So Columbus's first journey, he made four, the last three of which were pretty calamitous, was tiny, and he initially landed on a small Caribbean island he called San Salvador in search, like the Portuguese, of gold and Christians. He was able to convince Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain to fund his expedition by promising riches and conversions of the natives, hopefully to sign them up for yet another crusade. And there's a long-standing myth that Columbus tricked Ferdinand and Isabella into paying for his trip, but in fact, they commissioned two different sets of experts to analyze his plans, both of which agreed he was crazy. One called the plan, impossible to any educated person. But even so, Ferdinand and Isabella footed the bill, partly because they were full of crusading zeal after expelling the Muslims from Spain, and partly because they were desperate to get their hands on some of that pepper richness. Columbus of course failed at finding riches. He returned with neither spices nor gold.