![[Pasted image 20250201175821.png]] The monarchs of the new Spanish kingdom sponsored extensive Atlantic exploration. Spain’s most famous explorer, Christopher Columbus, was actually an Italian from [Genoa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genoa). Using calculations based on other mariners’ journeys, Columbus believed he could chart a westward route to India, which could be used to expand Spanish trade and spread Christianity. Columbus had grown up reading tales like the *Travels of Marco Polo*, printed for the first time just before his birth by Johannes Gutenberg on his new press. Columbus was also married to a Portuguese noblewoman named [[Filipa Moniz Perestrelo]], the daughter of the Governor of [Porto Santo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porto_Santo_Island), an island near Madeira. As a navigator in Portuguese-controlled waters off the coast of Africa, Columbus probably also had many opportunities to hear the stories of fishermen who had gone to the Grand Banks in search of Cod.  Beginning in 1485, Columbus approached Genoese, Venetian, Portuguese, English, and Spanish authorities, asking for ships and funding to explore his westward route. All those he petitioned—including Ferdinand and Isabella at first—rebuffed him. Their nautical experts all concurred that Columbus’s estimates of the width of the Atlantic Ocean were far too low, based on their correct understanding of the circumfrence of the earth. What they did not know, of course, was that there were entire continents and another ocean (the Pacific) between a westward traveler and Asia. And Columbus seems to have been aware that fishermen had gone somewhere, caught cod, and returned safely. ![[Ferdinand_of_Aragon,_Isabella_of_Castile_(cropped).jpg]] *Wedding portrait of Ferdinand and Isabella, 1469* However, after three years of entreaties, [[Ferdinand and Isabella]] agreed to finance Columbus’s expedition in 1492, supplying him with three ships. The Spanish monarchs knew that Portuguese mariners had reached the southern tip of Africa and found a route to the Indian Ocean. They understood that if they not challenged, the Portuguese would dominate trade with Asia. Although he was basically correct about the distance he would need to travel across the Atlantic to reach land, Columbus was unaware of the existence of the American continents or the Pacific Ocean. On October 12, 1492 he made landfall on an island in the Bahamas after a little over two months and then sailed to an island he named Hispaniola (present-day Dominican Republic and Haiti). Believing he had landed in the East Indies, Columbus called the native [[Taíno|Taínos]] he found there “Indios,” giving rise to the term “Indian” for any native people of the New World.  ![[Christopher_Columbus.jpg]] Columbus explored the islands until his flagship, the [Santa Maria](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Mar%C3%ADa_(ship)), ran aground on Hispaniola and had to be abandoned. The two remaining ships did not have enough room for all his men, so with the permission of a local chief Columbus left 39 sailors in a settlement he called [[La Navidad]] (because the ship had run aground on Christmas). Upon Columbus’s return to Spain in March 1493, the Spanish monarchs granted him the title of Admiral of the Ocean Sea and named him viceroy and governor of the lands he had discovered. As a devoted Catholic, Columbus had agreed with Ferdinand and Isabella before first sailing west that part of the wealth expected from his voyage would be used to continue the fight against Islam. --- Next: [[2.8 America]] Back: [[2.6 Elmina]]