Why Columbia specifically?  Simple..........think about the rest of South America.......and what is there....................and if u had established shipping routes back to Western Europe..........and did not use the Pacific.........which they did of course...........but i am referring to what they most often did.........................well..........teh Inca empire..........Manchu Piccu...............Tavernier......in his book in the 1600s...........................6 Voyages to India........he never came to the Americas.........but his knowledge of gemstones was big............and he knew Columbia was the only place on earth that had emeralds........he also wrote about mines in Peru......diamond mines................so, the shipment of artifacts from the Inca empire...........or any Brazilian culture............Bolivia.......etc........deeper into South America................might be shipped to Columbia...........by a mule............by the Amazon river.......by horse...............etc.............and put on a ship at a port in Columbia............Barriciquilla..........etc................and then sent back to western europe using the gulf stream......................sometimes they used different routes i am sure............but, from the map alone......i would pass east of Jamaica and between Cuba and Haiti........................think what that would mean nowadays.................and pirates...........and they hung pirates if they caught them..........they strung up Will Kidd in London i think.............in front of everyone as an example what would happen.................nwo think..........Disneyland and Disneyworld..................the ride Pirates of the Carribean..............i rode that thing when i was like 9 years old................then Disney Corp.......released 3 movies.................about the British East India company..............Jonny Depp.............get it????  Tom Sawyer island........in Disneyland or world..............the haunted manshion.....................mr toad's wild ride.............the bear gamboree............singing bears with banjos..........Tennesse...........teh American Illuminati...........u don't think that there were American pirates...........????  Robert E. Lee's father i don't think ever met the super star confedate general.........he left to the Carribean.......................to raise hell.............................