Lecture 3 CCL N
Lecture 3 CCL N
The Discovery of America involves the voyages of discovery of many famous and
courageous explorers of America who undertook the 3000 mile journey from Europe to North
America across perilous, unchartered seas. These adventurous men were searching for:
During the 15th and 16th centuries, leaders of several European nations
sponsored expeditions abroad in the hope that explorers would find great wealth and
vast undiscovered lands. The Portuguese were the earliest participants in this “ Age
of Discovery” The explorer Christopher Columbus made four trips across the Atlantic
Ocean from Spain: in 1492, 1493, 1498 and 1502. He was determined to find a direct
water route west from Europe to Asia, but he never did. Instead, he stumbled upon
the Americas. Though he did not really “discover” the New World —millions of
people already lived there—his journeys marked the beginning of centuries
of exploration and colonization of North and South America.
When Christopher Columbus landed in America in 1942 the continent was populated by
people whom he called Indians, believing that he had reached the Indies when he landed on the
island of San Salvador. The area now covered by the United States was originally inhabited by
hundreds of Indian tribes, like the Sioux, the Apache and Navaho. Ferocious warriors, they
were often at war with one another. The American Indian has often been wrongly described as
a cruel and ignorant savage, but many of them had reached a high degree of civilization by the
time the white man came. There were probably 1.500.000 Indians in North America when
Columbus arrived. Some were hunters living on the Great Plains where they hunted the vast
herds of bison or American buffalo. Others practiced agriculture and among other things
cultivated maize, or Indian corn.
At the end of the 15th century, it was nearly impossible to reach Asia from Europe
by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were
difficult to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved this problem by taking to the sea:
They sailed south along the West African coast and around the Cape of Good Hope.
But Columbus had a different idea: Why not sail west across the Atlantic instead of
around the massive African continent? The young n avigator’s logic was sound, but
his math was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of the Earth was
much smaller than his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that
the journey by boat from Europe to Asia should be not o nly possible, but
comparatively easy via an as-yet undiscovered Northwest Passage.
He presented his plan to officials in Portugal and England, but it was not until
1492 that he found a sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of
Aragon and Isabella of Castile.Columbus wanted fame and fortune. Ferdinand and
Isabella wanted the same, along with the opportunity to export Catholicism to lands
across the globe. Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could
keep 10 percent of whatever riches he found, along with a noble title and the
governorship of any lands he should encounter.
On August 3, 1492, Columbus and his crew set sail from Spain in three ships:
the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. On October 12, the ships made landfall—
not in the East Indies, as Columbus assumed, but on one of the Bahamian islands,
likely San Salvador. For months, Columbus sailed from island to island in what we
now know as the Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver,
spices, and other objects and merchandise whatsoever” that he had promised to his
Spanish patrons, but he did not find much. In January 1493, leaving several dozen
men behind in a makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present -day Haiti and the
Dominican Republic), he left for Spain. Columbus died in 1506, still believing that he had
found a new route to the EastIndies.
Some people say Columbus discovered America or the "New World," but Vikings such
as Leif Eriksson had visited North America centuries earlier, and Native American tribes had
lived in the Americas for centuries before either Columbus or the Vikings arrived. Italian
explorer Amerigo Vespucci is best known for his namesake: the continents of North and South
America. But why were these continents named after him, especially since his voyages
happened after Christopher Columbus' famed 1492 sail on the ocean blue? Because, Vespucci
was the first person to recognize North and South America as distinct continents that were
previously unknown to Europeans, Asians and Africans. Prior to Vespucci's discovery,
explorers, including Columbus, had assumed that the New World was part of Asia. Vespucci
made his discovery while sailing near the tip of South America in 1501.