First voyage
First voyageOn the evening of August 3, 1492, Columbus left from Palos with three ships, the Santa Maria, Niña and Pinta. The ships were property of Juan de la Cosa and the Pinzón brothers (Martin and Vicente Yáñez), but the monarchs forced the Palos inhabitants to contribute to the expedition. He first sailed to the Canary Islands, fortunately owned by Castile, where he reprovisioned and made repairs, and on September 6 started what turned out to be a five-week voyage across the ocean.
A legend is that the crew grew so homesick and fearful that they threatened to sail back to Spain. Although the actual situation is unclear, most likely the sailors' resentments merely amounted to complaints or suggestions.
After 29 days out of sight of land, on 7 October 1492 as recorded in the ship's log the crew spotted shore birds flying west and changed direction to make their landfall. A later comparison of dates and migratory patterns leads to the conclusion that the birds were Eskimo curlews and American golden plovers.
A depiction of Columbus claiming possession of the New World in a chromolithograph made by the Prang Education Company in 1893.Land was sighted at 2 AM on October 12 by a sailor named Rodrigo de Triana (also known as Juan Rodriguez Bermejo) aboard Niña. Columbus called the island (in what is now The Bahamas) San Salvador, although the natives called it Guanahani. The indigenous people he encountered, the Lucayan, Taíno or Arawak, were peaceful and friendly. Columbus, knowing these people were peaceful and friendly, wished to make them slaves. He wrote of them, "They ... brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks' bells. They willingly traded everything they owned... . They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features.... They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane... . They would make fine servants.... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want."
On this first voyage, Columbus also explored the northeast coast of Cuba (landed on 28 October) and the northern coast of Hispaniola, by 5 December. Here, the Santa Maria ran aground on Christmas morning 1492 and had to be abandoned. He was received by the native cacique Guacanagari, who gave him permission to leave some of his men behind. Columbus founded the settlement La Navidad and left 39 men.
On 15 January 1493, he set sail for home by way of the Azores. He wrestled his ship against the wind and ran into a fierce storm. Leaving the island of Santa Maria in the Azores, Columbus headed for Spain, but another storm forced him into Lisbon. He anchored next to the King's harbour patrol ship on 4 March 1493, where he was told a fleet of 100 caravels had been lost in the storm. Astoundingly, both the Niña and the Pinta were spared. Not finding the King in Lisbon, Columbus wrote a letter to him and waited for the king's reply, which requested that he go to Vale do Paraíso to meet with His Majesty. Some have speculated that his landing in Portugal was intentional.
Relations between Portugal and Castile were poor at the time. Columbus went to meet with the king at Vale do Paraíso (north of Lisbon). After spending more than one week in Portugal, he set sail for Spain. Word of his finding new lands rapidly spread throughout Europe. He did not reach Spain until 15 March.
He was received as a hero in Spain: this was his moment in the sun. He displayed several kidnapped natives and what gold he had found to the court, as well as the previously unknown tobacco plant, the pineapple fruit, the turkey and the sailor's first love, the hammock. He did not bring any of the coveted East Indies spices, such as the exceedingly expensive black pepper, ginger or cloves. In his log, he wrote "there is also plenty of ají, which is their pepper, which is more valuable than black pepper, and all the people eat nothing else, it being very wholesome" (Turner, 2004, P11). The word ají is still used in South American Spanish for chili peppers.
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Second voyage
Second voyageAdmiral Columbus left from Cádiz, Spain to find more places. (1493-1496) on September 24, 1493, with 17 ships carrying supplies, and about 1200 men to assist in the conquering of the Taíno and the colonization of the region. It was a strategic military move on behalf of Spain, which was seeking colonies. On October 13, the ships left the Canary Islands, following a more southerly course than on the first voyage.
On November 3, 1493, Columbus sighted a rugged island that he named Dominica. On the same day, he landed at Marie-Galante, which he named Santa Maria la Galante. After sailing past Les Saintes (Todos los Santos), he arrived at Guadaloupe (Santa Maria de Guadalupe), which he explored between November 4 and November 10, 1493. The exact course of his voyage through the Lesser Antilles is debated, but it seems likely that he turned north, sighting and naming several islands including Montserrat (Santa Maria de Monstserrate), Antigua (Santa Maria la Antigua), Redonda (Santa Maria la Redonda), Nevis (Santa María de las Nieves), Saint Kitts (San Jorge), Sint Eustatius (Santa Anastasia), Saba (San Cristobal), Saint Martin (San Martin), and Saint Croix (Santa Cruz). He also sighted the island chain of the Virgin Islands, which he named Santa Ursula y las Once Mil Virgines, and named the islands of Virgin Gorda, Tortola, and Peter Island (San Pedro).
He continued to the Greater Antilles, and landed at Puerto Rico (San Juan Bautista) on November 19, 1493. On November 22, he returned to Hispaniola, where he found his colonists had fallen into dispute with natives in the interior and had been killed. He established a new settlement at Isabella, on the north coast of Hispaniola where gold had first been found, but it was a poor location, and the settlement was also short-lived. He spent some time exploring the interior of the island for gold, and did find some, establishing a small fort in the interior. He left Hispaniola on April 24, 1494 and arrived at Cuba (which he named Juana) on April 30, and Jamaica on May 5. He explored the south coast of Cuba, which he believed to be a peninsula rather than an island, and several nearby islands, including the Isle of Youth (La Evangelista), before returning to Hispaniola on August 20.
Before he left Spain for his second voyage, he had been directed by Ferdinand and Isabella to maintain friendly, even loving relations with the natives. However, during his second voyage he sent a letter to the monarchs proposing to enslave some of the native peoples, specifically the Caribs, on the grounds of their aggressiveness. Although his petition was refused by the Crown, in February 1495 Columbus took 1600 Arawak (a different tribe, who were hunted by the Carib) as slaves. 560 slaves were shipped to Spain; 200 died en route, probably of disease, and of the remainder, half were ill when they arrived. After legal proceedings, the survivors were released and ordered to be shipped home. Others of the 1600 were kept as slaves for Columbus' men in the Americas, and Columbus recorded using slaves for sex in his journal. A remaining 400 captives, for whom Columbus had no use, were released; they fled into the hills, making, according to Columbus, prospects for their future capture dim. Rounding up the slaves led to the first major battle between the Spanish and the natives in the New World.
The main objective of Columbus' journey had been gold. To further this goal, he imposed a system on the natives in Cicao on Haiti, whereby all those above 14 years of age had to find a certain quota of gold, to be signified by a token placed around their necks. Those who failed to reach their quota would have their hands chopped off. Despite such extreme measures, Columbus did not manage to obtain much gold. One of the primary reasons for this was the fact that natives became infected with various diseases carried by the Europeans.
In his letters to the Spanish King and Queen, Columbus repeatedly suggested slavery as a way to profit from the new colonies, but these suggestions were rejected by the monarchs, who preferred to view the natives as future members of Christendom.
From Haiti, he returned to Spain.
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Third voyage and arrest
Third voyage
The arrow points to the city of Sanlúcar de Barrameda, the starting point for Columbus' third journey.On May 30, 1498, Columbus left with six ships from Sanlúcar, Spain for his third trip to the New World. He was accompanied by the young Bartolomé de Las Casas, who would later provide partial transcripts of Columbus' logs.
Columbus led the fleet to the Portuguese island of Porto Santo, where his wife was from. He then sailed to Madeira and spent some time there with the Portuguese captain João Gonçalves da Camara before sailing to the Canary Islands and Cape Verde, Columbus landed on the south coast of the island of Trinidad on July 31. From August 4 through August 12, he explored the Gulf of Paria which separates Trinidad from Venezuela. He explored the mainland of South America, including the Orinoco River. He also sailed to the islands of Chacachacare and Margarita Island and sighted and named Tobago (Bella Forma) and Grenada (Concepcion). Initially, he described the new lands as belonging to a previously unknown new continent, but later he retreated to his position that they belonged to Asia.
Columbus returned to Hispaniola on August 19 to find that many of the Spanish settlers of the new colony were discontent, having been misled by Columbus about the supposedly bountiful riches of the new world. Columbus repeatedly had to deal with rebellious settlers and natives. He had some of his crew hanged for disobeying him. A number of returned settlers and friars lobbied against Columbus at the Spanish court, accusing him of mismanagement. The king and queen sent the royal administrator Francisco de Bobadilla in 1500, who upon arrival (August 23) detained Columbus and his brothers and had them shipped home. Columbus refused to have his shackles removed on the trip to Spain, during which he wrote a long and pleading letter to the Spanish monarchs. They accepted his letter and let Columbus and his brothers go.
Although he regained his freedom, he did not regain his prestige and he lost his governorship. As an added insult, the Portuguese had won the race to the Indies: Vasco da Gama returned in September 1499 from a trip to India, having sailed east around Africa. (Of course, this may have been the planned result.)
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Fourth voyage
Fourth voyageNevertheless, Columbus made a fourth voyage, nominally in search of the Strait of Malacca to the Indian Ocean.
Accompanied by his brother Bartolomeo and his 13-year-old son Fernando, he left Cádiz, Spain on May 11, 1502. He sailed to Arzila on the Moroccan coast to rescue the Portuguese soldiers who he heard were under siege by the Moors. On June 15, they landed at Carbet on the island of Martinique (Martinica). A hurricane was brewing, so he continued on, hoping to find shelter on Hispaniola. He arrived at Santo Domingo on June 29, but was denied port. Instead, the ships anchored at the mouth of the Jaina River.
After a brief stop at Jamaica, He sailed to Central America, arriving at Guanaja (Isla de Pinos) in the Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras on July 30. Here Bartolomeo found native merchants and a large canoe, which was described as "long as a galley" and was filled with cargo. On August 14, he landed on the American mainland at Puerto Castilla, near Trujillo, Honduras. He spent two months exploring the coasts of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, before arriving in Almirante Bay, Panama on October 16.
In Panama, he learned from the natives of gold and a strait to another ocean. After much exploration, he established a garrison at the mouth of Rio Belen in January 1503. On April 6, one of the ships became stranded in the river. At the same time, the garrison was attacked, and the other ships were damaged. He left for Hispaniola on April 16, but sustained more damage in a storm off the coast of Cuba. Unable to travel any farther, the ships were beached in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica, on June 25, 1503.
Columbus and his men were stranded on Jamaica for a year. Two Spaniards, with native paddlers, were sent by canoe to get help from Hispaniola. In the meantime, in a desperate effort to induce the natives to continue provisioning him and his hungry men, he successfully intimidated the natives by correctly predicting a lunar eclipse, using astronomic tables made by Rabbi Avraham Zacuto of Spain. Grudging help finally arrived on June 29, 1504, and Columbus and his men arrived in Sanlúcar, Spain on November 7.
2006-07-05 08:36:57
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answer #1
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answered by kara 5
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