{My Bad}, I Helped Columbus Discover America

Hello. My name is Alonso de la Torre. You may not have heard of me before, and that’s my bad, because had I stopped Christopher Columbus from getting off that boat, maybe you would know my name instead of that directionally challenged fool.

So, there we were going across the Atlantic Ocean in our boats: La Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria. We spent over 3 months on those boats, making our way over to “Asia” so that we could trade spices and gold with them.

The seas had been rough most of the trip, and our food supplies were not the most varied. There was a lot of dried beef, like a lot a lot. And it was so dry, you can’t even imagine the dryness. But despite the food inadequacies, I stuck through it because I believed in Mr. Columbus, despite what others like Rodrigo or Humberto said. That Rodrigo never shut his trap! Or at least he didn’t shut it until he got the scurvy. We told him he should eat some lemons, but all he did was criticize Columbus all day long, so he didn’t have time for the lemons.

I wish I had listened to Rodrigo though. Scurvy or not, he turned out to be the right one, while I let Christopher walk right onto those islands knowing damn well Asian people don’t look like that. Also, Asia is not a small island! Why would he think the Bahamas were the Indies?! Those are two very different land masses. The guy was supposed to be a top notch sailor for Christ’s sake!

If I had known that our arrival would lead to the demise of an entire civilization, I definitely would have said something to keep him on the boat. I figured at worst he would make a fool of himself, maybe get the crew kicked off any future Spanish ships, but there were always the Portuguese or British to work for. So, like I said earlier, my bad, really.