Over five centuries after Christopher Columbus’s death, we take a fresh look at what motivated the famed explorer to make his voyage across the Atlantic. Jamaica, the luscious Caribbean island that was then the home to descendants of Spanish and Portuguese Jews who converted to Roman Catholicism and sought a safe haven from the inquisition.

Many of the signs of heresy and deemed as witchcraft found in the Inquisition can be related to pagan traditions, and rituals concerning an ancient alchemic relationship to nature. That said, in Roman Catholic countries, the courts insisted on burning witches. In Protestant lands, they were mainly hung.