an Argentine! And of even greater significance, more than 8 out 10 members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints live in the Americas.

Columbus was driven by the need to preach the gospel to all the world. He knew from his study of scripture that this was not only a commandment, but a necessary precursor to the Second Coming of the Savior. He recognized that the people he had found in the Americas were the “other sheep” spoken of in John 10:14, and that they too must receive the message of Christ. He was convinced that the discovery of the New World would open the last great age of the world and culminate with Second Coming.

 In retrospect, the discovery of the Atlantic trade winds and the practical use of a grid system for navigating unknown waters seem like almost minor achievements, but they set in motion of series of events that did, indeed, open the great last age of the world and enabled the gospel to be preached to all nations, kindreds, tongues, and peoples.

NEXT: An English Clockmaker Solves a Centuries-Old Problem and Opens a New Era of Global Connection.

[1] Orson Hyde, JD 7:108

[2] Paolo Emilio Taviani, Columbus: The Great Adventure (New York, 1991).

[3] Christopher Columbus, Libro de las Profecias, translated by West and Kling, p. 105.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Christopher Columbus, Textos y Documentos Completos, edited by Gil and Varela, p. 479.