Good resource for History and Social Studies

1. Christopher
Columbus
Man who discovered America

3. Early life
o Columbus was born in Genoa, Italy in 1451. Born during
the Renaissance period when people were making new
discoveries every day, he wanted to learn more about
what the future would hold.
o He lived in Lisbon where he developed his interests in
ships and navigation. As a teenager, he worked under a
trader and sailed in several commercial voyages in the
Mediterranean and Aegean Sea.
o During his early years in navigation, Columbus
participated in a number of voyages to Africa, giving him
a lot of knowledge and experience about sailing in the
Atlantic.

4. Navigations
•During his early years in navigation, Columbus
participated in a number of voyages to Africa, giving
him a lot of knowledge and experience about sailing
in the Atlantic.
•People living in Europe wanted to set up a new trade
route with China. It was a time when trading with Asia
was difficult and expensive due to the monopoly by
Italian merchants and Turkish control over the route.
•Columbus thought the best way to do this was to sail
west from Spain until he reached China. He believed
that sailing across the Atlantic would reach Asia, thus
discovering a new trade route.

5. First voyage
In 1492, prior to his first voyage, Columbus negotiated with
King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, entitling him to
10% of the profits of all the riches he would discover:
“that of all and every kind of merchandise, whether pearls,
precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and
merchandise whatsoever, of whatever kind, name and sort,
which may be bought, bartered, discovered, acquired and
obtained within the limits of the said Admiralty, Your
Highnesses grant from now henceforth to the said Don
Cristóbal [Christopher Columbus] … the tenth part of the
whole, after deducting all the expenses which may be incurred
therein.”

6. • In 1492, Christopher Columbus set sail for China
with 90 men and a fleet of 3 wooden sailing boats
called the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria.
Rather than using the stars, on this voyage
Columbus had a compass and a traverse board to
track where the fleet was going.
• On October 12, 1492, Columbus’ fleet came
across a small island that he named San
Salvador. This island is now part of the Bahamas.
He then sailed on and discovered Cuba and an
island called Hispaniola.

7. Despite being near America, Columbus believed
his fleet was in the Indies and so named the
Native American people he came across ‘Indians’.
The natives traded goods like glass, cotton,
spears, and parrots with Columbus’ crew. The
Europeans took note of the adornments they wore
– gold!
Columbus thought that modern-day Bahamas
was China, and what is now Haiti and Dominican
Republic he thought was Japan.
All his assumptions were based on Marco Polo’s
early accounts regarding the grandeur of Asia.

9. •On Christmas Day in 1492,
Columbus’ ship, the Santa Maria, was
shipwrecked on a reef. Columbus
and his sailors built a new settlement
using salvaged parts from the ship
and called it Villa de la Navidad, or
‘Christmas Town’.
•The Niña and the Pinta sailed back
to Spain, leaving 40 men behind in
the new settlement, arriving in 1493.
Columbus had brought some captive
Native Americans with him.

10. Second voyage
Christopher Columbus was named
‘Admiral of the Seven Seas’ due to his
triumphs. On his second voyage,
Columbus took 17 ships back to the
Bahamas to collect the men he had
left behind.
He found that the settlement had been
destroyed and all his men had been
killed. He went against the Spanish
Queen’s wishes and requested that
the Native Americans acted as slaves
and rebuilt the settlement for him.

12. Third voyage
On his third voyage, he discovered South
America and explored the Orinoco River in
Venezuela.
After the third voyage, the Queen of Spain
heard about how Columbus had made the
Native Americans his slaves and had him
arrested, but Columbus managed to
convince the King that one more voyage to
the New World would bring him many
riches. On his fourth voyage, Christopher
Columbus discovered more of Central
America, although he was still hoping that
his ship would reach China.

13. LATER LIFE, DEATH,
AND CONTROVERSY
On the fourth voyage, Columbus’ ship was wrecked and he and his
crew were stranded in Cuba. Because Columbus had insisted the
Native Americans pay tribute to him every three months with food,
supplies and treasures or face violent and cruel punishment, they
had become resentful, staged revolts, and then refused to help him
when he was shipwrecked. He was eventually rescued and taken
back to Spain in 1504 and died in 1506, aged around 54, after
falling ill.
Throughout Columbus’ life and voyages, he failed to reach Asia and
was unsuccessful in discovering a new trade route. On the other
hand, he was still credited for opening the Americas to European
exploration.
Named after him, the Columbian Exchange set the stage for large
scale transfer of people, animals, and plant species, culture, and
diseases to and from the rest of the world.

14. Columbus’ relation with the Taino people, or Arawaks,
natives of Hispaniola, is considered the center of
controversy against the explorer. The extinction of the
Tainos is blamed on how Columbus treated them plus
the diseases brought from the west during the Age of
Exploration.
According to Bartolome de Las Casas in A Short Account
of the Destruction of the Indies published in 1542,
Columbus ordered the enslavement of the natives, some
were grilled, dismembered, and sold as dog food, while
others were strung up and burned alive, and women
were held as slaves.
Despite the contentions of Queen Isabella, Columbus’
colonization of the Arawaks set the stage for slave trade,
which lasted for centuries.

15. In 1937, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt
declared the second Monday in October a federal
holiday to commemorate his ‘discovery’ of the
Americas as persuaded by Christian American Italians
in the U.S.
On the other side of the coin, critics saw Columbus as
the main person who wrecked the Arawak population
and initiated slavery in the Americas. Many argued
that he was not the first European to set foot in
today’s America since the Vikings were ahead of him.
In addition, he explored the Caribbean and not
modern-day United States. Moreover, some states
and cities in the U.S. created a counter celebration
named as Indigenous Peoples’ Day which honors the
contributions of Native Americans instead of
Columbus Day.

16. 1. Columbus didn’t set
out to prove the earth
was round.
2. Three countries
refused to back
Columbus’ voyage.
3. The Santa Maria is
called by its official
name, its nickname was
La Gallega, after the
province of Galicia in
which it was built.
4. Columbus was
likely not the first
European to cross
the Atlantic Ocean.
That distinction is
generally given to
the Norse Viking Leif
Eriksson, who is
believed to have
landed in present-
day Newfoundland
around 1000 A.D.,
almost five centuries
before Columbus set
sail.

17. Thank
you!