Christopher Columbus’ Lunar Eclipse, and Other Brazen Bluffs From History

15. Predicting an Eclipse to Overawe Natives

The New World ended up named after another explorer, Amerigo Vespucci. Amerigo mapped South America’s eastern shore down to Brazil, and demonstrated conclusively that Columbus had not reached Asia, but hitherto unknown lands. A German mapmaker labeled the New World “America” after Amerigo. His maps were quite popular, so the name America stuck and spread. As to Columbus, one of the more remarkable stories about him in those days revolves around his manipulating Natives by predicting an eclipse. The gist is that he was marooned in an island, and got into trouble with the locals. To intimidate them, he exploited a fortuitously timed eclipse predicted in an almanac, and pretended that he possessed supernatural powers that enabled him to remove the Moon and Sun from the sky. It is a plot straight out of an old-timey Hollywood movie or a cheesy adventure novel, but is it fact or fiction?

14. Birth of a Trope

There is historic evidence that Columbus actually predicted an eclipse to manipulate Natives. It birthed centuries’ worth of stories about Europeans overawing indigenous peoples with eclipse predictions. It began On June 30^th, 1503, when Columbus had to beach a damaged fleet in Jamaica. The locals were initially friendly, and fed and sheltered the castaways. However, that state of affairs did not last for long. As the days turned to months, Columbus and his men began to wear out their welcome. Despite the fact that they relied upon the Natives for their sustenance, Columbus’ sailors often got grabby with the local women and molested them. They also abused the men and treated them with contempt. So the locals grew less friendly. Finally, after six months of rising tensions and tempers, Columbus’ crews mutinied, attacked their hosts, and committed various robberies and murders.

13. Upsetting the Hosts

Understandably, getting attacked by Columbus’ men did not improve the locals’ opinion of the new arrivals. So they stopped bringing food to Columbus and his men. Faced with starvation and the possibility that the enraged Natives might fall upon the marooned men to massacre them, a desperate Columbus got an idea. It hit him while killing time leafing through an almanac, the Almanach Perpetuum, by Abraham Zacuto, that contained astronomical charts of solar and lunar eclipses from 1475 to 1506. Columbus noticed that a total lunar eclipse was due shortly, on the night of February 29^th, 1504. Armed with that foreknowledge, he arranged a meeting with the Native chieftain. Columbus stated that the Christian God was angry with the Natives for not feeding the new arrivals, and that, as seen below, He would demonstrate his wrath in alarming ways.

12. Predicting God’s Wrath to Bluff the Natives Into Obedience

Columbus informed the Natives that his furious God would demonstrate His anger three nights hence by turning the moon blood red – “inflamed with wrath“, as Columbus put it. He would then blot it out as a harbinger of the calamities He was about to unleash upon the indigenous peoples. They did not believe him, and laughed off the dire warnings. They stopped laughing when what they had dismissed as fiction turned into fact. On the night of February 29^th, 1504, just as Columbus’ had told them, the moon turned red and began to disappear. As recounted by Columbus’ son, the terrified Natives: “with great howling and lamentation came running from every direction to the ships laden with provisions and beseeching the admiral to intercede with his god on their behalf“. They promised to cooperate if Columbus restored the moon back the way it was.

11. A Masterful Bluff

Columbus told the locals that he would have to check with his God and see if He was in a forgiving mood. He retired to his cabin, and timed things with an hourglass. At the eclipse’s peak, he emerged to announce that he had interceded with God, who had agreed – just this once – to forgive the indigenous people. The moon began to reappear just as Columbus finished talking. From then on, the Natives leant over backwards to be helpful, and kept Columbus and his crew supplied and well fed. The castaways spent a leisurely time for the remainder of their stay in Jamaica, until rescue ships took them off the island months later.

10. The Journey From Real Life to Overused Fiction Device

Columbus’ experience with Jamaica’s indigenous people gave rise to numerous fictional variations in the centuries since. Mark Twain, for example, had his protagonist in A Connecticut Yankee in King’s Arthur’s Court predict a solar eclipse to save himself from getting burned at the stake. H. Rider Haggard used it in King Solomon’s Mines to have his hero secure help from natives by predicting a lunar eclipse. However, for all its overuse in fiction and film, the trope has a basis in fact, based on an event that actually did happen at least once in real life.

9. Napoleon’s Advance on Vienna

Napoleon Bonaparte conducted the Ulm Campaign in 1805, a series of brilliant maneuvers that culminated in the capture of an entire Austrian army. Austria’s Russian allies had sent forces, but they arrived too late to prevent the surrender at Ulm. So the Russians retreated to the north bank of the Danube. There, they hoped that a river between them and the pursuing French might allow them the opportunity to catch their breath and regroup. To keep the French on the opposite side of the Danube, all bridges that spanned the river were either blown up, or were rigged with explosives for instant detonation to prevent their capture by Napoleon’s forces. In the meantime, as the French neared the Austrian capital of Vienna on the Danube, peace negotiations were underway.

8. The Need for a Bridge Across the Danube

The Austrians did not immediately blow up Vienna’s bridges as the French neared the city – a decision they came to regret thanks to an idiot commander in charge of one of those bridges. As peace discussions between the French and their Austrian and Russian opponents took place, the authorities in Vienna refrained from blowing up the city’s bridges because they did not want to cast a pall over the negotiations. They also figured that if the negotiators reached a settlement, then the destruction of the bridges would prove unnecessary. So Vienna’s bridges were prepared for detonation if the French tried to seize them, but left standing. One such was the Tabor Bridge, entrusted to a Count Karl Joseph Franz von Auersperg.

7. A Bridge Rigged to Explode

Unfortunately for the Austrians, Count Auersperg was a fool, and fell for a ruse that allowed the French to seize his bridge. It began as the French army advanced upon Vienna, amidst a mood of uncertainty. The war was still on, but because negotiations were underway, all involved knew that the hostilities might end at any moment with an armistice and peace treaty. It was against that backdrop that the French vanguard neared the Tabor Bridge on November 13^th, 1805, and stopped. The French forces halted in front of the Tabor Bridge were led by two of Napoleon’s more daring generals, Joachim Murat and Jean Lannes. The duo wanted to cross the Danube, but knew that the bridge was rigged was explosives and would be destroyed if they tried to forcibly storm and seize it. So they decided to seize it by bluff.

6. Bluff and Brains When Brawn Won’t Do

French generals Lannes and Murat casually ambled to the Tabor Bridge, and behaved in a carefree manner. As confused Austrian guards aimed their muskets at their breasts, Murat and Lannes laughed and expressed their pleasure at the “just concluded” armistice and peace treaty. Once they reached the bridge’s far side, still seemingly without a care in the world, the French generals asked to see Count Auersperg, and wondered if he had already gone to attend the peace signing ceremony. As a messenger was sent to fetch Auersperg, Lannes and Murat chatted with the guards to divert their attention from the French soldiers casually crossing the bridge. An Austrian sergeant correctly suspected that Murat and Lannes were trying to pull a fast one, so he lit the fuse to the rigged explosives in order to blow up the bridge.

5. A Successful Bluff that Captured Vienna

General Lannes extinguished the fuse lit by the Austrian sergeant, berated him for trying to destroy public property, then sat on a cannon as he smoked a pipe. When Count Auersperg arrived, he bought the Frenchmen’s story. When the suspicious Austrian sergeant protested, Murat, just as daring as Lannes, berated Auersperg for his soldiers’ indiscipline, and for allowing an underling to mouth off and jeopardize the armistice. Auersperg was browbeaten into arresting the sergeant, before he turned control of the bridge over to the French. They used it to cross the Danube, and less than a month later crushed the combined Austro-Russian armies at Austerlitz, the masterpiece battle of Napoleon’s career. A court martial convicted the hapless Auersperg of incompetence and negligence, stripped him of his rank and honors, and sentenced him to be shot. Luckily for him, the sentence was commuted, and he was eventually pardoned.

4. The British Advance on Fort Detroit

Early in the War of 1812, British General Isaac Brock marched on Fort Detroit. He led a force of 1330 men, comprised of 330 Redcoats, 400 Canadian militia, and 600 Native Americans, supported by three lights guns, five heavy guns, two mortars, and two warships. Detroit was defended by an American force nearly twice the size of Brock’s, comprised of 600 US Army regulars and nearly 2000 militia, sheltered within the protective walls of a fortress that had more than thirty cannons. The garrison was commanded by an American Revolutionary War veteran and hero, General William Hull. Brock learned from captured messages that American morale was low, that the fort was short of supplies, and that his enemies were terrified of his Native American allies. Emboldened by that information, Brock decided to immediately attack Detroit, and exploited the Americans’ fear of Indians.

3. Bluff and Deception to Further Demoralize a Foe

Brock arranged for a misleading letter to fall into American hands. It greatly exaggerated the number of his native allies from an actual 600 to a fanciful 5000. He also tricked the Americans to believe that he commanded more regulars than was the case, by dressing his Canadian militia in castoff British regimental uniforms. Outside Detroit, he had the same troops march in a loop over the same stretch within eyesight of the garrison. Once they had been spotted – and presumably counted – by Detroit’s defenders, the British forces ducked out of sight, and returned to march anew as if they were fresh reinforcements. Brock also ordered his troops to light five times as many fires at night than was the norm, in order to further convey an illusion of greater strength. General Hull’s already low confidence collapsed at the prospect of facing a strong British army accompanied by 5000 Natives.

2. Doubling Up on the Bluff and Psychological Pressure

Brock sent Hull a message demanding surrender. He informed the American commander that he did not want to massacre the defenders, but that he would have little control over his Indian allies once fighting commenced. Hull believed that he faced hopeless odds, and was unwilling to sacrifice his men in futile resistance. He also feared for the women in children inside the fort, including his own daughter and grandchild. So he raised a white flag and asked Brock for three days to negotiate the terms of surrender. The British general kept up the psychological pressure on Hull, and gave the American garrison commander only three hours instead of the requested three days before he would attack. Hull caved, and surrendered his entire command of nearly 2500 men, three dozen cannons, 300 rifles, 2500 muskets, and the only American warship in the Upper Lakes. The British suffered only two men wounded.

1.     A Bluff That Helped Save Canada From American Conquest

The surrender of Fort Detroit was a military disaster for the US. Among other things, it derailed plans to invade and seize Canada early in the war, before the British had time to rush in reinforcements. It also reinvigorated the Canadians, who had been pessimistic about the prospects of defending Canada from forcible annexation by the US. Additionally, it fired up Native Americans in the Northwest Territory to war against US outposts and settlers. An American invasion of Canada was attempted later on, but by then the British and loyal Canadians were better prepared and more confident, and forced the invaders back across the border. As to General Hull, after his release from British captivity, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to be shot. However, his life was spared out of consideration for his heroism decades earlier during the American War of Independence.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

British Museum – Furst Karl Joseph Franz von Auesperg

Elting, John Robert – Amateurs, to Arms! A Military History of the War of 1812 (1995)

History Collection – This Day in History: Guy Fawkes Cheats the Hangman

IEEE Spectrum – Columbus’ Geographical Miscalculations

Live Science – Top 5 Misconceptions About Columbus

Maude, Frederic Natusch – The Ulm Campaign, 1805 (1912)

Mikaberidze, Alexander – Kutuzov: A Life of War and Peace (2022)

Space – How a Total Lunar Eclipse Saved Christopher Columbus

Zaslow, Morris – The Defended Border: Upper Canada and the War of 1812 (1964)