Columbus and the Age of Exploration

The colony failed before an attack could be made. But there were no major expeditions until, as it happens, the French spurred Philip II to action. Worried that his European rival planned to stake a claim in La Florida, he ordered that a settlement be established at the Point of Santa Elena, near present-day Parris Island, South Carolina. What followed was a bloody test of wills between Spanish Catholics and French Protestants, with the Spaniards' designs on present-day Virginia ending only when a baptized Indian killed three Spanish Jesuits in From the Inter caetera bull in to a more detailed arrangement made in , the pope demanded that his servants in the New World "instruct" the Indians they encountered in Christian teachings.

In , the Spaniards introduced el Requerimiento , a document to be read to Indians in Spanish introducing them to church doctrine. Indians were not compelled to convert, but if they did not, they were immediately subject to Spanish invasion. Of course, if they did convert, they were also subject to the Spaniards, who were the pope's official representatives in the New World.

He then set his sights to the north.

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The Spanish had always been interested in finding the Northwest Passage for commercial reasons, but by this time, the Jesuits were interested in it, too. They had largely written off La Florida as a place to evangelize and hoped that such a passage could quickly take their priests to the more promising land of China. After the Spanish presence in the Chesapeake Bay had been eliminated, the English moved in. They had been bit players in the New World up to that point, unsuccessfully attempting to save the French settlement at Charlesfort in and looting the Spanish galleons transporting gold and silver back to Spain.

England's most accomplished pirate, Sir Francis Drake, even circumnavigated the globe from to In three voyages from to , Martin Frobisher explored the icy waters between Greenland and Canada, searching for that ever-elusive passage to China. After he was lost at sea, Gilbert's cousin, Walter Raleigh , took over the patent. Raleigh assembled an elite group of would-be colonizers. These included the brilliant mathematician Thomas Hariot , who instructed sailors on the art of open-sea navigation, and Richard Hakluyt the younger , an Anglican minister and enthusiastic geographer, who provided compelling arguments in favor of the English settlement of America.

In , Raleigh funded an English colony at Roanoke in the same Outer Banks region where the explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano had claimed to have seen the Pacific Ocean more than a half century earlier. Although this and a subsequent colony both failed , the colonization attempts included a visit to the Chesapeake Bay during the winter of — There the Englishmen found the ports to be deeper and safer, and the Indians friendlier. Although the Spaniards had largely given up their attempts to settle in this area, they still resisted English incursions. They quite reasonably feared that the English would use ports at Roanoke or in the Chesapeake as safe havens for pirates such as Sir Francis Drake and Christopher Newport.

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Their protection of this coastline, in other words, was a means of protecting Spanish shipping in the Caribbean. Despite their efforts, though, they did not discover the location of the Roanoke colony in time to destroy it, and although they considered an attack against the Jamestown settlement, founded in , the king refused to give the order.

So ended more than a century of feverish competition over control of the Atlantic coast and the area of present-day Virginia.

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The Age of Exploration. Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, 26 Aug. Thanks to your advocacy efforts on our behalf, we're happy to report that the recently passed Omnibus Spending Bill includes a very small increase in funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities! While our work is not over with regards to the upcoming budget to be passed in the fall, the Omnibus Spending Bill represents an endorsement of the important work that the humanities do for our communities. These funds will continue to support our work of providing free access to authoritative content about Virginia's history and culture.

The Santa Maria at anchor The Age of Exploration Contributed by Brendan Wolfe The Age of Exploration began in earnest with the first voyage of Christopher Columbus in and ended, at least where present-day Virginians are concerned, with the founding of Jamestown in Background For Europeans of the Late Middle Ages, the known world was relatively small, mysterious, and imbued with Christian symbols.

Time Line - Soldiers from the kingdom of Castile part of present-day Spain land on the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa, near present-day Morocco and Western Sahara, and conquer the natives who live there. May 4, - Pope Alexander VI issues a bull, Inter caetera , that decrees that all newly discovered lands west of a line of longitude running through the eastern part of present-day Brazil belong to Spain, and everything east to Portugal. September 24, —November 7, - Christopher Columbus completes three additional voyages to the New World.

He is probably the first European to encounter the American mainland since the Vikings. In both he sails down the east coast of South America. April 22, - Sailing far to the west in an attempt to pick up the best winds down the west coast of Africa, Pedro Alvares Cabral sights what is present-day Brazil in South America. He claims it for Portugal.

Christopher Columbus

One known copy remains. The document is designed to be read in Spanish by Spanish explorers to American Indians, introducing them to Christian doctrine. Magellan dies in the Philippines before the voyage is completed. June—July - Two ships under the command of Pedro de Quejo and Francisco Gordillo sail from the Bahamas to explore an area to the northwest and gather Indian slaves. One of the ships is lost on the voyage, which likely includes the exploration of an area along the coast of present-day South Carolina.

Christopher Columbus - Ages of Exploration

Sixty Indians are taken hostage. It is the first-known European settlement in mainland North America. After a long and improbable journey, a handful of survivors will reach Mexico in It provides the fullest account of American Indians living on the Atlantic coast prior to Thomas Hariot's A briefe and true account of the new found land of Virginia Though there was no country called India at this time, all lands east of the Indus River, which rises in the Himalayas and runs through present-day Kashmir and Pakistan to the Arabian Sea, were referred to in a generic way as the Indies.

While others suggested that the discoveries of Columbus represented a completely new world, unknown to the ancients, Columbus acknowledged only that the 'Asian' islands were more numerous than he had imagined. Intellectually, he had a view of the earth that was much smaller than it is in reality. He overestimated the size of the Eurasian continent, accepted Marco Polo's belief that Japan was 1, miles east of China, and seriously underestimated the circumference of the world.

So in his own mind he was exactly where he thought he should be when he spotted the islands of the Caribbean Sea - he thought he was in the 'East' Indies. Celebrated more than any other explorer in history, Columbus went to his grave without the vaguest idea of which part of the world he had actually discovered. Despite this misplaced belief, his achievements were enormous. His lifetime at sea had taught him a sailor's sixth sense, and his navigational instincts are still legendary today.

The routes he took to and from the newly found lands are the ones we still use; his choice of the Atlantic Canary Current was pure genius. He was also an excellent ship's captain, and his use of dead reckoning was so accurate that he could return to the faraway ports discovered on his earlier voyages.

Although his discovery of new lands led to the nearly complete destruction of the people of those lands, and their environment, Columbus appreciated the beauty of the places he discovered. Above all, however, Christopher Columbus opened up new worlds to Europe, and in conclusion, it is hard to overstate the significance of these discoveries, nor their global impact. Much has been written about the Columbian Exchange - the exchange of plants and animals, of diseases, of human beings and of cultures - and its intellectual impact. And it is certainly the case that during the Age of Discovery western Europeans acquired the ability to exchange information with nearly all parts of the world.

As one of the great thinkers of the age, and one who led the way, Columbus deserves recognition for the intellectual transformation that took place at that time. As a result of his vision, the modern age was ushered in, and the world was never to be the same again. This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets CSS enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets CSS if you are able to do so.

This page has been archived and is no longer updated. Find out more about page archiving. Spain Consequences of discovery Page options Print this page. Introduction We can only understand the explorer Christopher Columbus, and the forces that motivated him, through an understanding of the 15th-century world in which he lived. Background to the Age of Discovery Although there were some attempts on the part of China to extend its influence westward around India before the 15th century, almost all subsequent efforts at discovery of far-away lands and seas have been made by western explorers.

Looking east Eventually, however, the general populace resumed its historic interest in the mysterious east, and adventurers and merchants began to rekindle ancient Greek and Roman rumours of eastern lands. Portugal It was the rise of the European national monarchies, with their profound political and dynastic influence, that most helped to encourage the new spirit of adventure.

Spain As backing from royal courts in Portugal - and also France and England - fell through, Columbus took his young son and moved to Spain in Consequences of discovery Admiral Columbus made three more trips in the next 12 years to that part of the New World that we now know as the West Indies and South America. Explore the British History Timeline from the Neolithic to the present day. Dan Snow asks why so many soldiers survived the trenches in WW1.

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Take a journey through the history of the home. First, he needed ships and supplies, which required money that he did not have. He went to King John of Portugal who turned him down. He then went to the rulers of England, and France.

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Each declined his request for funding. He headed west from Spain across the Atlantic Ocean. On October 12 land was sighted. He gave the first island he landed on the name San Salvador, although the native population called it Guanahani. He even proposed that the island of Cuba was a part of China. He continued sailing throughout the Caribbean and named many islands he encountered after his ship, king, and queen: It is hard to determine specifically which islands Columbus visited on this voyage.

His descriptions of the native peoples, geography, and plant life do give us some clues though. One place we do know he stopped was in present-day Haiti. He named the island Hispaniola. Hispaniola today includes both Haiti and the Dominican Republic. In January of , Columbus sailed back to Europe to report what he found. Due to rough seas, he was forced to land in Portugal, an unfortunate event for Columbus. With relations between Spain and Portugal strained during this time, Ferdinand and Isabella suspected that Columbus was taking valuable information or maybe goods to Portugal, the country he had lived in for several years.

Those who stood against Columbus would later use this as an argument against him. Eventually, Columbus was allowed to return to Spain bringing with him tobacco, turkey, and some new spices. He also brought with him several natives of the islands, of whom Queen Isabella grew very fond. Subsequent Voyages Columbus took three other similar trips to this region. His second voyage in carried a large fleet with the intention of conquering the native populations and establishing colonies.