Through the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), the two countries agreed to move the line further west and give Portugal exclusive right to the territory to the east. In May 1493, very soon after Columbus returned from his first voyage, they persuaded Pope Alexander VI to issue an edict giving Spain all lands west of an imaginary line through the Atlantic. Ferdinand and Isabella were anxious to protect their claims to the new lands. He made two additional voyages: between 14 to the Caribbean and the northern coast of South America, and between 15 to the coast of Central America.Ĭolumbus's success created the potential for conflict between Spain and Portugal. During his second voyage, Columbus explored the islands that are now called Puerto Rico and Jamaica and established the first permanent Spanish settlement on Hispaniola. Ferdinand and Isabella financed a much larger expedition with seventeen ships and more than twelve hundred men soon after his return to Spain. Over the next several months, he explored the island that is now Cuba and another island he named Hispaniola (Santo Domingo), where he came across the first significant amount of gold. Columbus set sail with three small ships and a crew of eighty‐seven men on August 2, 1492, and made landfall on October 12 on an island in the Bahamas that he called San Salvador. With the Reconquistacomplete and Spain a unified country, Ferdinand and Isabella could turn their attention to overseas exploration. In 1492, Granada, the last Muslim stronghold on the Iberian Peninsula, had fallen to the forces of the Spanish monarchs. With influential supporters at court, Columbus convinced King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain to partially underwrite his expedition. The Portuguese rejected his plan twice, and the rulers of England and France were not interested. Either because of his arrogance (he wanted ships and crews to be provided at no expense to himself) or ambition (he insisted on governing the lands he discovered), he found it difficult to find a patron. Like other seafarers of his day, Columbus was untroubled by political allegiances he was ready to sail for whatever country would pay for his voyage. Ignorant of the fact that the Western Hemisphere lay between Europe and Asia and assuming the earth's circumference to be a third less than it actually is, he was convinced that Japan would appear on the horizon just three thousand miles to the west. Grant Administration Reconstruction EndsĬhristopher Columbus, a Genoese sailor, believed that sailing west across the Atlantic Ocean was the shortest sea route to Asia.Resistance to and the Defense of Slavery.Antebellum America: Recreation, Leisure. Economic Growth and Development 1815–1860.Chesapeake Colonies: Virginia, Maryland.Seventeenth Century Colonial Settlements.Portuguese Explorations and West Africa. Aware that an eclipse was imminent, writes Washington Irving in "The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus," the Admiral "shut himself up in his cabin, as if to commune with the Deity, and remained there during the increase of the eclipse the forest and shores all the while resounding with the howlings and supplications of the savages." Once the eclipse had passed, he and his men were granted gifts and provisions by the natives. For example, when faced with a scarcity of provisions, he applied his knowledge of astronomy to deceive American natives and make them believe he possessed supernatural powers. Throughout the journals of Columbus, the author even refers to himself with esteem, as the "Admiral of the Ocean Sea." Furthermore, Columbus was eyed with awe by indigenous folk of the Americas. He was viewed as noteworthy, despite the fact that he had failed to discover fields of treasure. One of the reasons Columbus was permitted to voyage to the Americas more than once is because of the acclaim he enjoyed following his initial discovery of America.
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