Wednesday - August 03, 2005

On This Day In History

On August 3, 1492 an Italian navigator named Cristoforo Colombo (Christopher Columbus) set sail from Spain in search of Cathay and the Indies by a Western route. On the evening of August 3, 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 the five week voyage across the ocean.

A legend is that the crew grew so homesick and fearful that they threatened to hurl Columbus overboard and 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. Columbus called the island he reached San Salvador. The Native Americans he encountered, the Taíno or Arawak, were peaceful and friendly. He wrote with such awe of the friendly innocence and beauty of these Indians that he inadvertently created the enduring myth of the Noble Savage. “These people have no religious beliefs, nor are they idolaters. They are very gentle and do not know what evil is; nor do they kill others, nor steal; and they are without weapons.”. No blood was shed on this first voyage; he believed conversion to Christianity would be achieved through love, not force.

Columbus Sets Sail

From the Spanish port of Palos, Italian explorer Christopher Columbus sets sail in command of three ships--the Santa Marýa, the Pinta, and the Niýa--on a journey to find a western sea route to China, India, and the fabled gold and spice islands of Asia.

On October 12, the expedition sighted land, probably Watling Island in the Bahamas, and went ashore the same day, claiming it for Spain. Later that month, Columbus sighted Cuba, which he thought was mainland China, and in December the expedition landed on Hispaniola, which Columbus thought might be Japan. He established a small colony there with 39 of his men. The explorer returned to Spain with gold, spices, and “Indian” captives in March 1493 and was received with the highest honors by the Spanish court. He was the first European to explore the Americas since the Vikings set up colonies in Greenland and Newfoundland in the 10th century.

During his lifetime, Columbus led a total of four expeditions to the New World, discovering various Caribbean islands, the Gulf of Mexico, and the South and Central American mainland, but never accomplished his original goal--a western ocean route to the great cities of Asia. Columbus died in Spain in 1506 without realizing the great scope of what he did achieve: He had discovered for Europe the New World, whose riches over the next century would help make Spain the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth.
-- The History Channel

Europe, in the year 1492 had reached a critical point. The Muslim capital of Granada was finally captured by the Spanish and the last Muslim stronghold in Europe was destroyed. The Muslim advance into Europe that had begun six hundred years earlier was finally stopped and driven back. Spain was finally united under Ferdinand and Isabella. The Reformation was in progress across the continent and the entire economic structure was altered forever with millions of deaths from the bubonic plague during the previous century. Feudalism was dead and the merchant class was growing. Things were about to get pretty exciting ....

The State Of Europe

Christian Europe, long allowed safe passage to India and China (sources of valued trade goods such as silk and spices) under the hegemony of the Mongol Empire (Pax Mongolica, or “Mongol peace"), was now, after the fragmentation of that empire, under a complete economic blockade by Muslim states. In response to Muslim hegemony on land, Portugal sought an eastward sea route to the Indies, and promoted the establishment of trading posts and later colonies along the coast of Africa. Columbus had another idea. By the 1480s, he had developed a plan to travel to the Indies (then roughly meaning all of south and east Asia) by sailing west across the Ocean Sea (the Atlantic Ocean) instead.

It is sometimes claimed that the reason Columbus had a hard time receiving support for this plan was that Europeans believed that the Earth was flat. This myth can be traced to Washington Irving’s novel The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1828).

The fact that the Earth is round was evident to most people of Columbus’s time, especially other sailors and navigators (Eratosthenes (276-194 BC) had in fact accurately calculated the circumference of the Earth). The problem was that the experts did not agree with his estimates of the distance to the Indies. Most scholars accepted Ptolemy’s claim that the terrestrial landmass (for Europeans of the time, Eurasia and Africa) occupied 180 degrees of the terrestrial sphere, leaving 180 degrees of water. In fact, it occupies about 120 degrees, leaving 60 degrees unaccounted for at that time.

Columbus accepted the calculations of Pierre d’Ailly, that the land-mass occupied 225 degrees, leaving only 135 degrees of water. Moreover, Columbus believed that one degree actually covered less space on the earth’s surface than commonly believed. Finally, Columbus read maps as if the distances were calculated in Roman miles (1524 meters or 5,000 feet) rather than nautical miles (1853.99 meters or 6,082.66 feet at the equator). The true circumference of the earth is about 40,000 km (24,900 statute miles of 5,280 feet each), whereas the circumference of Columbus’s earth was the equivalent of at most 19,000 modern statue miles (or 30,600 km). Columbus calculated that the distance from the Canary Islands to Japan was 2,400 nautical miles (about 4,444 km).

In fact, the distance is about 10,600 nautical miles (19,600 km), and most European sailors and navigators concluded that the Indies were too far away to make his plan worth considering. They were right and Columbus was wrong – but, ultimately in his case, like in that of so many successful individuals, initiative and enterpreneurship ended up being more important than factual accuracy.
-- Wikipedia

Columbus went on to make four voyages to the New World and helped inaugurate the Spanish conquest of Central and South America. The search for gold was on and the Spanish were determined to get all of it. Of course, the Spanish eventually were robbed of all that gold by other European countries and what wasn’t stolen, the Spanish threw away in vain attempts to expand their empire in Europe. As for Columbus, his life after the exploration of America was also a tragedy ....

The Final Years

While Columbus had always given the conversion of non-believers as one reason for his explorations, he grew increasingly religious in his later years. He claimed to hear divine voices, lobbied for a new crusade to capture Jerusalem, often wore Franciscan habit, and described his explorations to the “paradise” as part of God’s plan which would soon result in the Last Judgement and the end of the world.

In his later years Columbus demanded that the Spanish Crown give him 10% of all profits made in the new lands, pursuant to earlier agreements. Because he had been relieved of his duties as governor, the crown felt not bound by these contracts and his demands were rejected. His family later sued for part of the profits from trade with America, but ultimately lost some fifty years later.

On May 20, 1506, Columbus died in Valladolid, fairly wealthy due to the gold his men had accumulated in Hispaniola. He was still convinced that his journeys had been along the East Coast of Asia.
-- The Mariner’s Museum

Posted by The Skipper     on 08/03/2005 at 11:00 AM   
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