A HISTORY OF THE UNITED

STATES

THE PERIOD OF DISCOVERY

CHAPTER I

THE STORY OF COLUMBUS

1. Early trade with the Orient. In the middle of the fifteenth century, when Christopher Columbus was a boy living in the large and busy seaport of Genoa, Italy, the richest countries in Europe were those bordering on the Mediterranean and Adriatic seas- Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal. These countries had grown rich largely through their commerce with the East. For centuries, merchants in the prosperous cities of southern Europe had carried on a large trade with Persia, India, China, Japan, and other countries of Asia — that vast region being then variously called the Indies, the Orient, or the East.1

Fleets of ships, laden with lumber, metals, and heavy manufactured goods, destined for the Indies, were continually sailing from European ports. Some of them went to Alexandria, on the north coast of Africa, whence the goods were carried over the Isthmus of Suez to the Red Sea, and thence by vessels direct to Asia. Other ships went by way of Constantinople to ports on the Black Sea. Here, cargoes were loaded on the backs of camels and horses. Long and

1 This commerce was one of the important results of the Crusades. The Crusades were expeditions of thousands of Christian men from western Europe, who in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries made several partly successful attempts to capture the Holy Land from the Turks and Saracens. These expeditions cost enormously in life and treasure; but they were the means of bringing into Europe a knowledge of new peoples, countries, ideas, and customs, and were therefore of far-reaching benefit.

picturesque caravans of these animals, guided by drivers in the strange costumes of the Orient, slowly journeyed across the Asiatic mountains, deserts, and plains, to the far-off merchants of the Indies. The same caravans and ships brought back to Europe the products of Asia ivory, precious stones, gold and silver jewelry, silks, perfumes, and spices. Thus Europeans obtained many comforts and luxuries which they could not otherwise have had.

This commerce with the Indies employed thousands of men on land and sea; it greatly enriched the cities engaged in it, and European merchants regarded it as the most important business in the world.

2. The trade with the Orient is interrupted. But in 1453, when Columbus was perhaps six or seven years old, there occurred an event of the greatest importance. The warlike Turks, who were Mohammedans, and hostile to Christians, captured much of the eastern country crossed by the traders, and after this robbed the European caravans or forbade them the right to pass through their lands. The people of southern Europe were thoroughly aroused by this great

calamity and declared that a new way, wholly by sea, must be found by which to reach the Indies.

3. Barriers to ocean navigation. However, the finding of a new water route to Asia proved in those days to be a very difficult undertaking. There were several reasons for this:

(a) Ideas about the size and shape of the earth. Although the people of southern Europe were then the most intelligent and best educated in the world, they had no idea

how large the earth really is. Besides their own continent, they knew of but two others, Asia and Africa; and their knowledge of these was very slight. As for the Atlantic Ocean, it was as yet a great uncharted sea. Moreover, few people had come to realize that the earth is a great sphere whirling in space; instead, most of them thought that it was exactly what any part of it seems to be a great, immovable plain. What was beyond the edges of this plain, probably they did not dare even to imagine. To be sure, hundreds of years before this time, learned scientists like Aristotle and Ptolemy had declared their belief that the earth was round; but in the boyhood of Columbus, only a few of

the more thoughtful and intelligent men had come to accept what every child is now taught as one of his first lessons in geography.

(b) Fear of the ocean. With these mistaken ideas about the world, it is not strange that most of the sailors on the Mediterranean had extravagant fears and superstitions about the Atlantic. To them it was the "Sea of Darkness." They firmly believed that it could not be navigated at a great distance from shore, because of violent storms, mysterious winds and currents, whirlpools that would swallow ships, monster sea-serpents, and other horrible things that would allow neither men nor vessels to return in safety.

(c) Smallness of ships. There was still another serious obstacle to the navigation of the Atlantic. The sailing vessels of Columbus's day were tiny affairs compared with the monster steamships in which we now cross the great seas, and they had very few of the guides and helps to navigation with which we are familiar. The marvel is that men ventured out in such vessels at all, even upon the Mediterranean. As for navigating the great and boisterous Atlantic, few sailors in our time would dare cross the ocean in a ship like the best of those of the fifteenth century.

4. Portuguese discoveries. Nevertheless, while the majority of sailors continued to be afraid of the "Sea of Darkness," the bolder spirits among them sometimes ventured to sail upon it, and gradually became more fearless. The most enterprising of all were the Portuguese, who began quite early to make long journeys southward along the African coast, and thus discovered the Azores, the Madeira, the Canary, and the Cape Verd Islands.

After the closing of the overland routes to Asia by the quarrelsome Turks, Portugal was foremost among those countries that sought to find the coveted sea route to the Orient. Finally, in 1487, five years before the great voyage of Columbus into the West, Bartholomeu Dias, of that country, discovered the Cape of Good Hope, the southern

most point of Africa;1 and it is interesting to know that a brother of Columbus was a member of that famous expedition.

5. Increasing interest in exploration. These daring achievements of the Portuguese were gradually, but surely, changing public opinion about the dangers of the unknown Atlantic; and, together with the pressing need for new routes to Asia, they helped to arouse in the more enterprising class of Europeans a keener interest than ever before in exploration. But there were also other reasons why such men were now seeking information about strange parts of the world:

(a) Four great inventions. Four great inventions were now coming into general use in Europe- the printing-press, the mariner's compass, the astrolabe, and gunpowder." Through the printing of books of travel, people could learn about habitable lands heretofore unknown to them. With the compass, mariners could for the first time safely venture far into the sea, out of sight of land; and with the astrolabe, an instrument for ascertaining position through reference to the stars, they could determine latitude and longitude in mid-ocean; while gunpowder made it easy to conquer peoples who did not have fire-arms.

(b) Belief in a sea east of Asia. Among the more keenminded of the navigators of the day, a belief was growing

1 The Portuguese did not reach India, however, until 1498.

2 It is supposed that the Chinese invented movable types as early as the tenth century A.D.; and many think that gunpowder was made by both Hindus and Chinese long before it became known to Europeans in the thirteenth century. The compass may have been used by Chinese long before the Christian era. Although known as early as the second century B.C., the astrolabe was perfected by Portuguese scientists while Columbus was still a boy; better instruments, however, have since taken its place.