Brief History
Columbus's discovery of America was a wonderful mistake and accident. In the fifteenth century, Portugal was the dominant power in foreign adventures. Under Prince Henry, the Portuguese did much pioneering work on ocean voyages, but it seems counterintuitive that Spain and Columbus should be responsible for the first great discovery of America. More counterintuitively, Spain was ahead of America because the Portuguese had better geographical knowledge and correctly estimated that Columbus had been wrong about the distance to Asia across the Atlantic. By the fifteenth century it was no longer a myth that the earth was round, but the question was not whether it was round or square, but its size and the exact position of the continents relative to the oceans. |
Based on Marco Polo's estimate of the width of the Asian continents and Ptolemy's estimate of the circumference of the earth, Columbus concluded that the ocean separating Europe from Japan was no wider than 3,000 miles. In fact, Marco Polo vastly overestimated the distance between Japan and the Asian continents (he put it at 1,500 miles), and Ptolemy underestimated the circumference of the earth. Columbus therefore mistakenly believed that the quickest way to get to Asia was to cross the Atlantic Ocean, and this was his plan to lobby the various courts. The Portuguese, with their greater knowledge and experience, were convinced that the earth was larger and the oceans wider than Columbus had suggested, and that they could reach the East faster by circumnavigating Africa than by crossing the Atlantic. So when Columbus asked the Portuguese king for money in 1484, he was turned down. Two years later, Columbus arrived at the Spanish court. He was also rejected at first, but eventually won over Queen Isabella
On August 3, 1492, Columbus set sail with three galleons from Cape Palos, Spain. On September 6, the expedition left behind the Canary Islands and sailed into the open sea. The journey was smooth, but as the days passed, the crew began to fret. To assuage their anxiety, Columbus lied about his voyage. Then they found birds, but there was still no land on the horizon. Columbus also began to worry, because by his calculations, he would be in Japan by this time. On October 9th he almost gave up, promising to return within three days without seeing land again. Fortunately, just before the three days were up, the observatory spotted a small island in the Bahamas that Columbus named SAN Salvador.
One of the great ironies of world history is that Columbus thought he had arrived in Asia until he died. He was sure that SAN Salvador was very close to Japan, so the next step was to find Japan. When he sailed southwest to the American continent, he believed he had reached some place near the Strait of Malacca. It was an illusion, but it led to important results -- it encouraged further exploration of North and South America until large fortunes were found in Mexico and Peru. Spain was a small resource-rich country with few attractive goods to trade with easterners, and the huge amounts of gold excavated in the Americas gave Spain the capital to trade with the East. If the Spaniards had realized from the beginning that they had only stumbled upon a new world far from the Asian continent, it would have been entirely possible for them to leave this wilderness, which at first seemed neither attractive nor profitable. In that case, the American continent might have been ignored for decades, not least because Da Gama of Portugal had, in the meantime, opened a highly advantageous route from the Cape of Good Hope to India.
The Spanish monarchy firmly supported Columbus, spending large sums of money to equip him with three other expeditions. But it wasn't until 1518 that the Spanish stumbled upon the rich Aztec empire in Mexico. It was almost a quarter of a century from Columbus's first expedition to his unexpected discovery. During this time there were repeated disappointments as the Spanish explored countless islands in the West Indies that seemed to have no future. On his first voyage, Columbus explored Cuba and Haiti. In 1493 he left Spain with a fleet of seventeen sailing ships. His purpose on this voyage was to establish a colony on the bottom of the sea and use it as a base for further voyages to nearby Japan and India.
But in spite of all his efforts to explore the West Indies, he never found any country that looked anything like the eastern kingdoms he was looking for. To make matters worse, Columbus, though an expert navigator, was a poor administrator. He was a failure as governor of the new colony of Haiti; When he returned to Spain in 1496, the natives were in revolt and the colonies were in turmoil. Two years later Columbus embarked on a third voyage, this time discovering the island of Trinidad and the mouth of the Orinoco river. However, when Haiti again erupted in turmoil, his governor-general was removed from office, his successor sent him back in chains, and his monarch continued to support him, sending him on his fourth and final voyage in 1502. He explored a long stretch of coastal land off Honduras and Costa Rica, but still saw no sign of China. The Spanish monarch wisely refused to support him further; He died in 1506 full of resentment, though not poverty
Columbus's great discovery at first seemed like a great failure. Thousands of adventurers flocked to the West Indies, only to find disappointingly small amounts of gold. The discovery of the American continent did, however, provoke a direct reaction of great significance. It spurred the Portuguese to sail around Africa and all the way to India.
There are historical records of the first to the americas is red beard Eric (Eirikr he ð I, 950-1003), the vikings, who founded a colony in Greenland, his son, ruffle, eriksson (Leiv Eiriksson, about 970-1020) years in North America established some colonial Vinland, its position is presumably could be Newfoundland, Canada.
Greenland remained a colony for more than 500 years, with more than 4,000 Europeans arriving. Later, due to climate change, some colonies were abandoned.
There are historical records of the first to the americas is red beard Eric (Eirikr he ð I, 950-1003), the vikings, who founded a colony in Greenland, his son, ruffle, eriksson (Leiv Eiriksson, about 970-1020) years in North America established some colonial Vinland, its position is presumably could be Newfoundland, Canada.
Greenland remained a colony for more than 500 years, with more than 4,000 Europeans arriving. Later, due to climate change, some colonies were abandoned.
However, long before Columbus even arrived in America, Indigienous people had already been inhabiting the land for about 20,000 years. It is believed that up to 60 million natives were living in their hundreds of tribes prior to the European arrival, but by 1880, only 306,000 natives were recorded by the US Census. The decline in native population is no accident though. When he arrived in the New World, Columbus saw the Natives as obstacles in his path to conquering land and wealth. He and other colonists forced Natives to convert to Christianity and brought with them a whole host of diseases such as smallpox which plagued and killed thousands of indigenous people. The Natives were raped, abused, imprisoned, and killed by colonizers who only wished to steal their land and trades. Even today, Native women are more susceptible to sexual abuse because they are not regarded as equal members of society. According to a survey done by the Department of Justice, out of 2,000 Native women, 56% have experience sexual violence, 90% being at the hands of a non-native.
"These people are very unskilled in arms... with 50 men they could all be subjected and made to do all that one wished."
-Christopher Columbus
Following Columbus’ imperialistic methods, in the 1830’s, Andrew Jackson signed off on the Indian Removal Policy. In what we know as the Trail of Tears, the Cherokee Nation was forcibly removed off their land and relocated to present-day Oklahoma. As a result of a long and dangerous 5,000 mile trek, 4,000 of the 15,000 Natives died along the way and the Cherokee Tribe suffered immensely. A lesser known fact in history revolves around Native American schooling. Europeans wanted the Natives to act and dress more like them, so boarding schools were built for Indigneous youth with the primary objective of assimilating them into European culture. Their hair was cut and they were forced to wear European clothes and learn English. Speaking in their native tongue resulted in punishment. Many children were kidnapped, starved, and traumatized as their identity was stripped from them. Because white settlers wanted their land, Natives had to endure generations of pain and suffering as they were stripped of their culture and land for the benefit of Europeans. Natives still exist today, but their continued mistreatment is routinely excused and ignored because not enough attention or education has been brought to light. If more students were taught about the counter narrative and fully understood to what extent Natives were abused, then perhaps the government could not continue to abuse the tribes today and strip them of their land and rights.