"…Christopher Columbus, the most illustrious of all the pioneers of the New World. Columbus had his enemies. He has been vehemently assailed. The writer has endeavored to give a perfectly correct account of his character and career…" -John S.C. Abbott, Preface, 1875 American historian John S.C. Abbott wrote The Life of Christopher Columbus (1875) as part of his American Pioneers and Patriots series. Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) Italian explorer and colonizer, whose four transatlantic voyages (1492-93, 1493-96, 1498-1500, and 1502-04) opened the New World for European exploration and colonization of the Americas.