Christopher Columbus: The Age Of Discovery Christopher . - Weebly

Christopher Columbus: The Age of Discovery 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.” Starting in about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped along the African coast, carrying spices, gold, slaves and other goods from Asia and Africa to Europe. Christopher Columbus: Early Life Christopher Columbus, the son of a wool merchant, was born in Genoa in about 1451. When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a merchant ship. He remained at sea until 1470, when French privateers attacked his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast. The boat sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a scrap of wood and made his way to Lisbon, where he studied mathematics, astronomy, cartography and navigation. He also began to hatch the plan that would change the world forever. Christopher Columbus: The First Voyage 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 navigator’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 only possible but comparatively easy. He presented his plan to officials in Portugal and England, but it was not until 1491 that he found a sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. 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 Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. On October 12, the ships made landfall--not in Asia, as Columbus assumed, but on one of the Bahamian islands. 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 March 1493, leaving 40 men behind in a makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), he returned to Spain. Christopher Columbus: Legacy Christopher Columbus did not “discover” the Americas, nor was he even the first European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorers had sailed to Greenland and Newfoundland in the 11th century.) However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration and exploitation on the American continents. The consequences of his explorations were severe for the native populations of the areas he and the conquistadores conquered. Disease and environmental changes resulted in the destruction of the majority of the native population over time, while Europeans continued to extract natural resources from these territories. Today, Columbus has a mixed legacy—he is remembered as a daring and pathbreaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually devastate the native populations he and his fellow explorers encountered

Factors favoring Europe European explorers started to lead the way in global exploration, timidly hugging the coasts at first, but gradually getting bolder and striking out across the open seas. There were four main factors that led to Europeans opening up a whole new world at this time. Portugal and Spain led the way in early exploration for two main reasons. First, they were the earliest European recipients of Arab math, astronomy, and geographic knowledge based on the works of the second century A.D. geographer, Ptolemy. Second, their position on the southwest corner of Europe was excellent for exploring southward around Africa and westward toward South America. 1. The rise of towns and trade along with the Crusades in the centuries preceding the age of exploration caused important changes in Europeans' mental outlook that would give them the incentive and confidence to launch voyages of exploration in three ways. First, they stimulated a desire for Far Eastern luxuries. Second, they exposed Europeans to new cultures, peoples and lands. Their interest in the outside world was further stimulated by the travels of Marco Polo in the late 1200's. 2. Medieval religious fervor also played its part. While captains such as Columbus, da Gama, and Magellan had to rely on their own skills as leaders and navigators, they also had an implicit faith in God's will and guidance in their missions. In addition, they felt it was their duty to convert to Christianity any new peoples they met. Once again we see Renaissance Europe caught in the transition between the older medieval values and the new secular ones. Together they created a dynamic attitude that sent Europeans out on a quest to claim the planet as their own. 3. Europe’s geographic position also drove it to find new routes to Asia in three ways. First of all, Europe's geographic position at the extreme western end of the trade routes with the East allowed numerous middlemen each to take his cut and raise the cost of the precious silks and spices before passing them on to still another middleman. Those trade routes were long, dangerous, and quite fragile. It would take just one strong hostile power to establish itself along these routes in order to disrupt the flow of trade or raise the prices exorbitantly. For Europeans, that power was the Ottoman Empire. The fall of the Byzantine Empire and the earlier fall of the crusader states had given the Muslims a larger share of the trade headed for Europe. Thus Europe's disadvantageous geographic position provided an incentive to find another way to the Far East. 4. Ships and navigation technology had seen some dramatic leaps forward. The most striking of these was the compass, which had originated in China around 200 B.C. This allowed sailors to sail with much greater certainty that they were sailing in the right direction. Instruments such as the quadrant, crosstaff, and astrolabe allowed them to calculate latitude by measuring the elevation of the sun and North Star, although the rocking of ships at sea often made measurements taken with these instruments highly inaccurate. Columbus, one of the best navigators of his day, took readings in the Caribbean that corresponded to those of Wilmington, North Carolina, 1100 miles to the north! As a result of such imperfect measurements, sailing directions might be so vague as to read: "Sail south until your butter melts. Then turn west." Compounding this was the lack of a way to measure longitude (distance from east to west) until the 1700's with the invention of the chronometer.

Ferdinand Magellan Ferdinand Magellan was born in 1480 in Sabrosa, Portugal to Rui de Magalhaes and Alda de Mesquita. Because his family had ties to the royal family, Magellan became a page to the Portuguese queen after his parents' untimely deaths in 1490. This allowed him the opportunity to become educated and learn about the various Portuguese exploration expeditions- possibly even those conducted by Christopher Columbus. Similar to his predecessor Columbus, Magellan believed that the Spice Islands could be reached by sailing west through the New World. He proposed this idea to Manuel I, the Portuguese king, but was rejected. Looking for support Magellan moved on to share his plan with the Spanish king. On March 22, 1518, Charles I was persuaded by Magellan and granted him a large sum of money to find a route to the Spice Islands by sailing west, thereby giving Spain control of the area, since it would in effect be "west" of the dividing line through the Atlantic. Using these generous funds, Magellan set sail going west toward the Spice Islands in September 1519 with five ships (the Conception, the San Antonio, the Santiago, the Trinidad, and the Victoria) and 270 men. The Early Portion of the Voyage Since Magellan was a Portuguese explorer in charge of a Spanish fleet, the early part of the voyage to the west was riddled with problems. Several of the Spanish captains on the ships in the expedition plotted to kill him but their plans were never realized and many of them were held prisoner and/or executed. In addition, Magellan had to avoid Portuguese territory since he was sailing for Spain. After months of sailing across the Atlantic Ocean, the fleet anchored at what is today Rio de Janeiro to restock its supplies on December 13, 1519. From there, they moved down the coast of South America looking for a way into the Pacific. As they sailed farther south however, the weather got worse so the crew anchored in Patagonia (southern South America) to wait out the winter. As the weather began to ease in the spring, Magellan sent the Santiago on a mission to look for a way through to the Pacific Ocean. In May, the ship was wrecked and the fleet did not move again until August 1520. Then, after months of exploring the area, the remaining four ships found a strait in October and sailed through it. This portion of the journey took 38 days, cost them the San Antonio (because its crew decided to abandon the expedition) and a large amount of supplies. Nevertheless, in the end of November, the remaining three ships exited what Magellan named the Strait of All Saints and sailed into the Pacific Ocean. Later Voyage and Magellan's Death From here, Magellan mistakenly thought it would only take a few days to reach the Spice Islands, when it instead took four months, during which time his crew suffered immensely. They began to starve as their food supplies were depleted, their water turned putrid, and many of the men developed scurvy. The crew was able to stop at a nearby island in January 1521 to eat fish and seabirds but their supplies were not adequately restocked until March when they stopped in Guam. On March 28, they landed in the Philippines and befriended a tribal king, Rajah Humabon of Cebu Island. After spending time with the king, Magellan and his crew were persuaded into helping the tribe kill their enemy Lapu-Lapu on Mactan Island. On April 21, 1521, Magellan took part in the Battle of Mactan and was killed by Lapu-Lapu's army. Magellan's Legacy Though Magellan died before the voyage was completed, he is often credited with the first circumnavigation of the earth as he initially led the voyage. He also discovered what is now called the Strait of Magellan, named the Pacific Ocean, and South America's Tierra del Fuego. Magellanic Clouds in space were also named for him, as his crew was the first to view them while sailing in the Southern Hemisphere. Most important to geography though, was Magellan’s realization of the full extent of the earth- something that significantly aided in the development of later geographic exploration and the resulting knowledge of the world today.