Christopher Columbus (1451-1506)
According to the National Park Service, humans began to migrate into what is now North and South America at least 16,500 years ago. The most widely believed theory is that humans traveled to North America over icy terrain called the Bering Land Bridge between what is now the outer rim of Siberia and Alaska. Around ten thousand years ago, as the earth warmed, this ice bridge became the Bering Sea, leading human civilizations to live independently of each other, on different sides of the planet, for thousands of years.
In the early eleventh century, a Norseman named Leif Eriksson of Greenland sought to explore areas to the west, likely because of stories told by Icelandic traders. He reached an island he called Vinland, what is now the Canadian island of Newfoundland, the first known European to discover North America.
Little came of this discovery. No settlements were formed and there were no known interactions of note with native people. Leif Eriksson never made another trip, and there is no evidence to suggest he knew he stumbled upon a new continent. The world waited another four hundred years for this to occur.
In fifteenth-century Europe, a new age dawned – the Age of Discovery. Trade between different regions of the known world – Europe, Asia, and Africa – brought the desire for new spices, precious metals, silk, teas, and many different materials and goods not available in abundance in Europe. The monarchs of Europe sought to establish access to these new goods, most of which were found in various parts of Asia.
This desire to reach Asia was only heightened by the stories of Venetian Marco Polo in the late thirteenth century of his time in the court of the Mongol ruler Kublai Khan. The wealth described by Polo in his stories became enticing for many Europeans.
Those who sought better ways to trade different goods between peoples knew that it was the oceans and seas that could bridge this gap. In 1488, Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias became the first seafarer to successfully navigate the Cape of Good Hope around the southern tip of Africa. While an important achievement, this was a perilous journey at the time, and the search continued for new ways to travel from Europe to Asia by sea.
Those brave enough to venture into the unknown to find new routes to Asia by sea would be rewarded with fame and fortune. European monarchs wanted their share of new wealth, so they sponsored explorers to take to the seas to find new trade routes.
One of these explorers was the son of a wool weaver from Genoa, Italy, named Christopher Columbus. A trained seafarer and navigator from an early age, Columbus believed that the best way to travel to China or India was to sail west across the ocean. He believed this route would end on the east coast of Asia. While this was not a new idea, it was Columbus’ persistence in the viability of this belief that led him into history.
To accomplish his vision, Columbus needed the support of one of Europe’s seafaring powers to fund his voyage. In 1484, after failing to get the support of England, Columbus attempted to convince King John II of Portugal to support his westward sea voyage. In 1486, he made the same plea to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain. Both Portugal and Spain rejected the idea because neither felt it was feasible and would be a waste of money.
After six years of constant pleas from Columbus, the Spanish court changed its view and decided to fund Columbus’ trip. By 1492, the powerful Islamic Ottoman Empire had effectively closed land travel to the east for European Christians and made sea crossings difficult. Not only would Spain gain the advantage over its rival Portugal, gain new wealth, and potentially expand Spanish rule, but they could also spread Christianity to new lands to gain favor with the Pope in Rome at a time when Christianity and Islam were battling for global supremacy.
Christopher Columbus agreed to undertake his historic voyage west in the name of the Spanish monarchy. He was given three small ships and a crew of ninety to accomplish his voyage. He was allowed to keep ten percent of any gold he found, was to be given a noble title, and was to be declared the governor of any land he discovered.
For generations of American schoolchildren, the names of the three ships given to Columbus by the Spanish monarchy were memorized – the Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria. Columbus and his crew set out on August 3, 1492. He made an important early decision not to proceed due west from Spain but to first travel south to the Canary Islands off the northwest coast of Africa. This was done to use the northeast trade winds for their return voyage to Spain.
Columbus stayed on the Canary Islands for almost a month to leave at a time he felt would ensure the best conditions for success. On September 6, Columbus and his crew headed west into the unknown. He had the stars, the wind, a compass, a belief that the circumference of the earth was far smaller than it was, and maps that knew nothing of the landmass that became North and South America. He took a copy of Marco Polo’s book Travels with him, believing he would meet the descendants of Kublai Khan. He did not know that the Mongol empire had collapsed. His ships passed an erupting volcano on their way out, which was considered a bad omen by the crew.
Columbus is believed to have studied this 1489 map of the world by German geographer and cartographer Henricus Martellus before his first voyage in 1492. If this was his guide, one can see how blindly Columbus traveled.
For over a month, the three ships and their ninety men were in the open ocean with no land in sight. Their list of concerns was long: The men were in unexplored territory, they were fearful their compass readings were incorrect, they worried that seaweed would disable the rudders on the ships, they had no assurance there would be enough wind to get them to Asia or back to Spain, they did not know if they had brought enough provisions, they could not know what the weather would bring or whether the ships could withstand the elements, and they even feared encounters with unknown sea monsters.
As the days passed without a land sighting, even the most seasoned seafarers grew nervous about their troubling predicament. Where was Columbus taking them? The crew had doubts, and talk of mutiny against their captain spread after three weeks without any change.
The crew mistook low clouds on the horizon for land on multiple occasions. Columbus would not be deterred. He pressed on. Eventually, the crew saw more birds, a sign that land was near.
And then what many consider the most important moment in human history occurred. Worlds that had been separated for thousands of years were separated no more. Land was spotted, and this time it was not low clouds on the horizon. It was an island. The date was October 12, 1492.
Columbus landed on an island he named “San Salvador,” meaning “Holy Savior,” which is one of the islands of the present-day Bahamas. A devout Christian, Columbus instructed his crew to treat the native Taíno with kindness before their historic contact. He believed he was in East Asia, an area he referred to as the “Indies.” Therefore, he referred to the Taíno as “Indians.”
The story of what happened next and in three subsequent visits to the “New World” made Christopher Columbus one of history’s most controversial figures. A journal Columbus kept on this first voyage has become the subject of much debate.
For most of American history, Columbus was regarded as the brave adventurer who set in motion the founding of the United States of America. In more recent times, Columbus has been charged with having brought every calamity one could think of to the native populations of the Western Hemisphere. Are these charges fair? The answer depends on how one views the benefits the United States and Western civilization have brought to the rest of the world. This story merits further discussion.