What name did the discoverers of the 15th century give to America? South America: the discovery and voyages of Christopher Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci. Four Expeditions of Columbus
The history of the discovery of America is quite amazing. These events took place at the end of the 15th century due to the rapid development of navigation and shipping in Europe. In many ways, we can say that the discovery of the American continent happened completely by accident and the motives were very banal - the search for gold, wealth, large trading cities.
In the 15th century, ancient tribes lived on the territory of modern America who were very good-natured and hospitable. In Europe, in those days, even then the states were quite developed and modern. Each country tried to expand its sphere of influence and find new sources of replenishment of the state treasury. At the end of the 15th century, trade and the development of new colonies flourished.
Who discovered America?
In the 15th century, ancient tribes lived on the territory of modern America who were very good-natured and hospitable. In Europe, even then the states were quite developed and modern. Each country tried to expand its sphere of influence and find new sources of replenishment of the state treasury.
When you ask any adult or child who discovered America, we will hear about Columbus. It was Christopher Columbus who gave impetus to the active search and development of new lands.
Christopher Columbus is the great Spanish navigator. Information about where he was born and spent his childhood is limited and contradictory. It is known that as a young man, Christopher was interested in cartography. He was married to the daughter of a navigator. In 1470, the geographer and astronomer Toscanelli informed Columbus of his assumptions that the route to India was shorter if one sailed west. Apparently, then Columbus began to hatch his idea of a short route to India, and according to his calculations, it was necessary to sail through the Canary Islands, and Japan would be close there.
Since 1475, Columbus has been trying to implement the idea and make an expedition. The purpose of the expedition is to find a new trade route to India across the Atlantic Ocean. To do this, he turned to the government and merchants of Genoa, but they did not support him. The second attempt to find funding for the expedition was made by the Portuguese King João II, however, even here, after a long study of the project, he was refused.
For the last time, he came to the Spanish king with his project. At the beginning, his project was considered for a long time, there were even several meetings and commissions, this lasted several years. His idea was supported by bishops and Catholic kings. But Columbus received final support for his project after the victory of Spain in the city of Granada, which was liberated from the Arab presence.
The expedition was organized on the condition that Columbus, if successful, would receive not only the gifts and riches of new lands, but also receive, in addition to the status of a nobleman, the title: Admiral of the Sea-Ocean and Viceroy of all the lands that he discovers. For Spain, a successful expedition promised not only the development of new lands, but also the opportunity to trade directly with India, since according to the treaty concluded with Portugal, Spanish ships were prohibited from entering the waters of the western coast of Africa.
When and how did Columbus discover America?
Historians consider 1942 to be the year of the discovery of America, although these are rather approximate data. Discovering new lands and islands, Columbus had no idea that this was another continent, which would later be called the “New World”. The traveler undertook 4 expeditions. He arrived to new and new lands, believing that these were the lands of “Western India”. For quite a long time everyone in Europe thought so. However, another traveler Vasco da Gama declared Columbus a deceiver, since it was Gamma who found a direct route to India and brought gifts and spices from there.
What kind of America did Christopher Columbus discover? It can be said that thanks to his expeditions since 1492, Columbus discovered both North and South America. To be more precise, islands were discovered that are now considered either South or North America.
Who discovered America first?
Although historically it is believed that it was Columbus who discovered America, but in fact this is not entirely true.
There is evidence that the “New World” was previously visited by the Scandinavians (Leif Eriksson in 1000, Thorfinn Karlsefni in 1008); this journey became known from the manuscripts “The Saga of Eric the Red” and “The Saga of the Greenlanders”. There are other “discoverers of America,” but the scientific community does not take them seriously because there is no reliable data. For example, America was previously visited by an African traveler from Mali - Abu Bakr II, a Scottish nobleman Henry Sinclair, Chinese traveler Zheng He.
Why was America called America?
The first widely known and recorded fact is the visit of this part of the “New World” by the traveler and navigator Amerigo Vespucci. It is noteworthy that it was he who put forward the assumption that this was not India or China, but a completely new, previously unknown continent. It is believed that this is why the name America was assigned to the new land, and not its discoverer, Columbus.
Columbus discovered America
The year this Spanish navigator discovered new land, is indicated in history as the 1492nd. And by the beginning of the eighteenth century, all other areas of North America, for example, Alaska and the regions of the Pacific coast, had already been discovered and explored. It must be said that travelers from Russia also made an important contribution to the exploration of the mainland.
Development
The history of the discovery of North America is quite interesting: it can even be called accidental. At the end of the fifteenth century, a Spanish navigator and his expedition reached the shores of North America. At the same time, he mistakenly believed that he was in India. From this moment begins the countdown of the era when America was discovered and its exploration and exploration began. But some researchers consider this date inaccurate, arguing that the discovery of a new continent occurred much earlier.
The year Columbus discovered America - 1492 - is not an exact date. It turns out that the Spanish navigator had predecessors, and more than one. In the middle of the tenth century, the Normans arrived here after they discovered Greenland. True, they failed to colonize these new lands, since they were repelled by the harsh weather conditions of the north of this continent. In addition, the Normans were also frightened by the remoteness of the new continent from Europe.
According to other sources, this continent was discovered by ancient sailors - the Phoenicians. Some sources call the middle of the first millennium AD the time when America was discovered, and the Chinese as the pioneers. However, this version also does not have clear evidence.
The most reliable information is considered to be about the time when the Vikings discovered America. At the end of the tenth century, the Normans Bjarni Herjulfson and Leif Eriksson found Helluland - “stone”, Markland - “forest” and Vinland - “vineyards” of land, which contemporaries identify with the Labrador Peninsula.
There is evidence that even before Columbus, in the fifteenth century, the northern continent was reached by Bristol and Biscay fishermen, who called it the island of Brazil. However, the time periods of these expeditions cannot be called the milestone in history when America was truly discovered, that is, it was identified as a new continent.
Columbus - a true discoverer
And yet, when answering the question of what year America was discovered, experts most often name the fifteenth century, or rather its end. And Columbus is considered the first to do this. The time when America was discovered coincided in history with the period when Europeans began to spread ideas about the round shape of the Earth and the possibility of reaching India or China along the western route, that is, through the Atlantic Ocean. It was believed that this path was much shorter than the eastern one. Therefore, given the Portuguese monopoly on control of the South Atlantic, obtained by the Treaty of Alcázovaz in 1479, Spain, always eager to gain direct contacts with eastern countries, warmly supported the expedition of the Genoese navigator Columbus in a western direction.
Honor of opening
Christopher Columbus was interested in geography, geometry and astronomy from an early age. From a young age, he took part in sea expeditions and visited almost all the then known oceans. Columbus was married to the daughter of a Portuguese sailor, from whom he received many geographical maps and notes from the time of Henry the Navigator. The future discoverer carefully studied them. His plan was to find sea route to India, but not bypassing Africa, but directly across the Atlantic. Like some scientists - his contemporaries, Columbus believed that, having gone west from Europe, it would be possible to reach the Asian eastern shores - those places where India and China are located. At the same time, he did not even suspect that on the way he would meet an entire continent, hitherto unknown to Europeans. But it happened. And from this time the history of the discovery of America began.
First expedition
For the first time, Columbus's ships sailed from Palos harbor on August 3, 1492. There were three of them. Before Canary Islands The expedition proceeded quite calmly: this section of the journey was already known to the sailors. But very soon they found themselves in a vast ocean. Gradually the sailors began to become despondent and begin to grumble. But Columbus managed to pacify the rebellious, maintaining hope in them. Soon signs began to appear - harbingers of the proximity of land: unknown birds flew in, tree branches floated up. Finally, after six weeks of sailing, lights appeared at night, and when dawn broke, a green picturesque island, all covered with vegetation. Columbus, having landed on shore, declared this land to be the possession of the Spanish crown. The island was named San Salvador, that is, the Savior. It was one of the small pieces of land included in the Bahamas or Lucayan archipelago.
The land where there is gold
The natives are peaceful and good-natured savages. Noticing the greed of those who sailed for the gold jewelry that hung in the noses and ears of the aborigines, they told with signs that in the south there was a land literally abounding in gold. And Columbus moved on. In the same year, he discovered Cuba, which, although he mistook it for the mainland, or rather, the eastern coast of Asia, he also declared it a Spanish colony. From here the expedition, turning east, landed in Haiti. Moreover, along the entire route the Spaniards met savages who not only willingly exchanged their gold jewelry for simple glass beads and other trinkets, but also constantly pointed to south direction, when asked about this precious metal. Which Columbus named Hispaniola, or Little Spain, he built a small fortress.
Return
When the ships landed in Palos harbor, all the inhabitants came ashore to greet them with honors. Columbus and Ferdinand and Isabella received him very graciously. The news of the discovery of the New World spread very quickly, and those who wanted to go there with the discoverer gathered just as quickly. At that time, Europeans had no idea what kind of America Christopher Columbus discovered.
Second trip
The history of the discovery of North America, which began in 1492, continued. From September 1493 to June 1496, the second expedition of the Genoese navigator took place. As a result, the Virgin and Windward Islands were discovered, including Antigua, Dominica, Nevis, Montserrat, St. Christopher, as well as Puerto Rico and Jamaica. The Spaniards firmly settled in the lands of Haiti, making them their base and building the fortress of San Domingo in its southeastern part. In 1497, the British entered into competition with them, also trying to find northwestern routes to Asia. For example, the Genoese Cabot, under the English flag, discovered the island of Newfoundland and, according to some reports, came very close to the North American coast: the peninsulas of Labrador and Nova Scotia. Thus, the British began to lay the foundation for their dominance in the North American region.
Third and fourth expeditions
It began in May 1498 and ended in November 1500. As a result, the island of Trinidad and the mouth of the Orinoco were discovered. In August 1498, Columbus landed on the coast already on the Paria Peninsula, and in 1499 the Spaniards reached the shores of Guiana and Venezuela, after which - Brazil and the mouth of the Amazon. And during the last - fourth - journey from May 1502 to November 1504, Columbus discovered Central America. His ships sailed along the coasts of Honduras and Nicaragua, reaching from Costa Rica and Panama all the way to the Gulf of Darien.
New continent
In the same year, another navigator, whose expeditions took place under the Portuguese flag, also explored the Brazilian coast. Having reached Cape Cananea, he put forward the hypothesis that the lands that Columbus discovered were not China, or even India, but a completely new continent. This idea was confirmed after the first trip around the world perfected by F. Magellan. However, contrary to logic, the name America was assigned to the new continent - on behalf of Vespucci.
True, there is some reason to believe that the new continent was named in honor of the Bristol philanthropist Richard America from England, who financed the second transatlantic voyage in 1497, and Amerigo Vespucci after that took his nickname in honor of the continent named so. To prove this theory, researchers cite the facts that Cabot reached the shores of Labrador two years earlier, and therefore became the officially registered first European to set foot on American soil.
In the mid-sixteenth century, Jacques Cartier, a French navigator, reached the shores of Canada, giving the territory its modern name.
Other contenders
Development of the continent North America continued by such navigators as John Davis, Alexander Mackenzie, Henry Hudson and William Baffin. It was thanks to their research that the continent was studied right up to the Pacific coast.
However, history knows many other names of sailors who landed on American soil even before Columbus. These are Hui Shen, a Thai monk who visited this region in the fifth century, Abubakar, the Sultan of Mali, who sailed to the American coast in the fourteenth century, the Earl of Orkney de Saint-Clair, the Chinese explorer Zhee He, the Portuguese Juan Corterial, etc.
But, in spite of everything, Christopher Columbus is the person whose discoveries had an unconditional impact on the entire history of mankind.
Fifteen years after the time when the ships of this navigator discovered America, the very first geographic map mainland. Its author was Martin Waldseemüller. Today it, being the property of the United States, is stored in Washington.
The lands were the most common: the founding of cities, the discovery of deposits of gold and wealth. In the 15th century, navigation was actively developing, and expeditions were set up in search of the unexplored continent. What was on the continent before the arrival of Europeans, when Columbus discovered America, and under what circumstances did this happen?
The story of the great discovery
By the 15th century, European states were different high level development. Each country tried to expand its sphere of influence, searching for additional sources of profit to replenish the treasury. New colonies were formed.
Before the discovery, tribes lived on the continent. The aborigines were distinguished by their friendly character, which was conducive to the rapid development of the territory.
Christopher Columbus, while still a teenager, discovered the hobby of cartography. A Spanish navigator once learned from the astronomer and geographer Toscanelli that if he sailed westward, he could reach India much faster. It was 1470. And the idea came just in time, since Columbus was looking for another route that would allow him to reach India in short time. He assumed that it was necessary to build a route through the Canary Islands.
In 1475, the Spaniard organized an expedition, the purpose of which was to find a quick route by sea to India across the Atlantic Ocean. He reported this to the government with a request to support his idea, but received no help. The second time Columbus wrote to King João II of Portugal, however, he was also rejected. He then turned again to the Spanish government. Several commission meetings were held on this issue, which lasted for years. The final positive decision on financing was made after the victory of Spanish troops in the city of Granada, liberated from Arab occupation.
If a new route to India was discovered, Columbus was promised not only wealth, but also a noble title: Admiral of the Sea-Ocean and Viceroy of the lands he would discover. Since Spanish ships were prohibited from entering the waters for west coast Africa, then such a step was beneficial for the government in order to conclude a direct trade agreement with India.
In what year did Columbus discover America?
Officially, the year of the discovery of America in history is recognized as 1942. Having discovered undeveloped lands, Columbus did not imagine that he had discovered a continent that would be called the “New World”. In what year the Spaniards discovered America can be said tentatively, since a total of four campaigns were undertaken. Each time the navigator found new lands, believing that this was the territory of Western India.
Columbus began to think that he was following the wrong route after Vasco de Gama's expedition. The traveler arrived in India and returned in a short time with rich goods, accusing Christopher of deception.
It later turned out that Columbus discovered the islands and continental parts of North and South America.
Which traveler discovered America earlier?
It is not entirely true to say that Columbus became the discoverer of America. Before this, the Scandinavians landed on the lands: in 1000 - Leif Eriksson and in 1008 - Thorfinn Karlsefni. This is evidenced by the historical records “The Saga of the Greenlanders” and “The Saga of Eric the Red”. There is other information about travel to the “New World”. Traveler Abu Bakr II, a resident of the Celestial Empire Zheng He and a nobleman from Scotland Henry Sinclair arrived from Mali to America.
There is historical evidence indicating that in the 10th century New World visited by the Normans after the discovery of Greenland. However, they were unable to develop the territories due to severe weather conditions unsuitable for Agriculture. In addition, the journey from Europe was very long.
Visits to the mainland by the navigator Amerigo Vespucci, after whom the continent was named.
The question of who discovered America does not usually raise many questions. But bad luck - when? Previously, for example, I simply assumed that it was somewhere in the middle of the last millennium. It's a shame... Of course, you need to know such things. This is what I will discuss in this story. :)
When America was discovered
The discovery of America by Europeans can be considered literally the most significant event in history. After all, after that, people rushed to the new continent great amount Europeans, resulting in trade success for many years. After all, there were many useful things on this continent natural resources.
And now some numbers - 1492. This year is the official year of the discovery of America. And this great event happened completely by accident, because Christopher Columbus was going to get to India this way. He studied geography almost all his life and was going to find a western route to India; he believed that it could be much shorter than the eastern one.
Few people know, but this was not the end of Columbus’s travels and discoveries. Since 1493, he led several more expeditions, during which many nearby islands were discovered, for example.
However, at that time it was not yet clear where the sailors ended up. There were versions that this was the eastern coast of India. Some claimed it was . And only Amerigo Vespucci, having explored the coast of Brazil, came to a clear conclusion - this is a new continent. It was in his honor that this continent was named, although it was not he who discovered it.
I prepared small selection interesting facts about the discovery of America:
- Few people know that Columbus barely managed to get permission to travel across the ocean. He decided to organize an expedition back in 1485.
- On the ships of Columbus's expedition there were not sailors, but all sorts of rabble. Ordinary sailors and residents of Spain did not want to go on a journey across the ocean; no one knew how it would turn out. Columbus had to recruit a team from criminals in prison.
- Columbus had three small ships on which to travel across the ocean was a real suicide. But Columbus apparently drank champagne, as they say. :)
October 12, 1492 first expedition Christopher Columbus reached the island of San Salvador, which is part of the Bahamas archipelago. Its shore became the first land on the American continent that Europeans saw, so this day is considered the official date of the “discovery of America.”
Columbus was born in Italy into a poor Genoese family. He studied at the University of Pavia and lived in Genoa until 1472, and then in Savona. In the 1470s he participated in several maritime trade expeditions.
It is believed that back in 1474, the astronomer and geographer Paolo Toscanelli informed Columbus in a letter that India could be reached by a much shorter sea route if you sail to the west. The assumption was based on the ancient doctrine of the sphericity of the Earth, but the calculations of 15th century scientists about the size of the planet were incorrect. Based on them, Toscanelli believed that getting to India around the globe would be shorter than going around Africa through the Cape Good Hope.
Columbus was inspired by this idea and drew up his project for a sea voyage to India. Having made his own calculations based on Toscanelli’s map, he decided that it was most convenient to sail through the Canary Islands, from which, in his opinion, Japan was about five thousand kilometers in a straight line.
In 1476, Columbus moved to Portugal, where he lived for nine years. In 1483 he proposed his project to the Portuguese king Joao II. There is evidence that at first the king wanted to support the bold project, but after a long study he rejected it. The likely reason was that the new sea route to India threatened the Portuguese monopoly on the spice trade.
In 1485, after his project was rejected in Lisbon, Columbus moved to Castile, where, with the support of mainly Andalusian merchants and bankers, he achieved the organization of a government ocean expedition under his leadership.
The first expedition of Christopher Columbus (1492-1493), consisting of 91 people on the ships "Santa Maria", "Pinta", "Nina", left the port of Palos de la Frontera on August 3, 1492. On September 9, the squadron turned west from the Canary Islands, crossed the Atlantic Ocean in the subtropical zone and reached the island of San Salvador in the Bahamas archipelago, where Christopher Columbus landed on October 12, 1492 (the official date of the discovery of America).
On October 14-24, Columbus's expedition visited a number of other islands of the archipelago, and on October 28 - December 5, they discovered and examined a section of the northeastern coast of Cuba. During this period, “Pinta” disappeared. Her captain Pinson Sr. was distinguished by unauthorized actions and repeatedly disobeyed. He left Columbus near the island of Cuba, hoping to discover another imaginary island.
On December 25, 1492, the flagship Santa Maria ran aground on the reefs. With the help of local residents, they managed to remove guns, supplies and valuable cargo from the ship. A fort was built from the wreckage of the ship on the island of Haiti, called La Navidad (Christmas). Columbus left 39 sailors here, armed the fort with cannons from the Santa Maria and left them supplies for a year, and on January 4, 1493, taking several islanders with him, he set out to sea on the small Niña.
On January 6, 1493, off the northern coast of Hispaniola, the Niña unexpectedly encountered the Pinta. Pinson Sr. explained his absence due to the influence of weather conditions. Under the circumstances, Columbus decided not to initiate disciplinary proceedings, and on January 16, the two ships set out on their return journey.
The road back turned out to be difficult - in the Atlantic the ships were scattered by a storm and they lost each other again. However, in the end everything ended well: on March 9, the Niña dropped anchor in Lisbon, where João II received Columbus as his Serene Highness and ordered that he be provided with everything he needed.
On March 15, Niña returns to Spain. On the same day, “Pinta” arrives there. Columbus brings with him the natives (who are called Indians in Europe), some gold, plants previously unseen in Europe, fruits and bird feathers.
Despite the rather modest results, the significance of Columbus's first expedition turned out to be, without exaggeration, epoch-making. At the same time, the discoverer himself never realized the true scale of his discoveries, despite the fact that after that he undertook three more expeditions. Until his death in 1506, Columbus continued to believe that the American lands he discovered were part of Asia.
At the same time, Columbus’s formal priority in the discovery of America in modern world is a subject of debate. It has been established that the islands and coastal areas of North and Northeast America were visited by the Normans hundreds of years before Columbus. It is possible that Europeans and Africans could have accidentally reached the shores of tropical America since ancient times.
However, the fact remains recognized that only Columbus’s discoveries had world-historical significance, since only after his voyages the American lands entered the sphere of geographical ideas.
This important event is celebrated in both Europe and America. In the USA this holiday is called Columbus Day, in the Bahamas - Discovery Day, in Spain - Nation Day.
The phrase “Columbus discovered America” is an example of banality for us. Who doesn't know this? Everyone remembers the covers of children's books and the pot-bellied ships drawn on them. And also footage from various films, where the Spanish queen liked the brave and handsome navigator so much that she promised to pawn her jewelry in order to equip the expedition.
All these are beautiful myths.
Let's start with the fact that in 1486, when Christopher Columbus (Cristóbal Colon, as it was called in Spain) (1451 - 1506) appeared before the Spanish monarchs, he could hardly captivate a woman’s heart. Columbus was pretty battered by life. Thirty-five years old is a respectable age for a fifteenth-century man.
Secondly, Spain at that time was not listed among the sea powers. She had no time for that yet. Under the joint rule of King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile, the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslims was ending. The last outpost of the Moors was Granada. So the thoughts of the rulers were not about the sea.
Thirdly, Columbus appeared before the rulers as a far from timid supplicant. For the opening of the sea route to India, he asked for the Spanish nobility, the rank of admiral and the positions of viceroy and governor-general of all open lands. Demands that were reminiscent of the impudent wishes of the old woman from Pushkin’s “The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish.” Christopher Columbus wanted to become not only a “pillar nobleman,” not only a “free king” of newly discovered lands, but also a “lord of the sea.”
Perhaps it was the arrogance of the sailor that convinced the king and queen that this was not a cunning scoundrel, but a man who, in fact, was capable of fulfilling his promise. In addition, they knew more about intrigue and villainy than any goldfish. If new lands are conquered, it is always easy to bring the discoverer to obedience and repentance. For this purpose, Spain had the Holy Inquisition.
Fourthly, there was no need to pawn the royal jewels to pay for the expedition. Columbus was given the right to collect arrears of taxes, and use this money to make great geographical discoveries.
Columbus succeeded in the trade of a tax farmer. Maybe this is where the rumor came from that he was not a Genoese, but a baptized Jew. But still, the collected money was not enough to assemble a decent fleet.
Among the debtors given to the care of Columbus was an entire city - Palos de la Frontera. The city was fined for illegal trade with the Moors who lived on the African coast.
The collection of arrears in Palos was going slowly until three well-known sailors in the city, three brothers from the Pinzon family, came to the aid of Columbus. One of the three ships that took part in the voyage, the Pinta (Painted), belonged to the Pinsons. The owner of the second ship, "Niña" ("Baby"), was a shipowner from the neighboring town of Mager, whose name was Juan Niño. Columbus hired the third ship (with the Pinsons' money) from a sailor from the northern Spanish province of Galicia. The ship "Galega" ("Galician") was larger than "Pinta" and "Nina", and therefore became the flagship. Only the pious Columbus changed his name to "Santa Maria".
Residents of the city, seeing that the Pinson brothers were participating in Columbus’s enterprise, believed in the Genoese’s idea. Recruiting one hundred and ninety people for three crews was no longer difficult.
Fat-bellied, well-armed galleons appeared on the sea much later, when it was necessary to transport gold from the American colonies to the metropolis. Columbus's squadron looked rather unpresentable. The flagship looked more like a barge under sail. The length of the vessel was 23 meters, the draft was 2.8 meters. "Pinta" and "Nina" were even smaller.
Columbus's expedition made its first stop in the Canary Islands. The steering wheel on the Nina broke. We repaired it, replenished provisions, and waited for a fair wind. On September 6, 1492, three caravels headed west.
Another legend is about a mutiny of sailors brewing on ships. This was not the case either. The journey went smoothly. The ocean was calm and the wind was fair.
On October 12, at two o'clock in the morning, the watchman on the Pinta noticed a light ahead. At dawn, the ships landed on the island, which Columbus named San Salvador. This is where the first meeting with local residents took place. Columbus sincerely considered them residents of India. Another mistake left to us as a legacy by a great man. In the Russian language they later changed one letter to distinguish Indians from Indians. In many Western languages, this annoying homonym has lived on since the time of Columbus.
True, it soon became clear that the red-skinned inhabitants of San Salvador were not Indians. An interpreter was sailing on the Santa Maria, specially taken by Columbus to communicate with the local population. The baptized Jew Luis de Torres knew Arabic, Persian, and Indian languages well, but never came to terms with the local inhabitants. However, it seems that his trip overseas was justified. De Torres visited many countries on merchant business and, due to his profession, was accustomed to finding a common language even with those whose language was not understood. Who else but him could have become the first European to at least speak the language of hitherto unknown tribes. At least from San Salvador to present-day Cuba, the ship was accompanied by Indian guides.
In Cuba, Pinson, at his own peril and risk, separated from the squadron and sailed on the Pinta in search of the rich Indian ports about which he had heard so much. Columbus, on the two remaining ships, sailed to the island, which he called “Hispaniola.” Now we call this island Haiti. The first Latin America European settlement. This is where the Santa Maria ran aground. The admiral switched to the Niña, they removed everything that was possible from the Santa Maria, and shot the ship from cannons in full view of the local Indians, in order to instill respect for the power of the aliens.
Then Martin Alonso Pinzon returned from AWOL in his Pinta. He did not reveal the secrets of the voyage to the admiral. Apparently, he reached the northern shore of the Gulf of Mexico and visited the Yucatan Peninsula. But no rich Indian ports were found.
On January 16, 1493, the ships set off on their return journey. The Atlantic is harsh in winter. The sailors had to endure several storms. On March 4, Columbus on the Niña, with its sails almost completely torn off, landed on the Portuguese coast near Lisbon. The Viceroy of India paid a courtesy call on the King of Portugal. Each of the meeting participants was secretly proud of their achievements. Columbus believed that India was already in his pocket. João II just recently warmed up to Bartolomeu Dias, who finally circumnavigated Africa. The king personally renamed the Cape of Storms discovered by Dias to the Cape of Good Hope. How else? A little more, he believed, and India would be in his pocket.
On March 15, 1493, Columbus's ship returned to Palos. And on the same day, towards evening, the sails of the Pinta appeared on the horizon. Martin Alonso Pinzon also returned safely to his home port. He died that same year, possibly being one of the first “lucky ones” to bring syphilis to Europe.
From 1493 to 1504, Columbus made three more voyages across the ocean. On his second expedition (1493-1496) he discovered Puerto Rico, Jamaica and South coast Cubes. In the third (1498-1500) - the island of Trinidad and part of the coast of South America. In the fourth and last (1502-1504) - the Atlantic coast of Central America.
And in May 1506, Columbus, half-blind and half-paralyzed, died in spanish city Valladolid. He dies, confident that he has discovered India after all. How he gained fame for himself and provided wealth for his offspring. This was the last delusion of the great man.
- Many have pointed out that the process of turning a hypothesis into a scientific discovery is very well illustrated by the example of the discovery of America by Columbus. Columbus was obsessed with the idea that the Earth was round and that one could reach the East Indies by sailing to the West.
Please note the following:
a) the idea was in no way original, but he received new information;
b) he encountered enormous difficulties both in finding people who could subsidize him and directly in the process of conducting the experiment;
c) he did not find a new route to India, but he found a new part of the world;
d) despite all the evidence to the contrary, he still believed that he had opened the road to the East;
e) during his lifetime he received neither special honor nor significant reward;
f) since then, irrefutable evidence has been found that Columbus was not the first European to reach America.
Christopher Columbus. Discovery of America.
Biographical information about Christopher Columbus is very scarce. He was born in the fall of 1451 in Genoa, first lived in Italy and, like his father, belonged to a woolen guild. It is unknown where and when he studied, but it has been proven that he read at least four languages (Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Latin). In 1476 he moved to Portugal and lived here for 9 years. According to him, during this time he took part in Portuguese expeditions several times and visited England, Guinea and the Gold Coast. In 1474, Columbus sought advice regarding the shortest sea route to India to the famous Florentine astrologer and geographer Paolo Toscanelli. Toscanelli replied to Columbus: “I know that the existence of such a path can be proven on the basis that the Earth is a sphere.” Toscanelli drew up a map and sent it to Columbus. Toscanelli's mistake was that he did not know how land and water were distributed on the surface of the Earth, and reduced the distance from Europe to Asia across the Atlantic Ocean several times. Columbus made “corrections” to this calculation and came to the conclusion that the distance from Lisbon to Japan is 4500 km. In the words of the famous 18th century French geographer Jean-Baptiste Anville: “It was a great mistake that led to a great discovery.” Columbus made his first proposal to the Portuguese King João II, but was refused. Then Columbus left Portugal and went to Spain. In 1485, Columbus offered his services to Queen Isabella of Spain. In November 1491, a special commission rejected the Genoese project, because considered the navigator’s demands excessive. Columbus headed to France, but was stopped. At that moment, Louis Santall, the head of the largest trading house, came to Isabella and convinced her to accept Columbus’s project. On April 17, 1492, the king and queen agreed to the draft treaty proposed by Columbus. Here are the two most important articles of this document: “Their Majesties, as masters of the seas and oceans, from now on grant Don Christopher Columbus their admiralship of all the islands and continents that he will personally discover and acquire... Their Majesties appoint Columbus as their viceroy and chief ruler on... the islands and the continents that he... will discover or acquire, and to govern each of them a ruler must be elected (from the candidates presented by Columbus).” And further - “from any and all goods, be they precious metals, stones, gold or silver, spices or other things and goods that will be bought, exchanged, found, or acquired within the said admiralty ... may he have, and let him retain 1/10 of everything acquired, presenting 9/10 of the parts to their Majesties.”
Generous in their promises, the kings decided to minimize the costs of the expedition. Columbus was provided with two caravels. Their crew traditional version, was forcibly recruited from the inhabitants of Palas, sentenced to hard labor for insulting the kings, i.e. filled with criminals. Columbus and the Pinson brothers equipped the third caravel at their own expense. The flotilla consisted of three small ships: the Santa Maria, Columbus's flagship, the Pinta, commanded by Martin Pinzón, and the Niña.
On August 3, 1492, Columbus's expedition went to sea, but the repair of one of the yachts took whole month, and only on September 6, 1492, the ships departed from the island of Homer, and 36 days later at 2 a.m. on October 12, 1492, the land was already visible. It was one of the islands of the Bahamas group. On the island, the Spaniards saw naked people, and Columbus described the first meeting with the people, who 20-30 years later were completely exterminated by the Spanish colonialists: “I gave them red caps and glass rosaries and many other low-value items that gave them great pleasure. They brought us parrots and cotton yarn in skeins and many other things, which they exchanged for other items that we gave them. But it seemed to me that these people were poor. And all the people I saw were still young, their bodies and faces were very beautiful, and their hair was coarse, just like horse hair, only short... And their skin was the same color as the inhabitants of the Canary Islands, who are neither black nor white... They do not carry and do not know weapons, when I showed them swords, they grabbed the blades and, out of ignorance, cut off their fingers. They don’t have any iron.”
On the island, Columbus was presented with “dry leaves” as a gift, which were greatly appreciated local residents, this is the first mention of tobacco. Columbus gave the island the Christian name San Salvador (Savior). The navigator noticed pieces of gold in the noses of some of the islanders. From that moment on, he never tires of repeating in his diary that he “with the help of our Lord, will find gold where it is born.” The sailors learned about the island of Cuba from the Indians and soon sailed to its shores. On December 5, Columbus approached the land (the island of Haiti), which he called Hispaniola (Spanish Island). The sailors saw thin gold plates and small ingots among the inhabitants of Hispaniola. The gold rush intensified among the sailors, and Columbus himself was in a fever. He writes in his diary the words of an old Indian man about one island “all gold”, and about other islands where “gold is collected and sifted through a sieve, and then melted and made into various things.” On January 4, 1493, Columbus set sail and arrived in Spain on March 15. He brought the happy news of open lands, some gold and several islanders unprecedented in Europe, who began to be called INDIOS (Indians), because until the end of his days Columbus thought that he had discovered the western coast of India.
The disappointment of the first expedition was greatly mitigated by Columbus's assertion that he had discovered India and only needed to deepen his search to find mountains of diamonds and golden roofs. Large funds were allocated to organize Columbus's second expedition (1493): the flotilla consisted of 17 ships with about 1,500 people. On this voyage, Columbus discovered the Lesser Antilles and founded a colony on Hispaniola.
In 1495 he returned to. The results of Columbus's second voyage disappointed the Spanish government, because the main goal of this expedition was the founding of trading colonies and the export of gold. But there was little gold in Hispaniola, and the colony founded there turned out to be an unsuccessful enterprise. The vast majority of the colonists consisted of Spanish hidalgos left idle after the war with the Moors. This lazy and stormy noble youth was good with a sword, but was incapable of any kind of work. Columbus did not reach the American continent on this journey either. This was done two years later - in 1497, the Genoese Giovanni Cabotto (John Cabot), who lived first in Venice, then in England, sailed from England and in June 1497 sailed to the American mainland. Cabot did not understand the meaning and significance of his discovery, and his journey was soon forgotten. The tireless Columbus set off on his third voyage in May 1498. Now he set the goal that is usually attributed to his first voyage - to penetrate Indian Ocean. Therefore, he took a course with a large deviation to the south, only on this journey did he approach the American continent at the mouth of the Orinoco River, and only now in August 1498, when there were huge masses around him fresh water, the thought flashed through his mind, had he discovered a new, unknown continent? However, this idea was not strengthened by Columbus, and the open coast of South America was not explored by him. But another thought took hold in the mind of the aging navigator: he decided that to the south of “India” lies nothing more than Eden - paradise, the top of the world. All great rivers originate from here. Illuminated by this insight, Columbus increasingly falls into mystical rapture. He considered himself the first European destined to find his way to the earthly paradise from which, according to the Bible, Adam and Eve were expelled.
Meanwhile, the Portuguese opened a sea route to India and brought spices, fabrics and other precious goods from there. Comparison of Columbus's expensive and, so far, little profitable enterprises with the expeditions of the Portuguese was, of course, not in his favor. During the third expedition, an uprising broke out among the Spaniards on the island of Hispaniola (Haiti). Civil strife began. Columbus and his enemies complained about each other. Ferdinand and Isabella appointed their own governor to the island. He arrived at the scene, arrested Columbus and sent him in chains to Spain, however, here he was quickly released.
Columbus's fourth voyage in 1502 was a direct response to the expedition of Vasco da Gama. On Columbus's part it was an attempt to get from Atlantic Ocean to Indian. But everywhere he came across a solid mass of land. Sailing along the Isthmus of Panama, he received information about a large ocean lying on the other side of the earth, and about some “ bottleneck", through which it was possible to reach the ocean. The Indians meant the isthmus. Columbus believed that he was in front of the islands, which, in his opinion, blocked his path to the shores of Asia, and persistently looked for a strait between them. IN last years Throughout his life, Columbus tried in vain to restore his rights and privileges. In 1506 he died, almost forgotten by everyone, in poverty. In his will, the great navigator asked to put on his coffin the chains in which he was transported from the New World he discovered. It is still unknown where the grave of the famous sailor is located. Columbus died in Valladolid, then his ashes were transported to Seville, and later transported across the ocean to Hispaniola and buried in the Cathedral of Santo Domingo. Many years later, Columbus's ashes were reburied in Havana, Cuba, but then returned to Seville. It is not known exactly where the true grave of the great navigator is located - Havana and Seville equally lay claim to this honor.
The continent discovered by Columbus was named America after another navigator, Amerigo Vespucci. Amerigo Vespucci was also from Genoa, was a sailor, served in Spain and Portugal. Vespucci's world fame is based on two dubious (as Magidovich I.P. believes) letters of 1503 and 1504. The first letter was addressed to the Medici, in which Vespucci spoke about his voyage in 1501-1502. The second letter was addressed to Comrade Vespucci, in which he wrote that back in 1497 (a year before Columbus), at the head of an expedition he explored an unknown continent. In 1507, Vespucci's letters were studied by a geographer, and here for the first time this part of the world was called America. It is unlikely that the geographer wanted to diminish the glory of Columbus with this statement. For him, as for other educated people of the early 16th century, Columbus and Vespucci discovered new lands in different parts of the world:
a) Columbus discovered old light(Asia);
b) Vespucci – New World (America).
It is not for nothing that Columbus’s relatives had nothing against this name and Vespucci himself. Soviet researcher Joseph Petrovich Magidovich in his work “The History of the Discovery and Exploration of Central and South America” claims that Vespucci did not discover America at all and did not participate in any expeditions of 1497-1498. Among modern Western scientists today there are Colombians and anti-Colombians. The first believe that the main merit of the discovery of America should belong to Christopher Columbus, the second do not agree with this statement, their arguments are different: the Vikings, John Cabot, Vespucci are also discoverers. It seems to us that Columbus’s feat was in sailing in the open ocean; he was the first to go “nowhere.”