Document 1Excerpt from Journal of the First Voyage, by Christopher Columbus

In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Because, O most Christian, and very high, very excellent, and puissant Princes, King and Queen of the Spains and of the islands of the Sea, our Lords, in this present year of 1492, after hour Highnesses had given an end to the war with the Moors who reigned in Europe, and had finished it in the very great city of Granada, where in this present year, on the second day of the month of January, by force of arms, I saw the royal banners of your Highnesses placed on the towers of Alhambra, which is the fortress of that city, and I saw the Moorish King come forth from the gates of the city and kiss the royal hands of your Highnesses, and of the Prince my Lord, and presently in that same month, acting on the information that I had given to your Highnesses touching the lands of India, and respecting a Prince who is called Gran Can, which means in our language King of Kings, how he and his ancestors had sent to Rome many times to ask for learned men of our holy faith to teach him, and how the Holy Father had never complied, insomuch that many people believing in idolatries were lost by receiving doctrine of perdition : Your Highnesses, as Catholic Christians and Princes who love the holy Christian faith, and the propagation of it, and who are enemies to the sect of Mahoma and to all idolatries and heresies, resolved to send me, Cristobal Colon, to the said parts of India to see the said princes, and the cities and lands, and their disposition, with a view that they might be converted to our holy faith; and ordered that I should not go by land to the eastward, as had been customary, but that I should go by way of the west, whither up to this day, we do not know for certain that any one has gone.

Thus, after having turned out all the jews from all your kingdoms and lordships, in the same month of January, your Highnesses gave orders to me that with a sufficient fleet I should go to the said parts of India, and for this they made great concessions to me, and ennobled me, so that henceforward I should be called Don, and should be Chief Admiral of the Ocean Sea, perpetual Viceroy and Governor of all the islands and continents that I should discover and gain, and that I might hereafter discover and gain in the Ocean Sea, and that my eldest son should succeed, and so on from generation to generation for ever.

I left the city of Granada on the 12th day of May, in the same year of 1492, being Saturday, and came to the town of Palos, which is a seaport; where I equipped three vessels well suited for such service; and departed from that port, well supplied with provisions and with many sailors, on the 3d day of August of the same year, being Friday, half an hour before sunrise, taking the route to the islands of Canaria, belonging to your Highnesses, which are in the said Ocean Sea, that I might thence take my departure for navigating until I should arrive at the Indies, and give the letters of your Highnesses to those princes, so as to comply with my orders. As part of my duty I thought it

well to write an account of all the voyage very punctually, noting from day to day all that I should do and see, and that should happen, as will be seen further on. Also, Lords Princes, I resolved to describe each night what passed in the day, and to note each day how I navigated at night. I proposed to construct a new chart for navigating, on which I shall delineate all the sea and lands of the Ocean in their proper positions under their bearings; and further, I propose to prepare a book, and to put down all as it were in a picture, by latitude from the equator, and western longitude. Above all, I shall have accomplished much, for I shall forget sleep, and shall work at the business of navigation, that so the service may be performed; all which will entail great labour.

Source CitationColumbus, Christopher. "Excerpts from Columbus's Journal." The Hispanic-American Experience, Primary Source Media, 1999. American Journey. World History in Context, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/EJ2159000182/WHIC?u=azstatelibdev&sid=WHIC&xid=3355e5c9. Accessed 11 Aug. 2018.

Document 2Excerpt from Journal of the First Voyage, by Christopher Columbus

Wednesday, October 10. He sailed to the west-south-west and they went at the rate of 10 miles per hour and at times 12, and sometimes 7, and during the day and night they made 59 leagues. He told the people 44 leagues and no more. Here the people could no longer suffer the journey. They complained of the long voyage: but the Admiral encouraged them as well as he was able, giving them good hope of the benefits they would receive, and adding that for the rest it was useless to complain since he had come in search of the Indies, and thus he must pursue his journey until he found them, with the aid of our Lord.

Thursday, October 11. He sailed to the west-south-west. They had a much higher sea than they had had in all the voyage. They saw petrels and a green branch, near the ship. Those on the caravel Pinta saw a reed and a stick and they took another small stick formed as it appeared with iron, and a piece of a reed and other grass which grows on land, and a small board. Those on the caravel Nina also saw other indications of land and a little branch full of dog-roses. With these signs every one breathed and rejoiced. They went 27 leagues during this day up to sunset. After sunset he sailed on his first course to the west. They went 12 miles each hour and up to two hours after midnight they went about 90 miles which are 22 1/2 leagues. And because the caravel Pinta was the best sailor and was going ahead of the Admiral, land was discovered by her people and the signs which the Admiral had ordered were made. A sailor called Rodrigo de Traina saw this land first, although the Admiral at 10 o'clock at night being in the stern forecastle [castillo de popa] saw a light, but it was so concealed that he would not declare it to be land: but he called Pero Gutierrez Groom of the Chamber of the King, and said to him that it appeared to be a light, and asked him to look at it: and he did so and saw it. He also told Rodrigo Sanchez de Segovia, whom the King and Queen sent with the fleet as Inspector, who saw nothing because he was not where he could see it. After the Admiral told it, it was seen once or twice, and it was like a small wax candle which rose and fell, which hardly appeared to be an indication of land. But the Admiral was certain that they were near land. For this reason, when they said the Salve which all the sailors are in the habit of saying and singing in their way and they were all assembled together, the Admiral implored and admonished them to guard the stern forecastle well and search diligently for land and said that to whomever should first see land he would then give a silk doublet, besides the other gifts which the Sovereigns had promised them, which was an annuity of 10,000 maravedis to whomever should first see land. At two hours after midnight the land appeared, from which they were about two leagues distant. They lowered all the sails and remained with the crossjack-sail, which is the great sail without bonnets, and lay to, standing off and on until the day, Friday, when they reached a small island of the Lucayas which is called in the language of the Indians, Guanahani. Then they saw naked people and the Admiral landed in the armed boat with Martin Alonso Pinzon

and Vincente Yanez, his brother, who was captain of the Nina. The Admiral took the royal banner and the two captains had two banners of the Verde Cruz, which the Admiral carried on all the ships as a sign, with an F. and a Y. The crown of the Sovereigns surmounted each letter and one was one side of the + and the other the other side. Having landed they saw very green trees and much water and many fruits of different kinds. The Admiral called the two captains and the others who landed and Rodrigo Descoredo, Notary of all the Fleet, and Rodrigo Sanchez of Segovia, and told them to bear him witness and testify that he, in the presence of them all, was taking, as in fact he took possession of the said isle, for the King and for the Queen, his Lords, making the protestations which were required, as contained more at length in the depositions which were made there in writing. Then many of the people of the island gathered there. The following is in the exact words of the Admiral in his book of his first voyage and discovery of these Indies: "That they might feel great friendship for us [he says] and because I knew they were a people who would better be freed and converted to our Holy Faith by love than by force,—I gave them some red caps and some glass beads which they placed around their necks, and many other things of small value with which they were greatly pleased, and were so friendly to us that it was wonderful. They afterwards came swimming to the two ships where we were, and bringing us parrots and cotton thread wound in balls and spears and many other things, and they traded them with us for other things which we gave them, such as small glass beads and hawk's bells. Finally they took everything and willingly gave what things they had. Further, it appeared to me that they were a very poor people, in everything. They all go naked as their mothers gave them birth, and the women also, although I only saw one of the latter who was very young, and all those whom I saw were young men, none more than thirty years of age. They were very well built with very handsome bodies, and very good faces. Their hair was almost as coarse as horses' tails and short, and they wear it over the eyebrows, except a small quantity behind, which they wear long and never cut. Some paint themselves blackish, and they are of the colour of the inhabitants of the Canaries, neither black nor white, and some paint themselves white, some red, some whatever colour they find: and some paint their faces, some all the body, some only the eyes, and some only the nose. They do not carry arms nor know what they are, because I showed them swords and they took them by the edge and ignorantly cut themselves. They have no iron: their spears are sticks without iron, and some of them have a fish's tooth at the end and others have other things. They are all generally of good height, of pleasing appearance and well built: I saw some who had indications of wounds on their bodies, and I asked them by signs if it was that, and they showed me that other people came there from other islands near by and wished to capture them and they defended themselves: and I believed and believe, that they come here from the continental land to take them captive. They must be good servants and intelligent, as I see that they very quickly say all that is said to them, and I believe that they would easily become Christians, as it appeared to me that they had no sect. If it please our Lord, at the time of my departure, I will take six of them from here to your Highnesses that they may learn to speak. I saw no beast of any kind except parrots on this island." All are the words of the Admiral.

Source CitationColumbus, Christopher. "Excerpt from Columbus's Journal of First Voyage to Western Hemisphere." Westward Expansion, Primary Source Media, 1999. American Journey. World History in Context, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/EJ2160000107/WHIC?u=azstatelibdev&sid=WHIC&xid=46bc1bbe. Accessed 11 Aug. 2018.

Document 3Excerpt from Journal of the First Voyage, by Christopher Columbus

Saturday, October 13. "At dawn many of these men came to the shore, all young men as I have said and all of good height, a very handsome people. Their hair is not curly but hanging and coarse like horsehair, and all the forehead and head is very wide, more than any other race seen until now, and their eyes are very handsome and not small. And none of them are blackish but the colour of the inhabitants of the Canaries; nor should anything else be expected since this place is on a line east and west with the island of Hierro in the Canaries. Their legs are in general very straight and they are not corpulent, but very well formed. They came to the ship with canoes, which are made from the trunk of a tree, like a long boat and all in one piece, and very wonderfully fashioned for the country, and large enough so that 40 or 45 men came in some of them, and others were smaller, some so small that only one man came in them. They rowed with a paddle [como de fornero] and go wonderfully well; and if they upset, then they all commence to swim and bail them out with gourds, which they carry. They brought balls of spun cotton and parrots and spears and other small things which it would be tedious to write about, and gave everything for whatever might be given them. And I was attentive and sought to learn whether they had gold and I saw that some ofthem wore a small piece suspended from a hole they have in the nose: and I was able to understand by signs that, going to the south or going around the island to the south, there was a King who had large vessels of gold and who had a great deal of it. I tried to have themgo there and afterward saw that they were not interested in going. I determined to wait until afternoon of the next day and then leave for the south-west, for according to what many of them showed me, they said that there was land to the south and to the south-west and to the north-west: and that these people from the north-west came to fight them many times and thus to go to the south-west in search of gold and precious stones. This island is very large and very level and has very green trees and many waters and a very large lake in the centre, without any mountain, and all so green that it is a pleasure to behold it. The people are very mild and on account of desiring our things, believing that they will not be given them without they give something, and they have nothing,—they take what they can,and then throw themselves into the water and swim. But they give all they have for whatever thing may be given them. They traded for even pieces of pitchers and broken glasses so that I saw 16 balls of cotton given for three ceotis of Portugal which are worth one blanca of Castile, and in the balls there would be more than an arroba of spun cotton. I forbade this and would not allow anything to be taken unless I should order everything taken for your Highnesses if there is a quantity. It [cotton] grows here on this island, but on account of brevity of time I could not give an account of everything: and also the gold which they wear hanging at the nose is found here. But in order not to lose time I wish to go and see if I can encounter the island of Cipango. Now, as it was night, all went to land with their canoes."

Sunday, October 14."At dawn, I ordered the ship's small boat prepared and the boats belonging to the caravels and went along the island toward the north north- east to see the other part of it, which was the opposite part from the east and also to see the villages: and I saw then two or three, and the people all came to the shore calling us and giving thanks to God; some brought us water, others brought other things to eat. Others when they saw that I did not care to land threw themselves into the sea and came swimming and we understood that they asked us if we came from heaven. An old man came in to the boat and the others called loudly to all the men and women: Come and see the men who came from heaven: bring them something to eat and to drink. Many came and many women, each one with something, giving thinks to God, throwing themselves on the ground and lifting their hands toward heaven, and afterwards they called loudly to us to go to land; but I was afraid because of seeing a great reef of rocks which encircles all that island and the water is deep within and forms a port for as many ships as there are in Christendom: and the entrance to it is very tortuous. It is true there are some shoals in it, but the sea does not move any more than in a well. And I went this morning in order to see all this, that I might be able to give an account of everything to your Highnesses and also to see where I might be able to build a fortress, and I saw a piece of land formed like an island, although it is not one, on which there were six houses, but which could be made an island in two days. Although I do not believe it to be necessary, because this people are very simple in matters of arms, as your Highnesses will see by the seven which I took captive to be carried along and learn our speech and then be returned to their country. But when your Highnesses order it, all can be taken, and carried to Castile or held captives on the island itself, because with 50 men all can be subjugated and made to do everything which is desired. Then, near the said small island, there were orchards of trees, the most beautiful that I saw, and as green and with leaves like those of Castile in the months of April and May, and there was much water. I saw all that harbour and afterward I returned to the ship and made sail and saw so many islands that I could not decide which to visit first, and those men whom I had taken, told me by signs, that there were many, and so many that they could not be numbered, and they enumerated by their names more than one hundred. Therefore I looked for the largest and determined to go to it, and this I am doing. It may be five leagues distant from this island of San Salvador, and some of the others are farther from it, some not as far. All are very level without mountains and very fertile and all inhabited, and the inhabitants make war against each other although they are very simple and fine looking men."

Source Citation Columbus, Christopher. "Excerpt from Columbus's Journal of First Voyage to Western Hemisphere." Westward Expansion, Primary Source Media, 1999. American Journey. World History in Context, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/EJ2160000107/WHIC?u=azstatelibdev&sid=WHIC&xid=46bc1bbe. Accessed 11 Aug. 2018.

Document 4Excerpt from Journal of the First Voyage, by Christopher Columbus

Tuesday, 16 October. Set sail from Santa Maria about noon, for Fernandina which appeared very large in the west; sailed all the day with calms, and could not arrive soon enough to view the shore and select a good anchorage, for great care must be taken in this particular, lest the anchors be lost. Beat up and down all night, and in the morning arrived at a village and anchored. This was the place to which the man whom we had picked up at sea had gone, when we set him on shore. He had given such a favorable account of us, that all night there were great numbers of canoes coming off to us, who brought us water and other things. I ordered each man to be presented with something, as strings of ten or a dozen glass beads apiece, and thongs of leather, all which they estimated highly; those which came on board I directed should be fed with molasses. At three o'clock, I sent the boat on shore for water; the natives with great good will directed the men where to find it, assisted them in carrying the casks full of it to the boat, and seemed to take great pleasure in serving us. This is a very large island, and I have resolved to coast it about, for as I understand, in, or near the island, there is a mine of gold. It is eight leagues west of Santa Maria, and the cape where we have arrived, and all this coast extends from north-northwest to south-southeast. I have seen twenty leagues of it, but not the end. Now, writing this, I set sail with a southerly wind to circumnavigate the island, and search till we can find Samoet, which is the island or city where the gold is, according to the account of those who come on board the ship, to which the relation of those of San Salvador and Santa Maria corresponds. These people are similar to those of the islands just mentioned, and have the same language and customs; with the exception that they appear somewhat more civilized, showing themselves more subtle in their dealings with us, bartering their cotton and other articles with more profit than the others had experienced. Here we saw cotton cloth, and perceived the people more decent, the women wearing a slight covering of cotton over the nudities. The island is verdant, level and fertile to a high degree; and I doubt not that grain is sowed and reaped the whole year round, as well as all other productions of the place. I saw many trees, very dissimilar to those of our country, and many of them had branches of different sorts upon the same trunk; and such a diversity was among them that it was the greatest wonder in the world to behold. Thus, for instance, one branch of a tree bore leaves like those of a cane, another branch of the same tree, leaves similar to those of the lentisk. In this manner a single tree bears five or six different kinds. Nor is this done by grafting, for that is a work of art, whereas these trees grow wild, and the natives take no care about them. They have no religion, and I believe that they would very readily become Christians, as they have a good understanding. Here the fish are so dissimilar to ours that it is wonderful. Some are shaped like dories, of the finest hues in the world, blue, yellow, red, and every other color, some variegated with a thousand different tints, so beautiful that no one on beholding them could fail to express the highest wonder and admiration. Here are also whales. Beasts, we saw none, nor any

creatures on land save parrots and lizards, but a boy told me he saw a large snake. No sheep nor goats were seen, and although our stay here has been short, it being now noon, yet were there any, I could hardly have failed of seeing them. The circumnavigation of the island I shall describe afterward.

Friday, 19 October. In the morning we got under weigh, and I ordered the Pinta to steer east and southeast and the Nina south- southeast; proceeding myself to the southeast the other vessels I directed to keep on the courses prescribed till noon, and then to rejoin me. Within three hours we descried an island to the east toward which we directed our course, and arrived all three, before noon, at the northern extremity, where a rocky islet and reef extend toward the North, with another between them and the main island. The Indians on board the ships called this island Saomete. I named it Isabela. It lies westerly from the island of Fernandina, and the coast extends from the islet twelve leagues, west, to a cape which I called Cabo Hermoso, it being a beautiful, round headland with a bold shore free from shoals. Part of the shore is rocky, but the rest of it, like most of the coast here, a sandy beach. Here we anchored till morning. This island is the most beautiful that I have yet seen, the trees in great number, flourishing and lofty; the land is higher than the other islands, and exhibits an eminence, which though it cannot be called a mountain, yet adds a beauty to its appearance, and gives an indication of streams of water in the interior. From this part toward the northeast is an extensive bay with many large and thick groves. I wished to anchor there, and land, that I might examine those delightful regions, but found the coast shoal, without a possibility of casting anchor except at a distance from the shore. The wind being favorable, I came to the Cape, which I named Hermoso, where I anchored today. This is so beautiful a place, as well as the neighboring regions, that I know not in which course to proceed first; my eyes are never tired with viewing such delightful verdure, and of a species so new and dissimilar to that of our country, and I have no doubt there are trees and herbs here which would be of great value in Spain, as dyeing materials, medicine, spicery, etc., but I am mortified that I have no acquaintance with them. Upon our arrival here we experienced the most sweet and delightful odor from the flowers or trees of the island. Tomorrow morning before we depart, I intend to land and see what can be found in the neighborhood. Here is no village, but farther within the island is one, where our Indians inform us we shall find the king, and that he has much gold. I shall penetrate so far as to reach the village and see or speak with the king, who, as they tell us, governs all these islands, and goes dressed, with a great deal of gold about him. I do not, however, give much credit to these accounts, as I understand the natives but imperfectly, and perceive them to be so poor that a trifling quantity of gold appears to them a great amount. This island appears to me to be a separate one from that of Saomete, and I even think there may be others between them. I am not solicitous to examine particularly everything here, which indeed could not be done in fifty years, because my desire is to make all possible discoveries, and return to your Highnesses, if it please our Lord, in April. But in truth, should I meet with gold or spices in great quantity, I shall remain till I collect as much as possible, and for this purpose I am proceeding solely in quest of them.Source Citation

Columbus, Christopher. 1492. Franciscan-archive.org/columbus/opera/excerpts.html. Accessed 11 Aug. 2018. Franciscan Archive.

Document 5Excerpt from The Four Voyages of Columbus, by Christopher

Columbus

I reached the land of Cariay, where I halted to repair the ships and to replenish the stores, and to give relaxation to the people who were very weak. There I, who, as I have said, had many times come to the point of death, heard of the mines of gold of the provinces of Ciamba, which I was seeking. Two Indians brought me to Carambaru, where the people go naked and have a golden mirror hanging at the neck, but are unwilling to sell it or to give it in exchange.

They named to me many places on the sea-coast, where they said that there was gold and mines; the last was Veragua, distant from there a matter of twenty-five leagues. I departed with the intention of examining these places fully, and having gone half way, I learned that there were mines at two days' journey. I decided to send to visit them. The vigil of SS. Simon and Jude was fixed for our departure; on that night there arose so great a sea and wind that it was necessary to run before it where it drove us; and the Indian who was the guide to the mines was always with me.

In all these places where I have been, I found all that I had heard to be true. This convinced me that it is so in the case of the province of Ciguare, which, according to them, lies inland to the west nine days' journey. They say that there is in that land an infinite amount of gold, and that the people wear corals on their heads and very large bracelets of coral on their feet and arms, and that with coral they adorn and inlay chairs and chests and tables. They said also that the women there have necklaces hanging down from the head to the shoulders. All the people of these places agree in this that I have related, and they say so much that I should be content with the tenth of it. They also know of pepper.

In Ciguare they are accustomed to trade in fairs and markets; so these people related, and they showed me the way and manner in which they carry on barter. Further they said that the ships carry cannon, bows and arrows, swords and shields, and that the people go clothed, and that in the land there are horses, and that the people are warlike and wear rich clothing and have good houses. Also they say that the sea surrounds Ciguare, and that from there it is ten days' journey to the river Ganges. It appears that these lands lie in respect of Veragua as Tortosa does in respect of Fuenterabia, or Pisa in respect of Venice. When I left Carambaru and arrived at these places which I have mentioned, I found the same customs among the people, except that any who had the mirrors of gold bartered them at the rate of one for three hawks' bells, although they were ten or fifteen ducats in weight. In all their customs they are as those of Espanola. They collect gold by different methods, although these are all nothing in comparison with those of the Christians.

On the sixth of February, while the rain continued, I sent seventy men ashore into the interior. At five leagues' distance, they found many mines. The Indians, who went with them, led them to a very lofty hill and from it showed them the country all round as far as the eye could reach, saying that there was gold everywhere and that towards the west the mines extended for twenty days' journey, and they named the towns and villages, saying where there were more or less of them. Afterwards I learned that the Quibian who had given these Indians, had commanded them to show distant mines which belonged to one who was his enemy, and that within his own territory, a man might collect in ten days as much gold as a child could carry, whenever he wished. I bear with me the Indians, his servants, and witnesses to this.

The boats went to the place where he had his village. My brother returned with these people, and all came back with the gold that they had collected in the four hours for which they stayed there. The quantity is great, for none of these men had ever seen mines and most of them had never seen gold; the majority of them were sailors and most of them grummets. I had much building material and stores in abundance. I formed a settlement and I gave many gifts to the Quibian, as they call the lord of the country. And I knew that harmony would not long continue; they were very barbarous and our people were very importunate, and I had assumed possession within his territory. When he saw the houses built and trading so active, he decided to burn the buildings and to put all to death. But his scheme had just the contrary result. He was taken prisoner, with his women, sons and servants. It is true that his captivity did not last long; the Quibian escaped from a trustworthy man who had him under his charge with a guard of men, and his sons escaped from the master of a ship, into whose special care they had been given.

While I wearily traversed that sea, a delusion came to some that we were bewitched and they still persist in that idea. I found another people who eat men; their brutal appearance showed this. They say that there are there great mines of copper; of it they make hatchets, other worked articles, cast and soldered, and forges with all the tools of a goldsmith, and crucibles. There they go clothed. And in this province I saw large cotton sheets, very cleverly worked; others were very cleverly painted in colours with pencils. They saw that in the country inland towards Cathay, they have them worked with gold. Of all these lands and of that which there is in them, owing to lack of an interpreter, they could not learn very much. The villages, although they are very close together, have each a different language, and it is so much so that they do not understand one another any more than we understand the Arabs. I believe that this is the case with the uncivilized people of the coast, but not inland.

When I discovered the Indies, I said that they were the richest dominion that there is in the world. I was speaking of the gold, pearls, precious stones, and spices, with the trade and markets in them, and because everything did not appear immediately, I was held up to abuse. This punishment leads me now to say only that which I have heard from the natives of the land. Of one thing I dare to speak, because there are so many witnesses, and this is that in this land of Veragua I saw greater evidence of gold on the first two days than in

Española in four years, and that the lands in this district could not be more lovely or better cultivated, nor could the people be more timid, and there is a good harbour and a beautiful river and it is defensible against the world. All this makes for the security of the Christians and the assurance of their dominion, and gives great hope for the honour and increase of the Christian religion. And the voyage thither will be as short as to Española, since it will be with the wind. Your Highnesses are as much sovereigns of this land as at Jerez or Toledo; your ships may go there as if they were going home. Thence they will obtain gold: in other lands, in order to become masters of that which is in them, it requires that they should seize it or return empty, and inland it is necessary for them to trust their persons to a savage.Source CitationColumbus, Christopher. "Excerpt from The Four Voyages of Columbus." The Hispanic-American Experience, Primary Source Media, 1999. American Journey. U.S. History In Context.

Document 6Christopher Columbus and the New World

Part 1: How It All Came About

Christopher Columbus is famous because he found something he wasn't looking for.

In 1492, Columbus sailed across the Atlantic Ocean in search of India. What he found was something far different. He found the New World. How did this come about? It all started in Italy.

Christopher Columbus was born in Genoa in 1451. His family didn't have a lot of many, and Christopher wasn't an only child. He didn't have much of an education until he was much older. Instead, he went to sea. He sailed around the Mediterranean and as far north as England and Ireland. When he was 25, he was shipwrecked and found his way ashore to Portugal, where he later lived with his brother.

He met the woman who would be his wife in Portugal, too. Sadly, she died soon after their son, Diego, was born. After that, Columbus took his son to Spain.

During his travels, Columbus had heard sailors' reports of land to the west of the Madeira and Azores Islands, which were in the Atlantic Ocean west of Portugal. He wanted to know more and got maps and books on geography. (Fortunately, he had learned Latin, the language used on most maps.) These books and maps suggested, based on stories of Marco Polo and others who traveled to Asia, that the Far East wasn't all that far away.

Marco Polo said that Japan was only 1,500 miles east of China. Ptolemy, the great geographer of ancient Greece, had made two giant errors: He had said that Earth was smaller around than it really was, and he had said that the landmass of Europe and Asia was larger than it really was. As a result, Columbus was convinced that Japan was only 3,000 miles west of Portugal. And 3,000 miles was a distance that ships could travel in those days.

Add to this the fact that trade routes overland from Europe to the Far East were too slow for many traders. Also add to this the fact that trade routes by sea from Europe to the Far East were still too slow for many traders. Finally, add to this the idea (which was generally accepted by this time) that Earth was round.

So, Columbus decided that he wanted to get to the East by going west. He thought that if he sailed far enough west, he would eventually sail around

the world enough to reach the East. Based on his calculations, Japan was only 3,000 miles away, after all.

Part 2: The Long First Voyage

Columbus knew of the great reputation of Portugal in exploration. Prince Henry the Navigator had been sending ships to explore Africa and the East for years. Columbus asked Portugal's King John II for money and ships for his voyage. King John refused, so Columbus went to Spain.

At first, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella also refused. Columbus tried for seven years to get them to accept his proposal, but they kept on saying no. Finally, he told them he would move to France and ask the French king for help. The Spanish king and queen finally said yes.

Columbus spent the early months of 1492 getting ready for the voyage. His three ships--the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria--set sail from Palos, Spain, on August 3. Columbus captained the Santa Maria. The captains of the other two ships were brothers, Martin Pinzon (Pinta)and Vicente Pinzon (Nina).

The voyage across the Atlantic Ocean was long and frightening to many of the sailors aboard Columbus's three ships. They threatened mutiny. Columbus himself was worried when they did not see land for many days. He promised his crew on October 10 that if they did not see land in the next three days, they would turn back.

On October 12, they saw land. They landed at San Salvador, in the Bahamas. They met friendly natives there and then sailed on to Cuba and to Hispaniola. There, the Santa Maria was wrecked. Columbus got his men ashore and onboard the Nina. Then, they headed back to Europe.

They arrived in Lisbon, Portugal, in March 1493. Columbus met with Portugal's King John, then traveled to Barcelona, Spain, to meet with King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. Each time, Columbus made the claim that he had reached islands very near Asia. He showed gold, artifacts, and even natives that he had brought back with him. Spain's king and queen were so excited that they almost immediately gave him money and ships for another voyage.

Part 3: The Other Three Voyages

The Second Voyage

Columbus set sail on his second voyage in September 1493. He had 17 ships this time. They landed in the Lesser Antilles in November. They traveled on to Hispaniola, to Natividad, a colony founded by sailors who had stayed behind when the first voyage had returned home. When Columbus arrived, he found the colony empty. The Spaniards had tried to take over the area and had been killed by the natives. Columbus founded another colony east of Natividad, naming it Isabela. He traveled around Cuba and Jamaica, then decided to return home again. His brother Bartolome stayed behind on Hispaniola and founded Santo Domingo, the first permanent European settlement in the New World. Columbus arrived back in Spain in 1496.

The Third Voyage

There wasn't much change of a third voyage until Portugal's Vasco da Gama landed in India in 1497. Spain quickly wanted to catch up, so it sent Columbus back to the New World with six ships. They arrived on the island of Trinidad in July 1498 and then traveled on to the mainland, discovering South America. Columbus sailed back to Santo Domingo and found more trouble with Spaniards left behind. A royal commissioner from Spain soon arrived, blamed Christopher and Bartolome Columbus for the trouble, and had them both arrested and put in chains and then sent home in disgrace.

The Fourth Voyage

The king and queen freed him and even gave him money and ships for a fourth voyage. This one left Spain in 1502 and sailed to the island of Martinique and then to Honduras, in Central America. After more exploring in the Caribbean, Columbus returned home to Spain, in 1504. He died two years later, still believing he had reached Asia.

Sadly, Columbus never reached his goal. He did, however, prove several things:

You could get to the East by sailing west. Ferdinand Magellan's voyage proved it several years later.

You could sail to the New World and back. Columbus did it four times himself.

The New World was full of vast new lands for Europeans to explore.

Source Citation White, David. “Christopher Columbus and the New World”. Social Studies for Kids. http://www.socialstudiesforkids.com/articles/worldhistory/columbus1.htm . Accessed Aug. 13, 2018.

Document 7Bartolomé de Las Casas, A Short Description of the Destruction of the

Indies, 1542

. . . The Fifth Kingdom was Hiquey, over which Queen Hiquanama, an elderly Princess, whom the Spaniards Crucified, presided and governed. I saw an infinite number of these people burned, and dismembered, and racked with various torments, and of those who survived these matchless evils who were then enslaved. But because so much might be said concerning the killing and destruction of these people, as cannot without great difficulty be written (nor do I conceive that one part of 1,000 that is here contained can be fully displayed) I will only add one remark more about the previously mentioned wars, anddeclare upon my conscience, that notwithstanding all the above-named injustice, profligate [reckless] enormities and other crimes which I omit, (though sufficiently known to me) the Indians did not, nor was it in their power to, give [the Spaniards] any cause for these crimes, any more than the pious religious living in a well-regulated Monastery could give a sacrilegious villain any reason to deprive them of their goods and life. No was there any cause for the Spaniards to enslave in perpetuity [eternity] those who survived the initial massacre. I really believe and am satisfied by certain undeniable conjectures, that at the very time when all these outrages were committed in this Isle, the Indians were not so much guilty of one single mortal sin of commission against the Spaniards, that might deserve from anyone such revenge. And as for those sins, the punishment of which God reserves to himself, such as the immoderate desire of revenge, hatred, envy or inward rancor of spirit, to which [the Indians] might be led against such capital enemies as the Spaniards, I judge that very few of [the Indians] can justly be accused of them; for their impetuosity and vigor, I know, to be inferior to that of children of ten or twelve years of age. And I can assure you, that the Indians had every just cause to wage war against the Spaniards, and the Spaniards on the contrary never waged a just war against them, but only what was more injurious and groundless than any undertaken by the worst of Tyrants. This was true of all their actions in America.

The wars being over, and the inhabitants all swept away, the Spaniards divided among themselves the young men, women, and children, one taking thirty, another forty, to this man one hundred were given, to the other two hundred. The more one was in favor with the domineering tyrant (whom they styled Governor), the more slaves he got, under the pretense, and on the condition, that he should instruct the slave in the Catholic religion. Yet, those Spaniards to whom the Indians were given were themselves for the most partidiotic, cruel, avaricious [greedy], and infected with all sorts of vices. And this was the great care they had of [the Indians]: they sent the men to the mines to dig for gold, which is an intolerable labor; the women they turned to tilling and manuring the ground, which is drudgery even to men of the strongest and most robust constitutions. They gave them nothing else to eat but wild grasses and other such insubstantial nutriment, so that the milk of nursing

women dried up, which meant that recently born infants all died. Since the females were separated from and did not live with the men, there were no new births among them. The men died in the mines, starved and oppressed with labor, and the women perished in the fields, broken from the same evils and calamities. Thus, the infinite number of inhabitants that formerly peopled this island were exterminated and dwindled away to nothing. They were compelled to carry burdens of eighty or one hundred pound weight a hundred or two hundred miles. They had to carry the Spaniards on their shoulders in a carriage or a kind of bed woven by the Indians. In truth they made use of them as beasts to carry baggage on their journeys, so much so that it frequently happened that the shoulders and backs of the Indians were deeply marked with sores, just as happens with animals that carry heavy burdens. It would take a long time, and many reams of paper to describe the slashes with whips, blows with staves, beatings and curses, and all the other torments they suffered during these backbreaking journeys, and even then it would only create horror and dismay in the reader.

But it is true that the desolation of these islands began only with the death of the most Serene Queen Isabella, about the year 1504. Before that time very few of the provinces situated in that island [Hispaniola] were oppressed or spoiled with unjust wars, or violated with general devastation as they were afterwards. Most if not all these things were concealed and masked from the Queen’s knowledge (whom I hope God hath crowned with Eternal Glory) for she was transported with fervent and wonderful zeal, in fact, almost Divine desire for the salvation and preservation of these people, as we have seen withour own eyes and cannot easily forget.

Take this also for a general rule, that no matter which coast in the Americas the Spaniards were landed on, they carried out the same cruelties, slaughters, tyrannies and detestable oppressions on the most innocent Indian nations. The more time they spent in the Americas the more they diverted themselves with new ways of tormenting the Indians, improving in barbarism and cruelty. As a consequence, God, incensed at them, allowed them to fall into complete wickedness.

Source Citation Las Casas, Bartolomé de. "Bartolomé de Las Casas, A Short Description of the Destruction of the Indies, 1542". Gale World History in Context, Gale, 2014. World History in Context, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/LDFNRX770559629/WHIC?u=azstatelibdev&sid=WHIC&xid=56869d8d. Accessed 11 Aug. 2018.

Document 8Excerpts from A young People’s History of the United States by

Howard Zinn. Copyright 2009.

“Columbus and the Indians” (This excerpt retells forms of Indian resistance and Columbus’ reaction to this.)

The Indians had been given an impossible task. The only gold around was bits of gold dust in streams. So they ran away. The Spaniards hunted them down with dogs and killed them. When they took prisoners, they hanged them or burned them to death. Unable to fight against the Spanish soldiers’ guns, swords, armor, and horses, the Arawaks began to commit mass suicide with poison.

“A Historian’s Job”

A historian must pick and choose among facts, deciding which ones to put into his or her work, which ones to leave out, and which ones to place at the center of the story. Every historian’s own ideas and beliefs go into the way he or she writes history. In turn, the way history is written can shape the ideas and beliefs of the people who read it. Writing history is a matter of taking sides. A view of history like Morison’s, a picture of the past that sees Columbus and others like him as great sailors and discoverers, but says almost nothing about their genocide, can make it seem as though what they did was right.

“Columbus and the Indians”

Columbus’ promises [to the King and Queen of Spain, of gold and slaves] won him seventeen ships and more than 1,200 men for his second expedition. The aim was clear: slaves and gold. They went from island to island capturing Indians . . . Columbus’ men searched Haiti for gold, with no success. They had to fill up the ships with something, so in 1495 they went on a great slave raid.

Two hundred slaves [out of 500] died on the voyage to Spain. Too many slaves died in captivity. Columbus was desperate to show a profit for his voyages. He had to make good on his promise to fill the ships with gold. Columbus and his men ordered everyone over the age of 13 to collect gold for them. Indians who did not give gold to the Spaniards had their hands cut off and bled to death.

“Samuel Eliot Morison”

Morison (the most famous historian to write about Columbus) did not lie about Columbus. He did not leave out the mass murder. But he mentioned the truth quickly and then went on to other things. By burying the fact of genocide in a lot of other information, he seemed to be saying that the mass murder wasn’t very important in the big picture. At the end of the the book, Morison summed up his idea of Columbus as a great man. Columbus’ most important quality, Morison said, was his seamanship.

Source Citation Zinn, Howard and Rebecca Stefoof. A Young Peoples History of the United States. Steven Stories Press, 2007.

Document 9Excerpts from Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American history Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen. Copyright 2007.

Paraphrased information:

Although not the first European to explore North America and South America, Columbus is recognized as “THE FIRST” because of the lasting impacts he made. Columbus successfully crossed the Atlantic four times. Unlike La Salle, who got lost on his second voyage, Columbus and his men were able to continuously find the same islands, which show expertise in navigation and sea travel.

Because of Columbus, and his decision to bring gold, slaves, and goods across the Atlantic, from the Caribbean to Europe, trans-Atlantic trade began. It is sometimes called the “Columbian Trade” because Columbus started this process. Part of the trans (cross)-Atlantic trade was the slave trade.

Columbus also made it a “norm” to go to an unknown place and take land, money and labor from the native people. While not a positive choice, this model of conquest was used and is still use by many today.

Finally, from the point of view of the European nations who benefitted from Columbus and other explorers, his trips were successful. This is because their countries grew in wealth and land. He helped add even more power to these countries.

“Arawak Resistance”

After awhile, the Natives had had enough. At first their resistance was mostly passive. They refused to plant food for the Spanish to take. They abandoned towns near the Spanish settlements. Finally, the Arawaks fought back. Their sticks and stones were no more effective against the armed and clothed Spanish, however, than the earthling’s rifles against the aliens’ death rays in the War of the Worlds. The attempts at resistance gave Columbus and excuse to make war. On March 24, 1495, he set out to conquer the Arawaks.

“Understanding History though Columbus”

Columbus’ “second voyage marks the first [clash] between European and Indian societies. The class of cultures echoes down through five centuries.” These are not just details about Haiti between 1493 and 1500. They are facts important to understanding American History.

The [violent] methods that Columbus used were his legacy. He and Spain wanted to take over new land. Being violent worked. After 1500, Portugal, France, Holland and England joined in the conquering the Americas. These nations were at least as brutal as Spain. The English, unlike the Spanish, did not use the Native labor, but just forced them out of the way.

Source Citation Loewen, James W. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. Touchstone, 2007.

Document 10Excerpts from Columbus’ Confusion About the New World

By Edmund S. Morgan

Columbus had no doubts about how to proceed, either with the lovable but lazy Arawaks or with the hateful but industrious Caribs. He had come to take possession and to establish dominion. In almost the same breath, he described the Arawaks’ gentleness and innocence and then went on to assure the king and queen of Spain, “They have no arms and are all naked and without any knowledge of war, and very cowardly, so that a thousand of them would not face three. And they are also fitted to be ruled and to be set to work, to cultivate the land and to do all else that may be necessary, and you may build towns and teach them to go clothed and adopt our customs.”

So much for the golden age. Columbus had not yet prescribed the method by which the Arawaks would be set to work, but he had a pretty clear idea of how to handle the Caribs. On his second voyage, after capturing a few of them, he sent them in slavery to Spain, as samples of what he hoped would be a regular trade. They were obviously intelligent, and in Spain they might “be led to abandon that inhuman custom which they have of eating men, and there in Castile, learning the language, they will much more readily receive baptism and secure the welfare of their souls.” The way to handle the slave trade, Columbus suggested, was to send ships from Spain loaded with cattle (there were no native domestic animals on Española), and he would return the ships loaded with supposed Cannibals. This plan was never put into operation, partly because the Spanish sovereigns did not approve it and partly because the Cannibals did not approve it. They defended themselves so well with their poisoned arrows that the Spaniards decided to withhold the blessings of civilization from them and to concentrate their efforts on the seemingly more amenable Arawaks.

The process of civilizing the Arawaks got underway in earnest after the Santa Maria ran aground on Christmas Day, 1492, off Caracol Bay. The local leader in that part of Española, Guacanagari, rushed to the scene and with his people helped the Spaniards to salvage everything aboard. Once again Columbus was overjoyed with the remarkable natives. They are, he wrote, “so full of love and without greed, and suitable for every purpose, that I assure your Highnesses that I believe there is no better land in the world, and they are always smiling.” While the salvage operations were going on, canoes full of Arawaks from other parts of the island came in bearing gold. Guacanagari “was greatly delighted to see the admiral joyful and understood that he desired much gold.” Thereafter it arrived in amounts calculated to console the admiral for the loss of the Santa Maria, which had to be scuttled. He decided to make his permanent headquarters on the spot and accordingly ordered a fortress to be built, with a tower and a large moat.

What followed is a long, complicated and unpleasant story. Columbus returned to Spain to bring the news of his discoveries. The Spanish monarchs were less impressed than he with what he had found, but he was able to round up a large expedition of Spanish colonists to return with him and help exploit the riches of the Indies. At Española the new settlers built forts and towns and began helping themselves to all the gold they could find among the natives. These creatures of the golden age remained generous. But precisely because they did not value possessions, they had little to turn over. When gold was not forthcoming, the Europeans began killing. Some of the natives struck back and hid out in the hills. But in 1495 a punitive expedition rounded up 1,500 of them, and 500 were shipped off to the slave markets of Seville.

The natives, seeing what was in store for them, dug up their own crops of cassava and destroyed their supplies in hopes that the resulting famine would drive the Spaniards out. But it did not work. The Spaniards were sure there was more gold in the island than the natives had yet found, and were determined to make them dig it out. Columbus built more forts throughout the island and decreed that every Arawak of 14 years or over was to furnish a hawk’s bell full of gold dust every three months. The various local leaders were made responsible for seeing that the tribute was paid. In regions where gold was not to be had, 25 pounds of woven or spun cotton could be substituted for the hawk’s bell of gold dust.

Unfortunately Española was not Ophir, and it did not have anything like the amount of gold that Columbus thought it did. The pieces that the natives had at first presented him were the accumulation of many years. To fill their quotas by washing in the riverbeds was all but impossible, even with continual daily labor. But the demand was unrelenting, and those who sought to escape it by fleeing to the mountains were hunted down with dogs taught to kill. A few years later Peter Martyr was able to report that the natives “beare this yoke of servitude with an evill will, but yet they beare it.”

For the Arawaks the new system of forced labor meant that they did more work, wore more clothes and said more prayers. Peter Martyr could rejoice that “so many thousands of men are received to bee the sheepe of Christes flocke.” But these were sheep prepared for slaughter. If we may believe Bartolomé de Las Casas, a Dominican priest who spent many years among them, they were tortured, burned and fed to the dogs by their masters. They died from overwork and from new European diseases. They killed themselves. And they took pains to avoid having children. Life was not fit to live, and they stopped living. From a population of 100,000 at the lowest estimate in 1492, there remained in 1514 about 32,000 Arawaks in Española. By 1542, according to Las Casas, only 200 were left. In their place had appeared slaves imported from Africa. The people of the golden age had been virtually exterminated.

Why? What is the meaning of this tale of horror? Why is the first chapter of American history an atrocity story? Bartolomé de Las Casas had a simple answer, greed: “The cause why the Spanishe have destroyed such an

infinitie of soules, hath been onely, that they have helde it for their last scope and marke to gette golde.” The answer is true enough. But we shall have to go further than Spanish greed to understand why American history began this way. The Spanish had no monopoly on greed.

Source Citation Morgan, Edmund S. “Columbus’ Confusion About the New World”. Smithsonian Magazine, October 2009, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/columbus-confusion-about-the-new-world-140132422/ Accessed 11, Aug. 2018.

Document 11Excerpts from The Conquest of Paradise By Kirkpatrick Sale

For all his navigational skill, about which the salty types make such a fuss, and all his fortuitous headings [accidental but lucky directions], about which they are largely silent, Admiral Colon [Columbus] could be a wretched mariner. The four voyages, properly seen, quite apart from bravery and fortitude [endurance], are replete [filled] with lubberly [clumsy] mistakes, misconceived sailing plans, foolish disregard of elementary maintenance, and stubborn neglect of basic safety . . . Almost every time Colon went wrong it was because he had refused to bend to the inevitabilities of tide wind and reef or, more arrogantly still, had not bothered to learn about them; the very same reckless courage that led him across the ocean in the first place, and saw him through storm and tumult to return, lay behind his numerous misfortunes.

It was not that the islands were in need of names, mind you, nor indeed that Colon was ignorant of the names that native peoples had already given them, for he frequently used those original names before endowing them with his own. Rather, the process of bestowing new names went along with "taking possession of" those parts of the world he deemed suitable for Spanish ownership, showing the royal banners, erecting various crosses, and pronouncing certain oaths and pledges. If this was presumption, it had an honored heritage: It was Adam who was charged by his Creator with the task of naming "every living creature," including the product of his own rib, in the course of establishing "dominion over" them.

Colon went on to assign no fewer than sixty-two other names on the geography of the islands — capes, points, mountains, ports — with a blithe assurance suggesting that in his (and Europe's) perception the act of name-giving was in some sense a talisman of conquest, a rite that changed raw neutral stretches of far-off earth into extensions of Europe. The process began slowly, even haltingly — he forgot to record, for example, until four days afterward that he named the landfall island San Salvador — but by the time he came to Espanola at the end he went on a naming spree, using more than two-thirds of all the titles he concocted on that one coastline. On certain days it became almost a frenzy: on December 6 he named six places, on the nineteenth six more, and on January 11 no fewer than ten — eight capes, a point, and a mountain. It is almost as if, as he sailed along the last of the islands, he was determined to leave his mark on it the only way he knew how, and thus to establish his authority — and by extension Spain's — even, as with baptism, to make it thus sanctified, and real, and official. . . .

This business of naming and "possessing" foreign islands was by no means casual. The Admiral took it very seriously, pointing out that "it was my wish to bypass no island without taking possession" (October 15) and that "in all regions [I] always left a cross standing" (November 16) as a mark of Christian dominance. There even seem to have been certain prescriptions for it (the instructions from the Sovereigns speak of "the administering of the oath and the performing of the rites prescribed in such cases"), and Rodrigo de Escobedo was sent along as secretary of the fleet explicitly to witness and record these events in detail.

No clothes, no arms, no possessions, no iron, and now no religion — not even speech: hence they were fit to be servants, and captives. It may fairly be called the birth of American slavery.

Whether or not the idea of slavery was in Colon's mind all along is uncertain, although he did suggest he had had experience as a slave trader in Africa (November 12) and he certainly knew of Portuguese plantation slavery in the Madeiras and Spanish slavery of Guanches in the Canaries. But it seems to have taken shape early and grown ever firmer as the weeks went on and as he captured more and more of the helpless natives. At one point he even sent his crew ashore to kidnap "seven head of women, young ones and adults, and three small children"; the expression of such callousness led the Spanish historian Salvador de Madariaga to remark, "It would be difficult to find a starker utterance of utilitarian subjection of man by man than this passage [whose] form is no less devoid of human feeling than its substance."

Source Citation Sale, Kirkpatrick. The Conquest of Paradise. Plume, 1991.

Document 12Table from Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American

history Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen. Copyright 2007.

Source Citation Loewen, James W. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. Touchstone, 2007.