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COLUMBUS TEXT

Exploring the Americas

Christopher Columbus

Little is known about the early life of Columbus, but most scholars think that Columbus was born in Genoa, Italy, in 1451.

While still a young man, Columbus became a sailor on merchant vessels sailing from Genoa. When he was 25 years old, Columbus was shipwrecked off the coast of Portugal. Fortunately, he landed close to Prince Henry's center for navigators. Columbus decided to stay. For eight years Columbus read books about geography, history, and travel.

He studied the charts of Portuguese sailors who had sailed to Africa's West Coast.

By 1484, Columbus had developed a daring plan to reach Asia by sailing west ! He calculated that sailing west from Spain to India would be approximately 4,000 miles long. (It was actually closer to 11,000 miles !)
In 1484, Columbus asked the Portuguese rulers to pay for his voyage. When they refused, Columbus turned to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain. They rejected his idea at first, but finally, in 1492, agreed to pay for the trip.

On August 3, 1492, Columbus set sail from Palos, Spain, with three ships and 88 men.

After eight weeks at sea, the crew feared that they would never see land again. They were afraid that the strong east winds would prevent them from sailing back home. On September 24, Columbus made the following entry in his journal:
" I am having trouble with the crew,…complaining that they will never return home. They have said that it is insanity and suicidal on their parts to risk their lives following the madness of a foreigner [they were Spanish but Columbus was Italian]…I am told by a few trusted men (and these are few in number!) that if I persist in going onward, the best course of action will be to throw me into the sea some night."

Columbus was being threatened by his men, but Columbus continued sailing west. Two hours after midnight on October 12 ( two very long months after they set sail) land was sighted.

At dawn, the sailors went ashore. They named the new land San Salvador and claimed it for Spain. San Salvador is a small island in the Bahamas, which is located about 50 miles off the coast of Florida.

Columbus had thought he had landed on an island off the coast of Japan (which he called Chipango) or China (which he called Cathay).

Columbus also visited two other islands: Hispaniola, and Cuba, which he believed to be a part of China.

People knew within 30 years of his trip that Columbus had not discovered a westward route to India. But everyone has continued to call the natives of America "Indians" and the islands he reached the "West Indies."

Excited about the lands and people he had discovered, Columbus began his homeward voyage in January 1493.

The Spanish in the Americas

When Columbus returned from his first voyage, the Spanish rulers were worried that the Portuguese would send ships to this new world and get rich too. So, the Spanish asked Pope Alexander VI to give them control of the sea routes and the lands where Columbus had visited.

The pope wrote a decree( a law) granting the Spanish control of all lands discovered (or to be discovered) by Columbus. He drew an imaginary line from north to south in the Atlantic. All land and sea west of the line would belong to Spain, and all land east of the line would belong to Portugal. In 1494, the rulers of the two countries signed the "Treaty of Tordesillas" to establish this boundary.

Rumors that the lands were rich with gold and silver attracted many Spanish adventurers to the Americas. Wherever they found riches, Spanish conquerors killed the native people and stole their treasures.

In the 1540s, the Spanish discovered silver deposits in Peru, on the Pacific coast of South America. They opened mines and forced the Indians to work in them.

Spain also sent explorers and colonizers (people who would set up new homes and farms to live in) to the new territories. The settlers were eager to make money. They set up plantations (large farms) to grow sugar cane, tobacco, and other crops for export (goods to send back) to Europe.These plantations required many workers to plant, harvest, and pack the crops. The Spanish colonists forced the Indians to do work. These workers were poorly fed, overworked, and beaten by the Spanish. Many died from this abuse.

Some Spanish priests, who attempted to convert the native peoples to Christianity by gentle means, tried to protect the Indians. However, these priests were few in number, and rarely succeeded.

The early colonists also carried European diseases, such as smallpox and measles.These diseases spread quickly through Central and South America, killing millions of the native inhabitants in the early 1500s.

Europeans in North America

Spain was only one of many European countries that explored the Americas. Around the year 1000, almost 500 years before Columbus's voyage, Vikings led by Leif Erickson landed in Newfoundland and explored part of the coast of North America. In the 1480s, European fishermen probably sailed near the coast of Canada in search of fishing grounds.

The English were the first to send explorers after Columbus. In 1497 John Cabot reached Newfoundland, which he thought was part of Asia. On a second voyage, he explored the coast of North America. When the English began to create colonies in North America in the 1600s, they claimed ownership of the areas Cabot had visited.

In 1513, Vasco de Balboa, sailing for Spain, crossed the Isthmus (narrow piece of land) of Panama and saw the Pacific Ocean.

From 1519 to 1521, a Spanish fleet under the command of Ferdinand Magellan made the first circumnavigation(or voyage around the earth).

You can trace Magellan's voyage on the map below.

By 1521, Balboa and Magellan had proved that a huge, newly discovered continent blocked the westward route to Asia. Explorers who followed were determined to find a way around or through that continent.

The hope of finding such a route, called the Northwest Passage, brought Europeans across the Atlantic Ocean.

In 1524, King Francis I of France sent an expedition to America.

The Italian commander of the voyage, Giovanni da Verrazano

sailed from the coast of present-day North Carolina north to Newfoundland.

The French explorer Jacques Cartier led another expedition.

In 1535, he sailed up the Saint Lawrence River to the future site of Montreal, Canada.

Verrazano and Cartier's voyages gave the French a claim to part of North America.
Europeans quickly realized that this huge new continent offered a wealth of resources: land, timber, minerals, and fur. Colonists from England, France, and Holland began to arrive in North America to farm, search for gold, trap animals for fur, or seek religious freedom.

Northern colonists had no need for cheap labor, so the natives were not harmed- as quickly.

But as more settlers came, more natives died from European diseases. And as more settlers claimed land, the Indians were pushed westward.

Europe loved sugar, so Caribbean Island plantations grew more and more of it. Holland, France, and England all wanted in on this valuable crop. With wealth from sugar, they became the major powers in Europe.

In this map you can see how active the European countries were in making discoveries and claiming land in the new world.

In this picture you can see what is called the "Columbian Exchange" - the exchange of foods, animals, wealth, and even diseases as the old world and the new world began to interact. And all of this was a result of the discovery of Christopher Columbus.