I just got back from a history lecture and my professor stated that Queen Isabella sold the crown jewels to pay for Columbus’s voyage. Is this true? How could a country like Spain at the time of the 15th century not be able to afford a simple voyage of three ships across the Atlantic?
Okay this is beyond false. One she and Ferdinand had just conquered Granada so they had a lot of spoils on hand, although some of those went towards paying off the recently conquered Moors to leave. Two, they did not finance the whole voyage, only about half of it and some of that would have been based on lines of credit not cash currency.
See this older post
Also, Phillips and Phillips, The Worlds of Christopher Columbus pg 134