would make one forever young and El Dorado would make one forever rich
(not to mention the implications of an encounter with the Amazon women),
there was a greater value still in finding the ten lost tribes. In addition to
prophecies that promised their return at the end of days, the possibility of an
encounter with the ten tribes had a deeper theological dimension. Their
horizon of possibilities was a place where time, geography, and prophecy met.
It is now well known that not only the Christianization of conquered
peoples but deeper theological considerations and aspirations accompanied
(perhaps better, “enveloped”) European expansion and colonization virtually
from the start. Literary scholar Djelal Kadir has shown, for instance, that
Columbus saw himself as a “divine instrument in the eschatological plot of
providential history.” The great Spanish Dominican theologian Bartolome ́de
las Casas ( 1484 – 1566 ) commented on Columbus’s invocation of Isaiah (in his
letter on the third voyage): “since Isaiah was a prophet, he could have well been
prophesying the discovery of the New World.”^16 Isaiah’s prophecies, particular-
ly those foretelling the end of days, the unification of humanity, and the
restoration of world peace, occupy a major place in Columbus’s Libro de
Profecı ́as,a text that reveals Columbus to be intimately familiar with biblical
prophecies and to have understood his biography as the fulfillment of them.^17
In the selections Columbus made for this book, he meant to show that his
discovery was “no mere accident, but an integral part of providential history.”^18
Columbus came to view his accomplishment as “not so much a ‘discovery’ but
a revelation—an important step in uncovering God’s plan.”^19 As Columbus
pondered his voyages, his “eschatological awareness” became more acute, and
he sought a “historic and theological context in which he could locate his
geographical discoveries.”^20
Historian Pauline Watts has shown that Columbus was particularly inter-
ested in the prophecies of the medieval mystic Joachim di Fiore ( 1135 – 1202 )
concerning the restoration of Jerusalem to Christian hands: “He who will
restore the ark of Zion will come from Spain.”^21 “In Columbus’s mind,”
concludes Watts, “the New World was identified with the end of the world.”^22
That end of the world was closely associated with the ten tribes. Columbus was
likely familiar with Joachim’s view that the fall of Jerusalem into “Saracen”
captivity was nothing less than a repetition of the fall of the ten tribes into
Assyrian captivity.^23
The “islands of the sea,” identified by Isaiah as a place from which the ten
tribes would return, were particularly significant for Columbus, who quoted
Isaiah 11 : “It will happen on that day the Lord will extend his hand a second
time to gather up the remainder of his people from Assyria, Egypt, Patros,
Ethiopia, Elam, Shinar, Hamath, and from the islands of [the] sea; etc.”^24 But
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