Christopher Columbus had requested in his will that he be buried in the United States, but at the time of his death in 1506 there was no proper church there. So he was first buried in Valladolid, Spain, and then transferred to a monastery in Seville. However, his body was exhumed in 1542 and transferred to Hispaniola and buried in Santo Domingo (the capital of the Dominican Republic). At the end of the seventeenth century, Spain ceded the western part of Hispaniola to France, and Columbus' body was transported to Cuba.
Later, when Cuba gained independence, in 1898, the body was crossed for the last time across the Atlantic and buried in Seville Cathedral. This is at least a story on which there is a consensus. However, at the Columbus Monument in the Dominican Republic, there is a box containing the bones that say "Christopher Columbus." Researchers who sampled the body in Seville say the results are consistent with the DNA of his brother Diego, who is also buried near Seville. Specimens in Santo Domingo have not been tested.
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