Iglesia de Santa María Madalena, Isla do Pico

QUEST OF THE CARIBBEAN ™

For the entire 15th century, a prophecy had circulated that “the restorer of the House of Mt. Zion will come from Spain. ” For hundreds of years, the holy sites of Jerusalem had been held captive by the Muslims. But according to ancient prophecy, that day would soon end. And Columbus believed he would be part of making it happen. In his a pursuit, and beyond doubt, Columbus sailed to fulfill a religious quest. Columbus’s voyages were intense religious missions. He saw them as the fulfillment of a divine plan for his life—and for the soon-coming end of the world. As he put it in 1500, “God made me the messenger of the new heaven and the new earth of which he spoke in the Apocalypse of St. John [Rev. 21:1] after having spoken of it through the mouth of Isaiah; and he showed me the spot where to find it. ”

Columbus thought that Ferdinand and Isabella were God’s chosen instruments to recapture Jerusalem and place the Holy City under Christian control. This was not some sidelight in Columbus’s mind; it was a central passion. As scholar Pauline Moffitt Watts has written, “This was Columbus’s ultimate goal, the purpose of all his travels and discoveries—the liberation of the Holy Land. ” The Crusaders Book of Secrets, written in the early fourteenth century, said it would take 210,000 gold florins to mount a new crusade. If Columbus could find enough gold in the Indies especially if he could find the lost mines of Solomon, which were known to be in the East—he could pay for a Holy Land crusade. That is what started his quest...

The Knights Templar by the end of the 14th century had established effectively an monarch, an international identity with its head, the Grand Master, exercising the role of sovereignty. Having established a system of banking from England to the Levant, vast agricultural holdings, and a military and naval force, the people of their communities enjoyed relative peace, better nutrition and ability to travel.   The King of France sought to plunder their wealth by an infamous inquistion that began on Friday the 13th, 1307. By 1312, a complicit Pope ordered the dissolution of the Order, and Europe plunged into strife and famine. The Black Death, also known as the Great Plague, was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 75 to 200 million people in Eurasia and peaking in Europe from 1347 to 1351. People began looking for religous freedom, new lands, adventure, and food. The completed conquest of Granada was the context of the Spanish voyages of discovery and conquest (Columbus got royal support in Granada in 1492, months after its conquest), and the Americas—the "New World"—ushered in the era of the Spanish and Portuguese colonial empires. The antillean isles would quickly follow...

During the Age of Discovery, the conquistadors were Knights that sailed beyond Europe to the Americas, Oceania, Africa and Asia, claiming territory and opening trade routes. They colonized much of the world for Britain, Spain, the Dutch Republic, and Portugal in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. In what has become known as the Columbian Exchange, Columbus’ voyages enabled the exchange of plants, animals, cultures, ideas (and, yes, disease) between the Western and Eastern Hemispheres. Once the Europeans were able to reach nearly all parts of the globe, a new modern age would begin, transforming the world forever.

Much has been published of Columbus' connections with the Knights Templar. He was married to a daughter of a former Grand Master of the Knights of Christ, a Portuguese order that had emerged after the Templars had been driven underground. It's been noted as significant that Columbus navigated ships whose sails carried the distinctive Red Cross 'patte' of the Templars.

Christopher Columbus was looking for a western route to the Orient, and he carried with him letters of introduction to the Great Khan of China. His mission was to convince the Great Kahn to join forces and reclaim Jerusalem under the Christian Flag. All of the significant Caribbean islands were first discovered by Knights (and Conquistadors) from Europe. Most people think in terms of the “Crusades” having been conducted in the Holy Land of Jerusalem from the eleventh through the thirteenth centuries. However, the Crusades actually continued throughout the sixteenth century into the New World.

Effectively, the crusades of the Americas were founded by the same religious, military Orders for the very reason of executing plans to explore the world, make contact with the Great Khan and mobilize an army to retake Jerusalem. Christopher Columbus and his voyages were backed and financed by the Brotherhood and the Church of Rome, with his ships' sails bearing Red Cross on a white background, the symbol of the Knights Templar.

The Hospitaller colonization of the Americas occurred during a 14-year period in which the Knights of St. John (Knights of Malta) possessed four Caribbean islands: Saint Christopher, Saint Martin, Saint Barthélemy, and Saint Croix.

The Knights' presence in the Caribbean grew out of their order's close relationship with the French nobility and the presence of many members in the Americas as French administrators. The key figure in their brief colonization was Phillippe de Longvilliers de Poincy, who was both a Knight of St. John and governor of the French colonies in the Caribbean. Poincy convinced the Knights to purchase the islands of the Lesser Antilles from the bankrupt Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique in 1651 and remained to govern them until his death in 1660. During this time, the Order acted as proprietor of the islands, while the King of France continued to hold nominal sovereignty.

Poincy was not only a naval admiral, but also an agronomist. He established the successful cultivation of sugar cane and by the end of the 17th century, St. Christopher and Nevis' exports of 'white gold' would exceed the gross products of the entire continental america. Spain plundered only for gold, while the rest of Europe sought stabile colonization and establishment of the New Jerusalem. The world's most beautiful tree, the Royal Poinciana, would later be named after him. Sir Poincy established the most beautiful estate, La Fontaine, known in the Caribbean with least assistance from mother France. The colonists of France in Britian were largely left to fend on their own. Each island was left to create its own mini-monarch, and that would include Pirate Republics. This is a large part of the untold history of the Caribbean. Read these web pages for the corrected perspective...