Editing Christopher Columbus (section)

== Later life, illness, and death ==
[[File:The death of Columbus.jpg|thumb|left|''The death of Columbus'', lithograph by [[Louis Prang|L. Prang & Co.]], 1893]]

Columbus had always claimed that the [[Conversion (religion)|conversion]] of non-believers was one reason for his explorations, and he grew increasingly religious in his later years.<ref name="RiveraPagán1992">{{cite book |last1=Rivera |first1=Luis N. |last2=Pagán |first2=Luis Rivera |title=A Violent Evangelism: The Political and Religious Conquest of the Americas |date=1992 |publisher=Westminster John Knox Press |isbn=978-0-664-25367-7 |page=5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N2Y-wARCI7UC&pg=PA5}}</ref> Probably with the assistance of his son Diego and his friend the [[Carthusian]] monk Gaspar Gorricio, Columbus produced two books during his later years: a ''[[Book of Privileges]]'' (1502), detailing and documenting the rewards from the Spanish Crown to which he believed he and his heirs were entitled, and a ''[[Book of Prophecies]]'' (1505), in which passages from the Bible were used to place his achievements as an explorer in the context of [[Christian eschatology]].<ref name="Watts1985">{{cite journal |last1=Watts |first1=Pauline Moffitt |title=Prophecy and Discovery: On the Spiritual Origins of Christopher Columbus's "Enterprise of the Indies". |journal=The American Historical Review |date=1985 |volume=90 |issue=1 |page=92 |jstor=1860749 |issn=0002-8762}}</ref>

In his later years, Columbus demanded that the [[Crown of Castile]] give him his tenth of all the riches and trade goods yielded by the new lands, as stipulated in the [[Capitulations of Santa Fe]].<ref name="González-Sánchez2006" /> Because he had been relieved of his duties as governor, the Crown did not feel bound by that contract and his demands were rejected. After his death, his heirs sued the Crown for a part of the profits from trade with America, as well as other rewards. This led to a protracted series of legal disputes known as the {{lang|es|[[pleitos colombinos]]}} ('Columbian lawsuits').<ref name="McDonald2005">{{cite book |last1=McDonald |first1=Mark P. |title=Ferdinand Columbus: Renaissance Collector (1488–1539) |year=2005 |publisher=British Museum Press |isbn=978-0-7141-2644-9 |page=41 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bCfrAAAAMAAJ&q=%221790%22}}</ref>

[[File:IL CONSOLE USA IN VISITA ALL’UNIVERSITÀ DI PAVIA (28250236188).jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|The remains of Christopher Columbus preserved in the University Library of [[Pavia]]]]
During a violent storm on his first return voyage, Columbus, then 41, had suffered an attack of what was believed at the time to be [[gout]]. In subsequent years, he was plagued with what was thought to be [[influenza]] and other fevers, bleeding from the eyes, temporary blindness and prolonged attacks of gout. The attacks increased in duration and severity, sometimes leaving Columbus bedridden for months at a time, and culminated in his death 14 years later.

Based on Columbus's lifestyle and the described symptoms, some modern commentators suspect that he suffered from [[reactive arthritis]], rather than gout.<ref name=UMD /><ref name=Hoenig>{{cite journal |last1=Hoenig |first1=Leonard J. |title=The Arthritis of Christopher Columbus |journal=Archives of Internal Medicine |date=1 February 1992 |volume=152 |issue=2 |pages=274–277 |doi=10.1001/archinte.1992.00400140028008 |pmid=1472175}}</ref> Reactive arthritis is a joint inflammation caused by intestinal bacterial infections or after acquiring certain sexually transmitted diseases (primarily [[chlamydia]] or [[gonorrhea]]). In 2006, Frank C. Arnett, a medical doctor, and historian Charles Merrill, published their paper in ''The American Journal of the Medical Sciences'' proposing that Columbus had a form of reactive arthritis; Merrill made the case in that same paper that Columbus was the son of Catalans and his mother possibly a member of a prominent {{lang|es|[[converso]]}} (converted Jew) family.<ref name="ArnettMerrill2006">{{cite journal |last1=Arnett |first1=F. |last2=Merrill |first2=C. |last3=Albardaner |first3=Francesc |last4=Mackowiak |first4=P. |title=A Mariner with Crippling Arthritis and Bleeding Eyes. |journal=The American Journal of the Medical Sciences |date=September 2006 |volume=332 |issue=3 |page=125 |doi=10.1097/00000441-200609000-00005 |pmid=16969141 |s2cid=6358022}}</ref> "It seems likely that [Columbus] acquired reactive arthritis from food poisoning on one of his ocean voyages because of poor sanitation and improper food preparation", says Arnett, a [[rheumatologist]] and professor of internal medicine, pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston.<ref name=UMD>{{cite press release |title=Christopher Columbus Suffered From a Fatal Form of Arthritis |publisher=University of Maryland School of Medicine |date=6 May 2005 |url=http://www.nahfoundation.org/news-and-events/news-releases/2005/christopher-columbus-suffered-from-a-fatal-form-of-arthritis |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180123072824/http://www.nahfoundation.org/news-and-events/news-releases/2005/christopher-columbus-suffered-from-a-fatal-form-of-arthritis |archive-date=23 January 2018}}</ref>

Some historians such as H. Micheal Tarver and Emily Slape,<ref name="TarverSlape2016">{{cite book |last1=Tarver |first1=H. Micheal |last2=Slape |first2=Emily |editor1-last=Tarver |editor1-first=H. Micheal |editor2-last=Slape |editor2-first=Emily |title=The Spanish Empire: A Historical Encyclopedia [2 volumes]: A Historical Encyclopedia |year=2016 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-61069-422-3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1LCJDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA143 |page=143}}</ref> as well as medical doctors such as Arnett and Antonio Rodríguez Cuartero,<ref name="ElUniversal2007">{{cite news |title=Esclarecen causas de muerte de Cristóbal Colón |url=https://archivo.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/408828.html |access-date=2 February 2022 |work=El Universal |date=25 February 2007 |language=es}}</ref> believe that Columbus had such a form of reactive arthritis, but according to other authorities, this is "speculative",<ref name="ScottGalloway2015">{{cite book |last1=Scott |first1=Ian C. |last2=Galloway |first2=James B. |last3=Scott |first3=David L. |title=Inflammatory Arthritis in Clinical Practice |year=2015 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-1-4471-6648-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gC-TBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA4 |page=4}}</ref> or "very speculative".<ref name="RitchlinFitzGerald2007">{{cite book |last1=Ritchlin |first1=Christopher T. |last2=FitzGerald |first2=Oliver |title=Psoriatic and Reactive Arthritis: A Companion to Rheumatology |date=2007 |publisher=Elsevier Health Sciences |isbn=978-0-323-03622-1 |page=132 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RN-B2g2YjmAC&pg=PA132}}</ref>

After his arrival to Sanlúcar from his fourth voyage (and Queen Isabella's death), an ill Columbus settled in Seville in April 1505. He stubbornly continued to make pleas to the Crown to defend his own personal privileges and his family's.{{Sfn|Cuartero y Huerta|1988|p=74}} He moved to [[Segovia]] (where the court was at the time) on a mule by early 1506,<ref name="Kadir1992193">{{cite book |last1=Kadir |first1=Djelal |title=Columbus and the Ends of the Earth: Europe's Prophetic Rhetoric as Conquering Ideology |year=1992 |publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley, California |pages=193–194 |url=https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft1n39n7x0&chunk.id=d0e1397&toc.depth=1&toc.id=d0e1380 |chapter=Chapter VII Making Ends Meet: The Dire Unction of Prophecy}}</ref> and, on the occasion of the wedding of King Ferdinand with [[Germaine of Foix]] in [[Valladolid]], Spain, in March 1506, Columbus moved to that city to persist with his demands.<ref>{{Cite journal |url=http://institucional.us.es/revistas/rasbl/16/art_9.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://institucional.us.es/revistas/rasbl/16/art_9.pdf |archive-date=9 October 2022 |url-status=live |page=74 |first=Baltasar |last=Cuartero y Huerta |year=1988 |title=Los Colón en la Cartuja |journal=Boletín de la Real Academia Sevillana de Buenas Letras: Minervae Baeticae |volume=16<!-- |pages=67–152-->}}</ref> On 20 May 1506, aged 54, Columbus died in Valladolid.{{sfn|Dyson|1991|p=194}}