A Bold Adventure
"In fourteen hundred ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue." Most Americans remember this little ditty from their childhood which fixes in their memory that Columbus discovered the Americas with a bold sailing adventure in 1492. In a three-ship fleet, consisting of the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria, Columbus started his sailing adventure by leaving Palos, Spain on August 3, 1492, reaching the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa in nine days. Repairs and final preparations took five weeks. He departed from the Canary Islands on September 7, and sailed west into uncharted seas. After three weeks, the longest anyone had sailed without seeing land, his men became fearful and were near mutiny. On October 10 he convinced them to continue west for three more days. Two days later, they spotted land by moonlight at two o'clock in the morning. It was an island in the Bahamas, which Columbus named San Salvador.
Columbus had not made the journey to discover and conquer new land nor to prove that the world was round. He made the journey because he believed that by sailing west he could prove that a shorter and faster trade route to the East Indies could be established. Before Columbus' bold sailing adventure, Europeans obtained trade goods from the East Indies, which included India, China and Japan, by long and costly overland caravans. When he set foot on San Salvador, Columbus believed he had reached an island off the coast of the East Indies, thus he called the native people, "Indians".
The Indians reached the Americas by walking on dry land across the Bering Straits about 20,000 years ago. There is evidence that the Viking, Leif Erickson, reached Newfoundland some 500 years before Columbus, but no one knew about it other than a few Vikings, and no one benefits from the discovery. Columbus deserves credit for a very bold adventure, deliberately made to benefit European traders and himself through title and commissions. He hoped to establish a great trading center where goods could be exchanged between East and West He also wanted to build an estate for his children so they could escape the poverty he experienced as a child.
Columbus was born of Italian parents in Genoa, Italy in late 1451. He was baptized "Christopher" after the patron saint of sailors and travelers. He moved to Spain in 1485 where he sought to sell his plan of sailing west. Many thought his plan sheer folly but Spain's treasurer told Queen Isabella she was missing a great opportunity. She agreed to finance him and promised him all he asked for: ships, honors, titles and a percentage of trade. No other discoverer's performance so greatly exceeded his promise. Columbus returned to Spain in great triumph. He was given a great reception and his title, Admiral of the Oceans, was confirmed.
Columbus made three more voyages, in 1493, 1498 and 1502, searching Central America for a passage to India. Queen Isabella died before he could realize any gains from his trade percentages, and the King who succeeded her refused to honor the agreement. Columbus died in 1506 in a humble dwelling. Less than 300 years later, the democracy created in North America became the great new hope for humanity.