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So what was happening 500 years ago in the year
1492??
In Europe…
 Began in Spain in 1480
 Spread of Catholicism; Persecution of Jews and Muslims
 Theological development that amassing wealth and domination was key to salvation
 Cruel Punishments: People who were suspected of ‘criminal’ acts, depending on the crime, faced severe punishment. The most merciful was being hanged. Other punishments ranged from cutting off criminals’ heads, arms, legs, hands, or feet to being burned at the stake in front of large audiences.

– The Renaissance Period
(1400-1600): the rebirth of humanism
 The Printing Press and increased literacy
 Advances in science, mathematics, and arts
– Myth: Columbus was first to think that the Earth was round, all others thought Earth was flat
(Began in Washington Irving’s biography of Columbus in 1828)
– Truth: There is evidence that this was known by the Egyptians thousands of years ago and also more evidence provided by Greek mathematician Pythagoras in the
6 th century B.C.E.

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Myth : Sea exploration began with Europeans in the 1400’s…
Fact : There is evidence of many other cultures exploring the world by ship before Columbus’s time.
– The Portuguese called their ships “caravels”, derived from the Egyptian word
“caravos”
 Evidence that Egyptians and Phoenicians sailed around Africa in 600 B.C.E.
– Accounts of two Native Americans shipwrecked in Holland in 60 B.C.E.
– Ancient Roman coins found by archeologists in America
– Map found in Turkey dated 1513 of the coastlines of South America and
Antarctica that was based from the library of Alexander the Great
– The Viking expeditions to Greenland, Iceland around 1000

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Strong evidence that West Africans arrived in Mexico in 750 B.C.
– Heads of basalt that stand along the eastern coast of Mexico dated around
750 B.C. are realistic portraits of West Africans
– When Columbus reached Haiti, the Natives had spear points made of guanine
(identical to a material made by West Africans) of which they told Columbus they had received from black traders
– Traces of diseases common in Africa have been detected in corpses in Brazil, dating before Columbus
These rock heads are called
Olmec heads and are located in
Mexico

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The Beginning of his Journey…
Was born in 1452
Facts about life are very uncertain
– May have been originally Jewish but converted to Christianity
– Said to have been born in Genoa,
Italy but some historians suggest he may have been from Portugal
 Could not write in Italian
 After asking other countries to sponsor his voyage, Columbus finally received the financial backing from King Ferdinand and Queen Isabel of Spain for a voyage to find a trade route to
India for spices.
His main quest was to search for gold and wealth.

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Altogether, Columbus sailed on four voyages to the new world.
– The first voyage, Columbus reached an unknown Caribbean
Island in October 1492
– The second voyage Columbus landed in what is now Haiti
– The third voyage traveled along central America
– The final voyage traveled along
South America

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According to the journal
Columbus kept:
October 12, 1492:
They were very well-built people, with handsome bodies and very fine faces, though their appearance is marred somewhat by very broad heads and foreheads…Their eyes are large and very pretty, and their skin is the color of Canary Islanders…They are in fact well proportioned.
October 13, 1492:
I cannot get over how docile these people are. They have so little to give but will give it all for whatever we give them, if only broken pieces of glass and crockery.

October 12, 1492:
They ought to make good and skilled servants, for they repeat very quickly what we say to them. I think they can easily be made Christians, for they seem to have no religion.
If it pleases Our Lord, I will take six of them to your Highness when I depart
 Columbus first read to the Natives was called the Requirement, a document that all Spaniards read after landing on an island, justifying their later treatment of these people :
I implore you to recognize the Church as a lady and in the name of the Pope take the King as lord of this land and obey his mandates. If you do not do it, I tell you that with the help of God I will enter powerfully against you all. I will make way everywhere and every way that I can…The deaths and injuries that you will receive from here on will be your own fault and not that of his majesty nor of the gentlemen that accompany me.

 When Columbus could not locate gold, he created a tribute system .
 Every three months, every person of 14 years old or upward had to pay so much gold dust or 25 pounds of cotton. If the native did so, he received a brass or copper token to wear around his neck.
 If an indigenous person was found without the medallion he was punished.
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In 1501, Columbus sent 5,000 slaves from Haiti to Spain. 5,000 more were made slaves for colonists in Haiti.
 Slavery was not uncommon during this time. Many Native Americans had other Native Americans as slaves, as did Africans of other Africans, and
Europeans of other Europeans. However, this did cause other countries to become interested in capturing the American indigenous people to sell for slavery.

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8,000,000
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Reasons: Disease from the Europeans ( Smallpox ); Indians forced into hard labor in mines rather than in fields to grow their foods; Many of the indigenous people committed suicide because of poor condition.

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2 nd voyage successfully created a settlement at what later became Santo Domingo, Dominican
Republic
Ferdinand & Isabella wouldn’t accept new world slaves so Columbus returned to find the trade route to the orient and restock the colonists
Settlers were so unhappy that Columbus was imprisoned and sent back to Spain to plea for his freedom

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1502 Columbus convinced Ferdinand & Isabella to fund one last voyage
He survived a hurricane and termites but his ships were destroyed and he was stranded for a year on Jamaica where he experienced mutinies and uncertain interactions with the Native Americans
He was rescued in 1504 and returned to Spain in disgrace where he died in 1506; his bones were later sent to Santo Domingo and controversy remains over where they are now

Positives
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Talented sailor, navigator and ship’s captain
Loyal to his patrons
Dealt fairly with the tribes he befriended
Brave and daring
Negatives
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Slave trader who captured slaves from tribes which resisted him
Contemporaries despised him
Despot who kept all profits for himself
Cheapskate – didn’t reward
Rodrigo de Triana when he first spotted New World