# The Columbiad — Character guide

> Key figures in The Columbiad by Joel Barlow.

- [Christopher Columbus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_columbiad_se/characters/christopher_columbus.md): Columbus opens the poem as a prisoner in Valladolid, sweating the chill sod while Ferdinand sleeps untroubled above him, his crown gemmed by the very voyages that earned his admiral a cell. His monologue measures the gul
- [Hesper](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_columbiad_se/characters/hesper.md): Hesper watches from his far heaven as Frost congeals the Delaware and the trapped fleet stands moveless in crystal, then descends in a flamy car to contest the elemental war for Hesperia's right. He fights not with words
- [Manco Capac](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_columbiad_se/characters/manco_capac.md): Manco Capac appears in the vision of the Americas as the civilizing patriarch of Peru, the sacred parent whose reign began when the Sun in pity taught the lone tribes to abandon imaginary powers and feuds. He stands oppo
- [Dread Lawrence](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_columbiad_se/characters/dread_lawrence.md): Lawrence moves through the poem's darker rites as a figure of restrained sorrow, the parent or leader whose composure under unbearable loss marks him as much as any victory. He confronts Rocha and the afflicted chief ove
- [Muhammad](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_columbiad_se/characters/muhammad.md): The prophet of Islam, referenced as a historical and religious leader in the epic's scope.
- [Washington](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_columbiad_se/characters/washington.md): Washington enters the vision first in his young martial frame, beginning his fame at the field where Braddock falls, then strides into the future as the general whose audacious night crossing of the Delaware surprises th
- [Wise Capac](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_columbiad_se/characters/wise_capac.md): Wise Capac belongs to the poem's gallery of American lawgivers, the Inca sovereign whose wisdom stands alongside Manco Capac's founding reign in the vision of the continent's past. He embodies the ordered, sun-reverencin
- [Greene](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_columbiad_se/characters/greene.md): Greene belongs to the hard middle stretch of the poem's war, the years when American fortunes in the South hang on maneuver rather than glory. His genius is defensive and stubborn: he trades ground for time, keeps an out
- [Sage Franklin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_columbiad_se/characters/sage_franklin.md): Franklin stands among the poem's elected sires, the men nursed in equality who rule by paternal hand and reason's page. Where soldiers supply force, he supplies the argument that rights belong to the people and that virt
- [The sweet Lucinda](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_columbiad_se/characters/lucinda.md): Lucinda moves through the poem as an emblem of the beautiful and the good, the domestic grace set against blazing towns and groaning prison ships. She is less a plotted actor than a lodestar: the warmth that makes the ha
- [Zamor](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_columbiad_se/characters/zamor.md): Zamor belongs to the poem's vision of America before and during conquest, when painted warriors pour down from the darken'd heights and the streams run purple. He carries the tragedy of the continent's first peoples, who
- [Burgoyne](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_columbiad_se/characters/burgoyne.md): Burgoyne arrives in the poem as the embodiment of Britain's overreach, marching a fine army into country that swallows it. His defeat at Saratoga becomes the hinge that brings France into the war, and the poet grants him
- [Cornwallis](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_columbiad_se/characters/cornwallis.md): Cornwallis drives the poem's late military movement, chasing success through the Carolinas until Greene's attrition and the closing French and American armies pen him against the sea. Barlow calls him brave and lets him 
- [Columbia](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_columbiad_se/characters/columbia.md): Columbia presides over Barlow's prophetic pageant as the living spirit of the western world, the figure in whom the poem's scattered hopes for liberty finally take shape. She embodies the tension between the bloodstained
- [Garcilasso de la Vega](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_columbiad_se/characters/garcilasso_de_la_vega.md): The Inca-Spanish historian, appearing as a narrator or source of Peruvian history.
- [Herkimer](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_columbiad_se/characters/herkimer.md): Nicholas Herkimer, an American general mortally wounded at the Battle of Oriskany.
- [Rocha](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_columbiad_se/characters/rocha.md): A young character, possibly a native or Spanish figure, involved in the New World narrative.
- [Oella](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_columbiad_se/characters/oella.md): A maternal or nurturing figure, possibly an Inca queen or allegorical mother.
- [Bartholomew de las Casas](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_columbiad_se/characters/bartholomew_de_las_casas.md): The Spanish friar and historian, defender of indigenous rights, appearing as a moral voice.
- [Britannia](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_columbiad_se/characters/britannia_wolfe.md): The personification of Britain and General James Wolfe, victor at Quebec.
- [Arnold](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_columbiad_se/characters/arnold.md): Arnold appears among the heroes of the American war, celebrated for daring deeds before his infamous betrayal shadows the record. Barlow grants him courage without absolving him, letting the reader feel how thin the line
- [Ferdinand](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_columbiad_se/characters/ferdinand.md): King Ferdinand of Spain, sponsor of Columbus's voyage, appearing as a royal patron.
- [Montgomery](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_columbiad_se/characters/montgomery.md): General Richard Montgomery, American hero killed at the Battle of Quebec.
- [Isabella](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_columbiad_se/characters/isabella.md): Queen Isabella of Spain, who supported Columbus's expedition, appearing as a regal figure.
- [Atlas](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_columbiad_se/characters/atlas.md): The Titan who holds up the sky, used as a mythological reference in the poem.
- [Howe](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_columbiad_se/characters/howe.md): General William Howe, British commander during the American Revolution.
- [Francis de Bovadilla](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_columbiad_se/characters/francis_de_bovadilla.md): A Spanish colonial administrator who replaced Columbus as governor of Hispaniola.
- [Nicholas de Ovando](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_columbiad_se/characters/nicholas_de_ovando.md): Spanish governor of Hispaniola who succeeded Bovadilla and opposed Columbus.
- [Drake](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_columbiad_se/characters/drake.md): Sir Francis Drake, English sea captain and explorer of the New World.
- [Atabalipa](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_columbiad_se/characters/atabalipa.md): Atahualpa, the last Inca emperor, executed by Francisco Pizarro.
- [Sir William Johnson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_columbiad_se/characters/sir_william_johnson.md): British superintendent of Indian affairs in the American colonies.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_columbiad_se/characters