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The
Vikings |
Columbus |
John Day |
John Cabot |
Martin Frobisher |
Jacques Cartier
| John Guy |
Henry Hudson |
Samuel De
Champlain |
Native Perceptions |
Francis Drake |
Humphrey Gilbert
Columbus is hailed as
the explorer that discovered America. He most likely
died believing that he had found a new route to China
and India. He grew up with a seafaring background in
Italy which was the centre of European trade in the
1400's. With the increasingly uneasy relationships
between Christian Europe and Islamic North Africa and
the Middle East, trade items form India, China and the
Spice Islands coming to Europe and European items going
to the far east were cut off by the Islamic middle man.
The Portuguese had began exploring the African coast and
Vasco de Gama had sailed around the Cape of Good Hope
and up along the Eastern coast which would lead to a
route that did not pass through Islamic territory.
Columbus had picked up
on stories and rumors of a short route to China which
could be followed by sailing directly west across the
ocean. In a European world which generally
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believed that
the world was flat, the idea that it might be round had
been quickly gaining credence. Columbus had worked as a
sailor in England and would have been fairly familiar
with the Viking sagas that depicted Islands and lands to
the west. He may have also heard the stories of some of
the English fishermen who told of a fishing area to the
west with seas so full of fish that you could fill a
basket by simply dipping it in the ocean.
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Columbus solicited
support from several kingdoms in the Christian west such
as England, France, some Italian states and of course
Spain. By 1491 the Ferdinand and Isabella's war of
conquest to unite the Iberian Peninsula under Christian
rule and push the Moslems out was on the verge of a
successful conclusion. Isabella in particular was
susceptible to proposals of new and exciting ventures.
She decide to back Columbus in his venture to sail to
China and in 1492 he set sail for the Canary Islands
where he resupplied his ships and then set his course
due west.
The discovery of
Caribbean Islands and his safe return with the news that
he had reached China, set off a rush by the European
powers to establish their own routes to the east. This
process cumulated in the realization that Columbus had
not reached China and that there was a huge land mass in
between Europe and Asia. The French, Dutch and English
organized and dispatch their sailors, explorers,
fisherman, and ventures to the west. Native isolation in
America was to be readily shattered and their way of
life changed forever. |
